Running Head: TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
Training Assessment
Students Name:
Lecturers Name:
Unit Title:
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TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
Introduction
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Employee training is mandatory for all businesses, not just those that are experiencing
low sales and profits. Employee training enables the employees of companies to have more
skills, be competent and be able to handle complex tasks within the organization they are
working for. The cases study for this assignment identifies three stores out of fifteen that have
missed their sales targets for the last two quarters. The management of the stores have identified
that low sales were as a result of low customer satisfaction, high employee turnover rates as well
as the hiring of new inexperienced sales executives that have not yet been trained. The contents
of this document identify using a simple heuristics, the indicators that show the specific
problems experienced by the three stores can be resolved through training; I have also designed a
needs assessment plan and three specific training initiatives that I would recommend for these
employees. I have also included the expected outcomes for the three training initiatives as well as
selected one of the specific training initiatives and develop a budget of projected costs to
implement the identified initiative.
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
The specific problems experienced by the three stores
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The various problems that exist within the three stores include missing of sales target.
Missing of sales targets is as a result of poor customer service. Poor customer service may be as
a result of employees being demotivated. The three stores can also have low quality products that
do not satisfy their markets. The employees may thus be inexperienced in customer service.
Examples of situations where employees may provide poor customer service to the public
includes; The Company may not have a call center or the one that is already available is not well
equipped with communication equipment or competent staff. The stores may also not be
providing after sales services. This may cause customer dissatisfaction that may result to
customers complaining or purchasing products from the stores of competitors. The employees of
the stores may also not be providing guidance to customers when they are purchasing the
companies’ products at their stores. Such guidance includes, not being able to know where the
customer can get a particular product, not known what product may suit the needs of a customer
or the features of the products that may benefit the customer the employee may also not be in a
position to know the prices of the products that the stores are selling. The stores can also have
long cashier queues that tend to be slow moving.
Low customer satisfaction scores is also another reason as to why the three stores are
recording low sales. Low customer satisfaction is caused by the inability of a company to fully
satisfy the needs of a customer. Such needs include, friendly and approachable staff, the inability
of staff to answer customers questions, the inability of the stores to sell products that are of good
quality and products that can fully satisfy the needs and wants of customers. Low customer
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
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satisfaction is as a result of the incompetency of the stores staff or the low quality of the products
that the stores are selling (Blessing 2013).
Increased employee turnover rate is also causing the sales of the stores to reduce. Sales of
the stores may reduce due to high employee turnover in the following ways, if employees leave,
there will be fewer staff that are attending to customers, For example, is the stores have 10
cashiers and 5 cashiers leave at a go that means that the lengths of the queues will double and
this will cause customers dissatisfaction. In such a case customers will prefer to go to stores that
have fewer queues so that they can be served quickly. The same case applies to the stores call
center representatives, the fewer the employees there are, the longer it will take the customer to
get help from the company. High employee turnover will thus cause customer dissatisfaction due
to poor customer service.
Hiring of new inexperienced sales associates is causing a reduction in the stores sales in
the following ways, if you have a new employee within a store, the new employees may not be in
a position to know the policies, procedures as well as the market environment of the stores. New
employees lack vital information regarding the new company that they are working for. They
may thus not be competent in solving customer complaints such as who to forward a complaint if
the sales associate is incapable of solving the complaint. The new sales staff will also have to
find their own clients since they are new in the marketplace and if the company provides free
delivery services, the new sales staff will have a hard time delivering the company’s products to
the customers if they are not aware of the locality of the area they are providing delivery services
to (Raymond 2013).
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
How to solve the problems through training
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The problems can be solved through training in the following ways; employees can be
trained on customer service by setting up training workshops that will improve their
communication skills. Training that will help them improve their communication skills, will
allow them to effectively and efficiently communicate with customers at the call center as well
as at the receptions of the stores. The management of the company can also provide appropriate
remuneration to their employees as well as provide them with the right leadership skills that will
enable them to be motivated as well as enable them to be easily approachable and friendly to
customers. The call center should also be well equipped and the management of the company
should provide training to call center staff on the various communication appliances that they
use. Training should also be provided on how to handle customer complaints. Such training
should thus include, how to deal with angry customers, how to calm them down, how to solve
complex problems in a timely manner such as loss of items. The staff should also be aware of the
different products that the company is selling as well as their prices (Raymond 2013).
The employees should also be trained on how to provide customer satisfaction. The
training should thus involve training staff on how to be friendly to customers, how to answer
customer questions. For example, a call center staff can be trained on how to pick up calls such
as answering,
“Hi, my name is Lisa, thank you for calling our store, how can I help you?”
This will also include training on how to end a call such as
“Thank you for calling, have a nice day”.
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
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Such responses from the companies call center will thus provide customer satisfaction.
Other training that should be provided include, training staff on how to conduct quality check for
incoming supplies.
When hiring new and inexperienced sales associates, the management of the company
can conduct orientation to the new staff so that they can be aware of the companies’ policies and
procedures. This will enable them to have vital information for the company that they have
joined. They can also be trained on the companies’ hierarchy and management structure and the
relevant person to forward a complex customer complaint to. They also need to be made aware
of the geographical location of the area so as to easily conduct outdoor selling as well as free,
delivery services (Halelly 2012).
Needs assessment plan and three specific training initiatives I would recommend for these
employees and their expected outcomes
Type of training Employee to be trained Areas to be trained on
Customer care
Call center staff and How to pick up calls.
receptionists
How
to
answer
Expected
Training
outcomes
timeline
Customer
3 days
customer satisfaction
queries and questions.
Orientation
New staff
Organizations
policies, Increased
procedure as well as culture.
2
days
employee
new
competencies
only).
(to
staff
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
Customer service Sales staff
How
to
answer
customer Improved
queries and complaints.
7
2 days.
customer
service
Table 1.0: Needs assessment plan that identifies three specific training initiatives and their
expected outcomes.
One of the specific training initiatives I identified and a budget of projected costs to
implement the initiative.
When conducting training to new sales executive staff, orientation will be needed. There
are fewer costs that are incurred when conducting employee orientation as opposed to
conducting other forms of employee training such as on job training for call center staff. The
costs will thus be as follows.
Activity
Costs in US$
Remunerating the trainer
240
Providing free samples to customers
260
Telephone communication costs
50
Travelling expenses
100
Totals
650
Table1.1: Costs of conducting orientation to new sales executives.
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
Conclusion
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From the answers given in this assignment, we can clearly see that employee training is
mandatory for employees in all businesses especially those that are experiencing low sales and
profits. Employee training such as providing orientation to new staff enables the new staff to be
aware of the organizations policies, culture, procedures, and market as well as business
environment. Such training increases the competencies as well as awareness to the new
employee and thus enabling them to sell more. The answers on this document have identified
using a simple heuristics, the indicators that show the specific problems experienced by the three
stores can be resolved through training; I have also designed a needs assessment plan and
identify three specific training initiatives that I would recommend for these employees. I have
also included the expected outcomes for the three training initiatives in my proposal as well as
selected one of the specific training initiatives and develop a budget of projected costs to
implement this initiative.
TRAINING ASSESSMENT.
References
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Blessing Adegoke (2013) Effect of Training on Employees' Productivity in Public Service
Organisation GRIN Verlag
Halelly Azulay (2012) Employee Development on a Shoestring American Society for Training
and Development
Cram101 (2012) e-Study Guide for: Employee Training and Development: Business, Business
Raymond A. Noe (2013) Employee Training and Development McGraw-Hill/Irwin