What's the difference between knowledge, skills, and abilities?

Many trainers are familiar with the acronym KSA.

It stands for the three things that training can develop:

  • Knowledge

  • Skills

  • Abilities

Training can help improve performance if someone lacks one of those three things. Knowledge is generally understood as information, such as the steps in a procedure or different product attributes.

But what about skills and abilities?

Those two are frequently confused, but the distinction is important. This post breaks it down for you and explains why ability is the ultimate goal.

A trainer is facilitating a class discussion.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities defined

Let’s start with some basic definitions for each of these key terms. That will allow us to get into the differences, and why these distinctions are important.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines knowledge this way:

the factor or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association

In training, we often think of knowledge as memorized information that helps us do our job. An example is being able to recall the three elements of a heartfelt apology.

Knowledge isn't just one dimensional. Psychologist Benjamin Bloom created a taxonomy that helps explain the various levels we can possess knowledge:

Graphic showing a revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Image shared courtesy of Vanderbilt University.

Graphic showing a revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Image shared courtesy of Vanderbilt University.

One challenge for every trainer is deciding what level a learner needs to acquire knowledge so they can effectively do their job. Each subsequent level takes more effort, and more time, to reach.

There's a vast difference between reciting the three elements of a heartfelt apology (remember) and being able to explain the difference between a good and bad example (evaluate).

Knowledge is just one element of KSA. Here's how the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines skills:

the ability to use one's knowledge effectively and readily in execution or performance

Skills move toward the practical. There’s often a gap between what we know and what we do.

For example, you might know the three steps to a heartfelt apology, but actually apologizing to a real customer is a skill. You must follow the steps correctly in a potentially difficult situation where a customer is upset and frustrated.

Other common examples of skills include:

  • Operating a machine

  • Using computer software

  • Listening to a customer

  • Troubleshooting a faulty product

  • Brewing a cup of coffee

So what about ability? Once again, let's start with a definition from Merriam-Webster:

1. competence in doing something: SKILL

2. natural aptitude or acquired proficiency

Admittedly, this is where the distinction between a skill and ability gets confusing. Isn't Merriam-Webster saying ability is a skill?

Yes and no.

How is an ability different than a skill?

Look closely at the definition of ability, and you'll see that it consists of three things:

  1. Skill

  2. Natural aptitude

  3. Acquired proficiency

All of these things combined translate into outcomes.

Going back to the apologizing to customers example, ability is what we need to make the apology actually work. In a customer service context, we want the customer to forgive us. (Us personally, and/or our company.)

As a trainer, I help learners develop KSAs, but I'm most interested in helping people develop their abilities. This is what helps them increase their performance at work.

So let’s break it down.

Skill: we’ve already covered this one.

Natural aptitude: There's not much we can do about natural aptitude. People have natural aptitude in various amounts. Some customer service professionals will be naturally great at apologizing to customers, while some will really struggle at first. A few will never be able to develop the ability.

Acquired proficiency: This is what we get from good practice and feedback.

For instance, think of the very first upset customer you ever served. Mine is indelibly seared into my memory, because the experience launched my career.

Now think about the last upset customer you served.

Chances are, you've learned hard lessons from serving countless upset customers about what works and what doesn't. You’ve probably made mistakes and learned from those lessons. And you likely can deliver a heartfelt apology much more smoothly now than the first time you did it.

That, my friend, is ability.

Why do these distinctions matter?

Trainers need to pay attention to all three KSA elements when developing employees, but each element is developed in a slightly different way.

Knowledge typically comes through content. We deliver information in some way and then engage participants in activities to make sure it sticks.

Skills are developed through practical application. This is when we introduce hands-on exercises so learners can try doing the thing they're learning to do.

Ability is developed through repetition and feedback. It can take a lot of practice to develop new abilities, and it's common to struggle at first.

One of the greatest challenges for trainers is they spend too much time on knowledge, and not enough time on skills or abilities.

Think about most training classes you attended (or facilitated). There's a good chance there was a heavy emphasis on delivering new content (knowledge), but not much time for hands on skill-development and barely any time devoted to practicing those skills so you could build abilities.

Conclusion

Ability is what ultimately matters the most.

It's not enough for a customer service representative to understand the theory behind a good apology or to be able to stumble through the steps. They need the ability to use an apology to get a customer to feel better and be willing to reconcile after a service failure.

Learn more about what training can, and cannot fix from this short video.

How to rapidly improve customer service by finding your Betty

Early in my career, I lucked into a solution to a challenging project.

My department was asked to create a training program to help contact center agents pitch the company credit card to customers who called in to place an order from our catalog.

A computer program ran in the background during each call to determine if the customer was eligible for the company credit card. When they were, a little box popped up on the agent's screen that prompted the agent to offer the card.

Our success rate averaged averaged five percent. It needed to be 20.

The instinctive move would be to gather the management team in a conference room and invent something. That's how the request came to me: "Let's call a meeting to talk about what needs to be in the agent sales training program."

I'm glad I didn't do that.

Something told me to look at the numbers. You see, 5 percent was just the average. That meant some agents did worse, but a few did better.

One agent, Betty, really stood out.

Betty successfully pitched the credit card 40 percent of the time. Even better, she did it consistently, shift after shift. Nobody else was even close.

So I spent some time with Betty.

That conversation forever changed how I solve customer service problems. From that point forward, I always tried to start by finding a Betty.

Here's all you need to know about finding Betty in your own organization.

A smiling contact center agent is on the phone with a customer.

Who is a Betty?

Betty is an employee who already knows a solution to the problem.

It could be how to solve a complicated technical issue, calm down an upset customer, or pitch a company credit card.

Their knowledge is often not contained in official policies, procedures, or training programs. In many cases, the solution runs counter to the established way of doing things.

Bettys are often eager to share what they know. They can also be frustrated if they don't get the opportunity to pass the solution along to the rest of the team.

My Betty certainly felt frustrated.

She enthusiastically shared her credit card pitching secrets with me, but she also expressed disappointment that nobody else had asked her about it. Her team never met as a group and her boss was always too busy.

Betty cared deeply about doing a great job, and wanted to help others succeed as well.

How can you find your Betty?

There are a few ways to find your Betty when trying to solve a customer service problem. The important thing is to look for an employee who consistently generates great results.

Performance reports will sometimes make it easy.

There were over a thousand contact center agents pitching the credit card, but I found my Betty on a report. She was easy to find because her credit card pitch success rate was tremendous.

There are other times when you have to work a little harder. Here are a few things that have worked for me:

  • Visit employees on various shifts at various locations.

  • