Training and development executive forum - from Customer Management magazine

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This executive forum brought together views from across the customer service sector including leading UK businesses, national qualification providers, performance improvement specialists and the sector skills council. The objective was to discuss some of the issues around how training and development can be implemented better to benefit businesses, employees and customers and guarantee the substantial financial commitment needed to do this successfully.

Joanne Regan-Brown - Teleperformance - Recruitment & Development Director
Camine Picillo - Indesit - Contact Centre Director
Robert Jones - GE Money - Head of Customer Service
Simon Fowler - John Lewis - Director of Customer Service
Janet Garner - EasyCar - Head of Customer Service
Paula Chapman - Portman Building Society - Associate Director, Customer Experience
Jane Ingram - CPM - Group Director of Contact Centres
John Jennings - Director of Operations
Steve Gardner - Dairy Crest - Customer Service Controller
Simon Whitwham - Stroud & Swindon Building Society - Customer Service Director
Adrian Brigginshaw - Barclays UKB - Head of Service & Performance
Robert Sleeman - TSYS MS EMEA - Head of Operations
Patricia Mitchell - TfL Surface Transport - Head of Customer Service
Louise Whelan - Dovetail Services - Contact Centre Manager
Guy Sellwood - Prosell - Managing Director
Peter Miller - Edexcel - Commercial Director
Andrew Palmer - e-skills UK
Rob Smale - QPC - Managing Director

Prodigal son or lost boy?
The two questions we put to delegates first was how important they regarded investment in training and development and how they rated its importance relative to other areas of investment within their organisation.

The responses to both questions showed that delegates felt positively towards training and development in terms of both their willingness to invest and the contribution that it would make to their businesses. The point for further discussion here was why, in the past, development had always been looked upon favourably but substantial commitments had often failed to materialise and if this was still likely to be the case. In general the view from delegates was that training and development’s time is now and that tangible investment was more likely to happen than at any point in the past. This was supported by the idea that for some, technology had delivered as much as it could. Simply, investment in people would be more likely to yield better business performance. John Jennings, from Experian, commented, “You can put all the technology in the world in place but when a customer gets through they want to talk to someone who listens, understands, can meet their needs and are motivated to do so”.

Simon Fowler, from John Lewis, also made the point that one of today’s business drivers is the rate of change caused by mergers, acquisitions and outsourcing. This requires personnel to constantly learn new processes and products, ”As businesses change more frequently you have to coach and develop to take that on, change is the norm now whereas previously it was not,” he said.

The importance of maintaining the right skills in a workforce that stays in their roles for shorter periods was highlighted as another cause for change in attitudes towards investment in training. One of the delegates noted, “20 years ago training and development wasn’t on the radar, people who worked in banks and building societies stayed there for life and their experience was passed down. The workforce is transitory these days and what this means is constant training and development for the waves of people joining.”

Within financial services another reason recognised as driving the need to increase training and development spending was compliance with regulations that now affect all parts of the customer management process from sales through to handling an application form.

For financial services, retail and utility companies, where price and product are becoming less likely to provide the point of difference necessary to attract and retain customers, the group also acknowledged the role that education has in creating the good sales and service that can differentiate brands. Simon Fowler commented, “As businesses try to differentiate themselves that differentiation also requires the polish that comes through training and development.”

If they go there will be trouble - if they stay there will be double (apologies to The Clash)
Customer service directors are often faced with the dilemma of training staff that may leave after a short tenure, so companies do not realise value from their investment. Alternatively they may suffer the consequences of staff that stay and do not have the skills necessary to meet customer’s needs. With workers more likely to change employers than ever before a concern shared by many was that if they invest in staff development they become the trainers for other organisations that focus on remuneration as a way to attract skilled staff. “Our feeling is that at the moment we are a training academy, we invest a huge amount in training and within 2 years they have disappeared,” said a forum attendee.

