Lessons from the Coffee Shop:
Five Reasons Why Training Must Be a Priority
Submitted by: Carolyn Merriman, President
Corporate Health Group
East Greenwich, RI
About this time last year, our company sent "The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for
Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary" by Joseph A. Michelli to our clients. It's a good
case study of how a company that was off course and having difficulties used training
as a pivotal strategy to help them get back on track.
Just a few months later, the importance of training surfaced again when Starbucks
closed every store for three and a half hours of training. Over 135,000 employees at
7,100 stores, learned to "Perfect the Art of Espresso," as the training event was called.
Company officials considered the training an investment in their employees that was
"designed to energize partners and transform the customer experience."
In the face of heightened competition, Starbucks must provide a better product along
with the experience they've become known for in terms of the store atmosphere,
employee attitudes and customized service. So, what does coffee have to do with
healthcare and you as a marketer? A lot when it comes to building and retaining a loyal
customer base that have more choices than ever of where they can go for healthcare
services.
The coffee shop isn't the only place where training is the first step in transforming the
customer experience. In healthcare, the customer is the patient, physician, employer or
community at large and the customer experience can be as valuable an asset to
position as the latest technology or the most respected physician. While it's not realistic
to expect healthcare organizations to fully shut down for even the smallest period of
time, it is critical to take the time to plan and implement training as a significant and
ongoing step in organizational development.
In healthcare, training is often relegated to the Human Resources department where
new employees receive orientation and training on everything from how to submit sick
time and use their employee badge, to proper hand washing and reporting compliance
issues. Once in their home department, they get additional training on processes and
procedures, protocols and policies. And, that's that for their training. Or, is it?
Training is not a magical, one-time event. It is hard work, and it is a never ending
job. For the manager, training can be one of the most important elements of individual
and departmental success; yet, it is often the most neglected part of employee
onboarding and retention. For the marketer, training can be a critical component of
delivering on the branding promise and a huge factor in grassroots and word of mouth
promotion. Here are five reasons why training beyond general company orientation has
to become—and remain—a top priority.
1. Training applies to every day of every employee's life.
Each person who comes into the coffee shop has the potential to place a unique
order. Each of your employees comes to you with a unique set of skills. Develop a
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training plan with options for customization to match a person's skills, job experience
and gaps. Train everyone in customer service standards for both internal and external
audiences, the art of sales and service focused on matching the needs of the customer
with something you have to offer, and performance expectations to achieve goals.
Show employees how to put their training to work in everything they do.
Demonstrate customer relationship management techniques, develop scripts for
common situations and provide messages to ensure consistent responses. Each person
needs to understand his or her individual role in helping the organization achieve its
desired outcome every day.
Management must embrace and model training. Encourage managers to have a
"training moment" with their employees every day. Develop your own form of the RitzCarlton's daily huddle, a five minute discussion between managers and their
workgroups at the same time each day.
Marketing's Role: Develop scripts and role playing scenarios to be sure your
organization's brand promise is delivered in every situation. Support training moments
by highlighting department and individual actions in your employee communication
vehicles. Be sure every employee understands your brand promise and what their role
is in delivering it in every situation, every encounter, and every action.
2. Training ensures the person you've hired knows how to deal with your targets.
Coffee drinkers can be a finicky crowd, but baristas are trained to handle each
special request as though it were the norm. In healthcare, audiences are wide and
varied and each has special requests. Customize orientation and ongoing training to
ensure that each employee understands the organization from the customer's
perspective, regardless of whether that customer is a patient, physician, employer or
visitor.
If you hire a nurse for a physician sales position, you can't assume she knows how
to be nice and use appropriate messaging to physicians. Instead of providing a "smile"
workshop, train her see the world through the eyes of her target audience. Help her
understand what scheduling delays mean, how block scheduling is assigned or what
happens when paperwork is misplaced. The employee needs to speak the language,
know the people who interact with the customer, understand the actual procedures, be
aware of staff and patient processes, and see how both the physician and patient
benefit from the product. Have her work side-by-side with key employees who deliver
service to the various audiences.
Marketing's Role: Have key marketing staff complete the same hands-on mystery
shopping and training to see what customers experience, how staff interact and how the
organization is presented to external audiences. Use their observations to tweak
messaging and training to be sure the brand promise is delivered.
3. Training provides professional growth and motivation for your employees.
Starbucks closed for three and a half hours to "energize" its partners and transform
the customer experience. Employees were motivated. The key is to keep them
motivated, trained and retained well after the event. Once orientation is complete,
provide a formal classroom training program with curriculum customized to your
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products and customer types. When using an outside trainer, be sure they understand
healthcare as well as your specific organization, culture and goals.
