I recently came across the ICMI Customer Management Blog and was particularly interested in Rose Polchin’s post Make Training Count. Polchin provides ten tips to help ensure that training is, in fact, the best use of your money and that it is likely to provide a positive return on investment (ROI). Polchin also provides an additional post to further develop each of her ten tips. Below are some highlights from her tips:
Tip 1: Ensure training is the right solution. Polchin refers to the importance of a needs analysis. As she says, “Training can’t ‘fix people’.” Training can educate people, but it is not a one-stop solution for contact center ills or for disgruntled employees. It won’t work if the process itself is inefficient, if motivation is lacking, equipment is malfunctioning, or any number of other possible issues. It is critical to discern that training is likely to address the specific area of concern.
Tip 2: Communicate the reason for the training. It’s critical for adult learners to understand “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM) when attending a training session. Ideally, they would be aware of this prior to starting the training; if not, it is the trainer’s responsibility to make it the purpose of the session clear from the very beginning. Otherwise, your adult learners may, at best, mentally check out of the training because they view it as irrelevant. (At worst, it may actually further reduce motivation because learners view the session as a waste of time!)
Tip 5: Refresher Training – Again, Polchin uses this opportunity to further expound on the absolute necessity for needs analysis prior to jumping into a training program. Refresher training may be required; however, before requiring agents to attend additional training session, you need to understand what’s going on. Is there actually a performance gap; if so, is training the most efficient way to address the problem?
Tip 7: The trainer understands the goals, objectives, and audience. As I previously discussed, it is a huge benefit (and often a requirement) when the person delivering the training understands the training material and the audience. This allows the trainer to answer tough questions on the fly and to provide real world examples to help learners transfer knowledge.
Tip 9: Time is currency. Understanding the priorities for training and spending your money on those objectives will lead to the biggest ROI. Don’t waste time, and money, on training that doesn’t directly meet your needs or reflect your contact centers goals and objectives.
Although it is often difficult to quantify, any training program must consider the possible ROI. Polchin’s ten tips offer some critical questions to ask when deciding whether your training will really count.
 Kelly has been working as a contract technical writer for Inova Solutions for nearly three years. As a recovering high school English teacher, she enjoys the opportunity to still employ her ‘red ink’ when writing, editing, and formatting documentation. You can contact Kelly at kelly@insideinova.com.
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