You can teach ducks to climb trees, but it’s better to start with squirrels
One of the discussion points that received most agreement was that good recruitment screening is crucial to providing a highly skilled workforce by not only selecting candidates with skills to build on but also acquiring staff with the right attitude for customer service work. “We had an experience where people were recruiting for skills rather than attitude, saying what they [the candidates] had done previously, but actually you’re not looking for that”, said Jane Ingram from CPM. The view supported here was that selecting a person with the best skills and attitude for a role would not only improve the effectiveness of training but would also benefit organisations by making sure that the individual was well adapted to a job and the company’s culture. The effect of this would be to reduce new starter attrition and avoid wasting educational resources on people who stay for a very short time after recruitment. Talking about how their recruitment process, using an online test built around observed best behaviours, had impacted new starter training Paula Chapman from the Portman Building Society said, “Our [new employees] departing in the first 6 months dropped from around 50% to 14% in the volume job roles such as branches and contact centres.”

Managing the mix
Despite the growth of nationally recognised qualifications there still remains some reluctance within the service industry to engage with these and of the panellists only one had adopted such a scheme. Peter Miller from Edexcel described how their focus was on providing qualifications that would help organisations improve their businesses and give employees greater recognition and a career path, “Our vocational education is about progression. With the BTEC Contact Centre Career Path you can start as someone completely new to service and move up to the entry point for a customer service degree. It’s also part of the National Qualification Framework so it can be publicly funded.”

Guy Sellwood, Managing Director of Prosell who specialises in training aimed at improving individual performance, also commented on the continued growth of training that combines both sales and service, “A lot of companies are seeing that there is a far finer line between service and sales than perhaps their past organisational structure would reflect,” he said. “Clearly a lot opportunities for selling products and services come through the service transaction and the risk is that an agent does not have the mindset that says I’m going to try and talk to this customer about doing something different or new.”

All the delegates recognised that a business’s need for training was often diverse and that the mix was likely to be complex. Typically general numeracy / literacy, career path training, performance focused development (such as training targeted at sales or service) and skills for supporting technology (using a CRM system for example) were thought to be of similar importance. In addition development around emotional intelligence, the ability to empathise and communicate successfully, as well as the educational requirements around regulatory and compliance issues were also seen as vital.

But how is this complex range of needs, the skills that deliver these and the allied training interventions managed for every individual? Andrew Palmer from e-skills UK, the sector skills council for contact centres, described their work on skills and competency frame works, “Job frameworks are a list of all the skills and competencies that are needed to complete each role in an organisation. They are built around business goals and move training from something that is done to people to allowing them to see the value of it in terms of delivering the skills that they need for their job both now and the one they may want in the future. It also shows the investment that their company is going to make in them.” Commenting on a possible drawback of concentrating solely on career path education Jane Ingram added, “We have a diverse age range and career path means less to some of our older employees who want pride in the job, we also focus on helping them do the best possible job they can.”

Although a lot of training and development emphasis is placed on front line service staff it was not overlooked that in terms of motivation, retention and culture, development for managers and team leaders is also crucial to an organisation. Adrian Brigginshaw from Barclays UK Banking said, “The agent’s experience of a company is the person they report to on a daily basis. How they are engaged by that person will determine how they operate with customers and other stakeholders that they have to work with.” John Jennings also talked about the positive effect on performance that the training of managers had had in his organisation, “Members of the management team were embarking on a business coaching programme to hone their skills. The results so far have been very encouraging. The performance of their teams has improved, without us doing anything to the team at all, and very few people have left.”

QPC has provided training and development services and technology for contact centres and customer service areas for over 20 years. Considering the Government’s recent Train to Gain and Skills Pledge initiatives, the forum provided a great opportunity for us to draw some timely views from key stakeholders across the customer service sector on the training and education issue. In all it was refreshing to hear the conviction with which the area of development is being pursued as well as the sophisticated understanding of how it can be applied to improve the customer service sector for the sake of businesses, their employees and their customers.

News Source : Training and development executive forum - from Customer Management magazine