When customer service training is the lazy way out

The assistant called on behalf of her boss.

Ashley (not her real name) had been instructed to round up some quotes for customer service training. She had dutifully performed an internet search for customer service trainers and discovered some of my courses on LinkedIn Learning.

The boss had given Ashley simple instructions. Find some trainers, learn about their standard training program, and find out how much the training costs.

I asked a few questions to learn more about the training request and what problem the company was trying to solve. It was quickly apparent that the biggest problem was Ashley's boss was being lazy.

He was falling short on one of his most fundamental responsibilities as a leader. The manager failed to provide a clear vision to Ashley. He had also failed to provide a clear vision to the employees he wanted trained. In fact, he wasn’t sure what he wanted—he just hoped that hiring a trainer would make it better.

Here's how I knew the manager was being lazy, and how you can avoid falling into the same trap.

Questions to ask before requesting training

There's a list of questions I like to ask potential clients who contact me for customer service training. Here are the questions I asked Ashley along with her answers.

Why is this project important?
"I don't really know. I think it's because some employees have lost focus. We recently rolled out a new accounting software program that's caused some internal challenges, so that might have something to do with it."

How will your boss evaluate success?
"I don't know. He just told me to get some quotes."

What do people need to do that they aren't doing now?
"We have some rules of conduct that some employees haven't acknowledged. I guess they should be following those."

Are there any factors besides training that might impact performance?
"I'm not sure."

Notice Ashley gave vague answers to all of these questions. It's not her fault—her boss gave her this assignment without giving her complete information.

Leaders need to provide clear direction, but clarity often takes time. Time to clarify what good performance looks like. Time to observe employees and talk to them. Time to identify the root cause of an issue. Time to articulate a clear vision.

Ashley’s boss was being lazy when he tried to skip all that.

Let's look at how another customer service leader answered those same questions. This particular leader clearly spent much more time getting clarity about what she wanted.

Why is this project important?
"Our team doesn't have the best reputation, and we're trying to change that. Frankly, my boss has given me a mandate to improve our survey scores and reduce customer complaints. We're working on a comprehensive initiative to improve service. This includes improving processes, upgrading our self-service technology, and giving our employees new skills to better serve customers."

How will you evaluate success?
"Two primary ways. One is by observing customer interactions with our employees to see if there's been a change in behavior. The second is from feedback shared on our customer service survey. My boss gave me a target score to achieve, and I'd like to achieve it."

What do people need to do that they aren't doing now?
"My team often gets flustered when there's a line of customers waiting, which often leads to more customer complaints. Our survey results indicate wait times are our biggest source of dissatisfaction. I'd like to give my team skills to help prevent customers from getting upset."

Are there any factors besides training that might impact performance?
"We're working on ways to reduce the lines, or get more staff when the line gets too long. We've also invested in new self-service technology that should help us serve customers faster. And we are implementing some new procedures to make our service more convenient for customers."

Notice how much more clarity this leader had about her team's training needs. And she's not leaning on training in isolation. Her training request was one aspect of a multi-pronged approach to improving service.

How do you know if employees need training?

Training is fundamentally about solving problems. Employees are given training to help them overcome a challenge so they can improve their job performance.

The trick is knowing whether or not training is the right solution.

Training can only fix gaps in knowledge, skills, or ability. This means an employee is lacking one or more of those things thats needed to get the job done.

• Knowledge: the information needed to do the job.

• Skills: the techniques needed to do the job.

• Abilities: the degree to which employees can use their skills.

A leader should clarify that the reason employees aren't performing is one or more gaps in knowledge, skills, or abilities, before requesting training. At minimum, the leader should engage a training professional to help identify the specific gap rather than prescribe a generic training program.

Here's more information on diagnosing when an employee needs training.

Ashley's boss hadn't yet determined what performance needed to improve, or why employees weren't already performing at the desired level. Without that information, it's difficult to know if training will have any impact, or just be a waste of time.

