If typical training formats like role-based simulations, the virtual classroom and in-person lectures aren't doing it for your customer service employees, you might want to try something unconventional.
Creating programs the likes of which your workers have probably never been exposed to before may jump start their brains, says Jay Cross, founder of Internet Time Group, a Berkeley, Calif.-based consultancy specializing in informal learning.
"The best experiences, the ones that really change behavior rather than enable people to say back the principles, are the ones that involve doing stuff-learning by doing," Cross says. One such program Cross helped organize involved training bank tellers and phone reps by sending them to a rival bank to get a first-hand taste of what they were up against. "We'd have a workshop for several days, and after the first few hours, we'd say, 'OK, during lunch we want you to go to a competitive bank, say you want to open an account, watch for these cues, see how you're treated," he explains. "People were a little nervous, but they would go out and do it, and their lives would be transformed." The activity was a confidence booster, Cross says.
After spending hours discussing the finer points of customer service, reps were shocked to find their counterparts at the competitor sorely lacking. "These people immediately woke up, and [said] 'Hey, we can do better,' " Cross recalls. "After that they were really enthusiastic about being better than good."
Sometimes it takes a little creativity to spur employees to try something new. Using another bank example, he says reps' hesitancy to make outgoing prospecting sales calls was overcome by having them do it all at same time in a group atmosphere. These reps had been given a call quota they needed to make to achieve a favorable job rating with their supervisor, but the bank couldn't help reps get past their fear of cold calling strangers. After assuring reps that people would be happy to hear from their banks once they knew the bank was only checking to make sure they were satisfied with the service they were getting, workers were then told that in 15 minutes they would need to snap to it.
Each was given a list of names and phone numbers and told they would be expected to call at least two. "All of the sudden the barrier goes down, and that sort of paves the way for the stuff that you do need to cover in a more formal training environment," Cross says.
Once the reps overcame the initial fear of making unsolicited calls, the company could then focus on problem, or "objection" calls in which reps confront an angry customer. Again, the bank had reps actually make calls rather than sit in a classroom. They answered calls presented on interactive CD-ROM. Reps had to demonstrate they knew how to appropriately respond. "After a while," says Cross of such exercises, "[reps] get to where they can pretty well fend off anything."