Add skill development sessions to regular staff meetings so employees can practice
and discuss real-life scenarios. Assign a different staff member to lead the session each
time. Implement a mentoring program that pairs new employees with successful, more
experienced staff. Set standards for annual training goals, such as a minimum of 30
hours per employee. Celebrate and recognize key training milestones. Reward
employees who demonstrate outstanding performance by sending them to external
training in an area of particular interest.
Marketing's Role: Be involved in the preparation of classroom training curriculum
and the selection of an outside vendor, if required. Educate the trainer on key marketing
messages, campaigns and materials that should be used and reinforced in training. If
you have sales and marketing staff direct reports, engage them in building training and
scripting scenarios to share with your team. You don't always have to be the trainer.
Develop an internal communication campaign that recognizes employee successes and
provides ongoing message reinforcement.
4. Training sets your culture and your organization apart from the competitors.
A lot of places serve a good cup of coffee. When that cup is delivered by someone
who is pleasant, competent and engaged in the process, it somehow tastes better and
results in a more satisfied customer. Whether it's coffee or healthcare, people do make
the difference. In most markets, you and your competitor across town offer fairly similar
services to your employees, area employers, consumers and physicians. To be
successful, you must face the very real challenge of establishing and differentiating the
value and benefits of your services and your organization.
A well-trained staff can deliver that differentiation, whether it's in patient care
settings, customer service behaviors or physician sales encounters. Consider the
impression made by an employee who personally escorts the family member to the right
floor to see their relative or the staff member who offers to "play with the children" while
mom gets her shot. These types of service-oriented behaviors demonstrate the
difference makers in a healthcare setting that people will rave about and return to.
Marketing's Role: Research organizations outside of healthcare that can serve as
customer experience role models. Summarize how their techniques and behaviors can
be used in your setting. Arrange for a series of speakers from those organizations to
visit with your staff and share first-hand experiences from their world. Engage your
leadership (walking/talking the talk) and have them present or teach a concept to the
management team.
5. Training results in happy customers.
Starbucks is not about a cup of coffee; it's about "your" cup of coffee. In a healthcare
organization, you must balance priorities among four key customer groups: the patient,
employee, physician and community. The key: how to understand and exceed their
expectations so you truly create the best experience for them.
Training is not about rote memorization; it's about listening to your customers, using
complaints to train on issues resolution and delivering outstanding service in every
encounter. Encourage employees to resolve issues on the spot when possible.
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Employees who are empowered and able to take action respond confidently and quickly
to a voiced complaint or concern. The complaint diminishes in importance when
someone listens, cares about the details and identifies an agreed upon plan of action.
Take it a step further by following up with the customer to be sure everything is
resolved.
Marketing's Role: Develop vivid descriptions of the typical customer in each of the
four key groups. Include what their typical day is like, how and why they access your
organization, the length of their encounter, the barriers they face and the reasons they
would chose your competition. Use these lifelike descriptions in training to help your
employees understand who they are dealing with and how they can deliver a positive
experience. You also can use them to develop marketing messages that are specific to
each audience.
Other Lessons
There are a lot of other lessons in the coffee shop that apply to healthcare. Think
about these three final sips in your cup as you brew your next training plan:
• What business are you in?
Starbucks executive Howard Schultz said, "We are not in the coffee business
serving people, but in the people business serving coffee." What incredible
opportunities we can seize by focusing this same statement on healthcare—we are
in the people business serving their health needs and we need to train our
employees on how to focus on people.
• Where are you investing?
The Starbucks business model calls for spending more on employee training than
advertising. Hospitals can achieve greater market share, consumer loyalty and
levels of repeat business by focusing on who is delivering the service and training
people to do it in the best way possible. Some hospitals are tracking the results of
trained employees and engaged customers in terms of referral volumes, satisfaction
scores and employee recruitment and retention. Word of mouth is a very effective
referral source for hospitals. Think about that when you're about to sign a one-year
contract for 20 outdoor boards in your market.
• What matters?
At Starbucks, everything matters from the appearance of the store to the length of
time the coffee has been in the pot (no more than one hour). When a guest comes
into your hospital or clinic or a physician arrives on your campus, what matters most
to them? Train your employees to proactively meet those individual customer needs
and provide an outstanding experience to everyone they come in contact with.
Corporate Health Group’s expertise supports you in creating a program with measurable results.
Partnering with hospitals as they develop or enhance their physician relations programs is one of the
deliverables we do best. For a complimentary consultation or for more information, please call 1-888334-2500 or visit www.corporatehealthgroup.com.
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