There have been many occasions in my career when I've been asked to conduct training, but the real problem turned out to be something else. It takes extra effort to find those answers, effort that lazy managers try to avoid.

Additional Resources

You can avoid being a lazy manager like Ashley’s boss by putting in the effort to achieve clarity for yourself and your team. Start by answering these questions the next time you are considering training.

1. Why is this project important?

2. How will we evaluate success?

3. What do employees need to do that they're not doing now?

4. What factors besides training might impact performance?

5. What are the gaps in knowledge, skills, or abilities?

Feel free to contact me if you get stuck. I'm happy to schedule a call and walk you through these questions.

You might discover that you need some training on how to find the answers to these questions. One option is my needs analysis course on LinkedIn Learning, which has been taken by more than 35,000 people. It can help you identify whether employees need training, and if they do, what training they need.

The course follows a training request from a senior leader and highlights various techniques for investigating the root cause of the problem. You'll see how an analysis can be done quickly, and how this upfront effort can save time and money.

The course is free with your LinkedIn Learning subscription. A 30-day trial is available if you’re not already a subscriber. Here's a preview of the course:

Welcome from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

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Training Needs Analysis: What it is, and why you need it

Updated: July 2, 2024

Growth had created a problem for my client.

The company owned and managed apartment communities. Each community manager was responsible for training their team. They each did it their own way. Some were more effective than others.

The results were inconsistent.

My client was the vice president of operations. She asked me to design a training program for new apartment leasing managers.

The VP wanted to ensure every leasing manager received consistent training.

She was eager to get started right away. I convinced her a needs analysis was the fastest way to get results. In this article, I'll cover:

• What is a training needs analysis?

• Why is a training needs analysis important?

• How do you conduct a training needs analysis?

What is a training needs analysis?

A training needs analysis is the process of identifying the specific training that's needed to solve a business problem and the best way to deliver it.

Imagine you wanted to build a house. You wouldn’t just buy some building supplies and start banging boards together. You’d first decide on what type of house you wanted, and then hire an architect to design it.

A needs analysis is a similar process for training programs. It helps you decide exactly what you need.

A typical needs analysis consists of three broad stages:

1. Communicate with sponsors to clarify goals.

2. Gather and analyze data.

3. Present conclusions and make recommendations.

Why is a training needs analysis important?

A training needs analysis gives any training program a much higher chance of success.

There are a number of benefits:

• Save Time: Eliminate waste from the training process.

• Improve Performance: Focus on what's needed to succeed.

• Increase Consistency: Achieve more consistent results.

A needs analysis clarifies exactly what training is needed.

I helped one client reduce new hire training time for customer service reps by 50 percent. A needs analysis showed the old program spent too much time on knowledge employees rarely used, and not enough time helping new hires develop the skills they used every day.

Sometimes, training is only part of the solution.

One inbound call center added $1 million in annual revenue. The needs analysis identified that reps lacked product information about the products they sold. Providing product samples and guides in addition to sales training helped employees sell more confidently.

In some cases, training is unnecessary. 

The CEO of a company I worked for once asked me to conduct customer service training to save an important contract. My needs analysis revealed the problem wasn't related to training—so we implemented a different solution and saved the contract.

A training needs analysis does not need to take a long time.

Some projects can be done in just a few hours, while even more complicated initiatives can be completed in just a few weeks.

How do you conduct a training needs analysis?

A typical needs analysis consists of three broad stages:

1. Communicate with sponsors to clarify goals.

2. Gather and analyze data.

3. Present conclusions and make recommendations.

Here's what that needs analysis entailed for my client, the company that owned and managed apartment communities.

Communicate with sponsors to clarify goals

Start by clarifying the training project's goals with your sponsors. This focuses your efforts and makes it easier to measure the impact of the training later on.

I worked with the vice president to set a goal as part of the needs analysis process: new leasing managers would achieve a 20 percent lease closing ratio within their first 90 days.

Only half of new hires currently achieved that mark. The overall average was 19 percent. Here were the results from the previous eight new hires:

Gather and analyze data

This stage is a bit like being a detective. You have to look in various places to find data and information that will help you crack the case.

There are often surprising discoveries as you do your analysis.

Half of new leasing managers did achieve the 20 percent goal. There was something different about their training compared to the four who fell short of the goal.

I examined a number of data sources for the apartment community needs analysis:

• Interviewed new hires and managers from various locations.

• Reviewed existing training materials.

• Analyzed performance data from previous hires.

One discovery is that community managers were inconsistent in how they coached new leasing managers. Some were very hands on, while others spent very little time with their new employees.

The hands-on managers generally achieved much better performance.

Present conclusions and make recommendations

The needs analysis concludes when you present your findings to the project sponsor and make recommendations based on your conclusions. The goal is to gain agreement on the best way to develop the training.

The needs analysis for the apartment community made it clear that community managers needed to be more hands on. Helping them become better coaches wasn’t in the original scope of the project, but the vice president was able to make it a requirement for the new program.

That insight led to impressive results.

In our initial pilot, every new hire achieved the 20 percent goal within 90 days, and the overall average climbed 7 points, from 19 to 26 percent:

Needs Analysis Resources

My LinkedIn Learning course will help you conduct your own needs analysis.

• Resource: Sponsor interview questions

• Video: Instructional Design: Needs Analysis

The training video will walk you step-by-step through the process of conducting a training needs analysis, and it even provides you with complete sample project.

You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription to watch it. Here's a short preview of the video.

Welcome from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

The Best Way to Ask Employees About Training Needs

You may be tempted to survey employees to ask about their training needs. Don't.

Asking employees what training they need is like asking young kids what they want for dinner. An enthusiastic answer doesn't mean that's what they need.

I once worked with a payroll department that was struggling to serve its internal customers. They frequently couldn't process payroll on time and made many errors. The team was denied a request for additional staff so they asked me for time management training.

It turned out they really needed a better process. 

We worked together to map the existing process, identify bottlenecks, and implement a new workflow. Productivity immediately improved by 25 percent and errors went down to nearly 0.

No training required.

This won't always be the case. Employees often need training to help them do their jobs. Unfortunately, asking them what training they need will often yield what they think they need, not what they actually need.

Here's a better way to ask employees about training needs.

How to assess employee training needs

The biggest mistake managers make when assessing training needs is to assume employees need training. There are many cases, like that payroll department, where another solution is needed. In other situations, employees need less training or training on different skills than you originally thought.

There are a few steps you should take before asking employees about training.

Step 1: Identify business goals

The purpose of training is to help employees develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to do their jobs or a task more effectively. Start the training discussion by thinking about a problem you're trying to solve, such as improving customer service, reducing complaints, or using a new piece of equipment. Resources are limited, so we want to focus our training investments on areas of business need.

Step 2: Identify success drivers

The next step is to identify the key drivers that contribute to that goal. For example, Palo Alto Software decided to focus on customer retention.

In an interview with Celeste Peterson, a Customer Advocacy Supervisor, Peterson described three key drivers of customer retention:

• Customers logged in to the software more than once in the first week they signed up.

• Customers were able to easily access help when they're confused or frustrated.

• Customers understood the value of paying for a full year of service upfront.

Customers who cancelled their subscription were more likely to have experienced a problem in one or more of those areas.

Step 3: Determine key behaviors

Once you identify what drives success, determine what employee behaviors lead to good results with your key drivers. This step usually involves observing your employees work or having discussions about what’s working and what’s not. (Notice you’re not discussing training just yet.)

When in doubt, I always look for a Betty. A Betty is that successful employee who figured out a great way to do things. I call this employee Betty because that was the name of the employee who taught me the concept.

Palo Alto Software determined that its customer advocates (customer service reps) needed to do two things in particular:

• Provide helpful support to guide new customers through the account setup process.

• Use positive phrasing when customers are confused about annual billing.

Once you know what your employees need to do, it’s finally time to assess employee training needs.

Training Needs Analysis Questions to Ask Employees

Once you've identified what employees should be doing the next step is to find out what employees are actually doing.

The best way to do this is to observe employees in action. Here is when you can ask a few questions:

• What do you do now?

• Why do you do it that way? (If it's different than expected.)

• What's preventing you from achieving your goals?

For instance, Peterson observed her team at Palo Alto Software to see how they handled situations where a customer complained about billing issues. Many customers signed up for annual billing to get a discount, but didn't realize they would be charged for a year's worth of service upfront.

In the past, customer advocates would offer to refund the charge and convert the customer's account into a monthly one.

This seemed like a customer-friendly, low-friction approach but it was actually costing customers money in the long run since monthly accounts billed at a higher rate than annual subscriptions. Monthly customers were also more likely to cancel.

This observation revealed a simple training need—customer advocates needed to learn a better approach to handle complaints about annual billing.

Here's how Peterson described the new approach she trained her team to use:

"Now, rather than immediately addressing their confusion and apologizing, giving a negative impression, we empathize, and focus on the positive, that the annual subscription provides the benefit of a 40% discount by collecting for 12 months in advance. We also let the customer know that we're happy to convert it to the monthly option or cancel and refund if they prefer, since we have a 60 day money back guarantee."

Notice Peterson used data analysis, employee observations, and dialogue with her team to identify this very specific training need. No surveys were involved.

There is a case for surveys when there's a larger audience.

For example, I worked with a client where 700 people will need training on the organization's customer service vision. In this case, the survey is a convenient way to ask people for their current understanding of the vision so the training can be tailored to their specific knowledge gap.

Conclusion

Asking the right questions up front made a huge difference at Palo Alto Software. These questions were focused on what employees needed to do their jobs, not what training they wanted.

Peterson's employees may have asked for customer service training if she simply asked what training they wanted. That might have resulted in a half-day training class on serving angry customers or having each person take my one-hour Working With Upset Customers course on LinkedIn Learning.

Doing an upfront needs analysis allowed Peterson to make a bigger impact by offering very limited training on a specific technique for a particular situation.

You can learn more about assessing employee training needs by taking my Needs Analysis course on LinkedIn Learning.

Welcome from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

The Customer Service Training Your Employees Absolutely Need to Have

Updated: January 20, 2024

Customer service training is often an arbitrary decision.

One customer service manager requested a four-hour onsite training class. How did she arrive at that decision?

She hoped the training would help a group of long-term employees become more customer-focused. The manager had a limited budget and though a four-hour workshop would be less expensive than other options.

There are big questions:

• Is four hours the right amount of training?

• What specific skills need to be trained?

• Will training even solve the problem?

Given the manager's limited budget, perhaps the biggest question is whether or not training is a good investment? 

These questions are difficult to answer. Moving ahead with generic training before you've answered them is an arbitrary decision.

You can do better. 

This post will show you how to determine the customer service training your employees absolutely need to have.

The Cost of Poor Training

Before we explore how to make the right decision, let's look at some of the potential costs of making the wrong decision.

Here are a few hard costs:

• The cost of the training itself.

• Wages for employees who attend the training.

• Wages for employees who cover the employees attending the training.

• Facilities costs (room rental, etc.)

There's also a soft cost to consider that's harder to measure, but can still have an impact on your team. 

Employees might resent attending training they don't feel is useful. Or worse, they might feel punished if they perceive the training is intended to correct their poor performance.

All of these costs can be hard to justify if you schedule the training and customer service doesn't improve.

Solution: Construct a Business Impact Model

Robert Brinkerhoff provides a simple method for narrowing down the training content your employees really need while simultaneously building a case for the expense. 

It's called a Business Impact Model. You can read more about it in one of Brinkerhoff's outstanding books, The Success Case Method.

I've borrowed heavily from this concept to create a four-step process below:

Step 1: Identify Your Business Goals

The whole point of training is to help your team achieve something. That means you have to clearly define what they're supposed to achieve.

Forget training for just a moment. Focus first on your overall customer service goals. Here are just a few areas you can explore for setting your goals:

• Survey scores

• Complaint reduction

• Customer retention

You might even try to reduce costs. I've found at least 13 different ways that poor customer service can cost your company money.

Be sure to set your goal using the SMART model. SMART is an acronym:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable

• Relevant

• Time-bound

Once you complete this step, you can eliminate any training that doesn't support the goal.

Step 2: Determine Key Actions

It's pretty hard to train employees to do something if you haven't defined what exactly you need them to do.

Let's say you want to give your employees training on handling upset customers. In step one, you decided to set a SMART goal for reducing customer complaints. Now, you need to determine what employees actually need to do to serve an angry customer.

Here are a few things you might look at:

• Is there a process, procedure, or policy employees should follow?

• Do employees have the tools, resources, and authority to do the job?

• Are there factors outside their control that contribute to angry customers?

In most cases, this exercise will quickly reveal that training alone won't fix the problem. There are other factors that need to be addressed first.

It will also reveal the specific topics that may need to be trained.

Step 3: Describe KSAs

Before you train, it's important to know what training can and cannot do. Training can only help your employees develop KSAs:

• Knowledge

• Skills

• Abilities

So, training won't solve the problem if your employees know how to do something, but won't do it, forget to do it, or don't do it consistently.

Managers often mistake KSAs for other issues. Here are some examples of items that cause poor customer service, but can't be trained:

• Lack of clear processes, procedures, or policies.

• Lack of tools, resources, or authority.

• Lack of motivation.

That last one is a huge challenge. How do you motivate employees to serve their customers? It turns out you don't.

The real challenge is preventing demotivation.

One way you can do that is by involving employees in this process. Get their input on a team goal. Have them help document what needs to be done to achieve it, and identify what barriers get in the way.

Back to training, only the necessary KSAs should be included.

Step 4: Identify Missing KSAs

You don't need to train employees to do things they already know how to do. That would be a waste of time.

The only train they need are KSAs they don't already have that are necessary to perform the key actions that will help achieve the goal.

That's it.

This is usually a small, focused list. Once you've created it, you can go back to decisions such as how much time is needed, when to hold the training, and who needs to attend.

Focusing Your Training

The truth is most managers will skip all these steps.

They get impatient, so they jump to conclusions and hope for the best. The paradox is the training they offer typically doesn't work and they've just wasted time, money, and resources by taking shortcuts.

In reality, training is only responsible for one percent of customer service. The remaining 99 percent can be attributed to other factors.

The process of finding that one percent is called a needs analysis. You can learn more about the importance of going through this process by watching this short video.

Understanding the importance of needs analysis from Instructional Design: Needs Analysis by Jeff Toister

How Headlines Lead to Sad Customer Service Stories

Headlines can be seriously misleading.

Let’s take a quick detour from customer service and look at an example from the NBA. The Los Angeles Lakers are getting bad press. Lots of it.

NBA teams have just entered the free agency period. The Lakers are trying to rebound from the worst record in franchise history last season, but elite players don’t want to sign with them.

Here’s a sampling of the headlines:

• Laker Mystique is Dead (SB Nation)
• Has Franchise Lost Its Mythical Allure? (Hoops Habit)
• Lakers Are In Denial of Shrinking Status in the NBA (LA Times)

You get the idea.

The point of all these articles is the Lakers are no longer a team that top free agents want to sign with. The glory of seasons past has now faded.

These headlines also distort the truth. 

The Lakers have never been a top destination for elite free agents. Shaquille O’Neal (1996) and Jamaal Wilkes (1977) are the only marquee free agents they’ve signed since moving to Los Angeles in 1960.

If we aren’t careful, these misleading headlines will point us in the wrong direction. Data is an antidote to hype. Whether it’s building a title contender in the NBA or a team of customer service all-stars, a little analysis can go a long way.

Misleading Customer Service Headlines

Here are a few typical customer service headlines that can be misleading:

• Our people need training
• We need more people
• Yelp is evil

These headlines frame a perspective about the content of the story. It’s convenient, and perhaps lazy, to stop there. 

A closer look at each headline reveals a different story.

Our people need training. 

The Hype: Send poor performers to a customer service training class and they’ll magically become awesome. 

Sad Twist: The problems don’t go away, but you’re still out the cost, time, and lost productivity associated with the class.

The Truth: Training alone rarely solves performance problems. Other solutions are often required. I once did the math and discovered that when it comes to improving service, training is on average just 1 percent of the solution.

We need more people

The Hype: Hire more people and we’ll magically become awesome

Sad Twist: You overspend on hiring and the problem still exists. Later, you’ll need to lay off employees in a desperate bid to cut costs.

The Truth: New people won’t make problems go away if you don’t first fix the underlying issues. A recent blog post provided several alternatives that could be much more effective.

Yelp is evil

The Hype: Yelp is just a place for disgruntled customers and unsavory competitors to ruin your business. There’s no solution here. Run for the hills! 

Sad Twist: Your mistrust of Yelp becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as more and more upset customers write scathing reviews.

The Truth: Yelp is good for business. Yes, plenty of reviews are fake (16 percent, according to Yelp). However, businesses that master Yelp end up driving more revenue. Yelp estimates that businesses add an average of $8,000 in revenue just by activating their free account.

Finding the Truth

It always helps to look at the data and then draw conclusions. 

Let’s go back to the Lakers for a moment. They’ve won a total of 11 NBA championships since moving to LA in 1960. Each championship team had elite players who were considered among the best in the league. 

Let’s look at how each of these elite players were actually acquired:

• Jerry West (draft, 1972 championship)
• Wilt Chamberlain (trade, 1972 championship)
• Gail Goodrich (draft, 1972 championship)
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (trade, 1980, ’82, ’85, ’87, and ’88 championships)
• Jamaal Wilkes (free agent, 1980, ’82, and ’85 championships)
• Magic Johnson (draft, 1980, ’82, ’85, ’87, and ’88 championships)
• James Worth (draft, 1985, ’87, and ’88 championships)
• Shaquille O’Neal (free agent, 2000, ’01, and ’02 championships)
• Kobe Bryant (trade, 2000, ’01, ’02, ’09, and ’10 championships)
• Pau Gasol (trade, 2009 and ’10 championships)

The path to glory for the Lakers suddenly looks different. The data suggests that shrewd drafting and cunning trade deals are a better bet for turning around the Lakers.

Sometimes, it’s as easy as making a list. Other times, a bit more analysis is required. 

My Needs Analysis course on lynda.com provides three basic steps for analyzing data. It’s presented in the context of designing a training program, but it could be used to solve other problems too.

1. Set clear goals
2. Gather data
3. Analyze data

You can watch a preview of the course here. A lynda.com subscription is required to view the whole course, but you can get a 10-day trial account.

New Training Needs Analysis Course Launched on lynda.com

A needs analysis is the first step when developing a new training program.

It can help you identify what training participants really need and connect that training to business objectives. In many cases, a good needs analysis allows you to create training that's faster, cheaper, and more effective.

My new course on lynda.com will take you step-by-step through the needs analysis process. It’s intended for instructional designers, but anyone who creates training programs can benefit. 

Topics include:

• Setting project objectives
• Identifying the target audience for training
• Selecting data sources
• Facilitating focus groups and interviews
• Designing effective surveys
• Identifying participant needs
• Defining learning outcomes
• Presenting results to project sponsors

The course is part of lynda.com’s online library of video-based training programs. Using video allowed me to create some interesting visual examples.

In the sample video below, you’ll see me meeting with a Vice President who requested an interviewing skills training program. Initial meetings like this can help trainers discover a lot of really useful information. (Click here if you don’t see the video.)

You’ll need a lynda.com subscription to view the entire course. The good news is your subscription gives you unlimited access to all of their courses. 

Even better news? You can use this link to get a free 10-day trial.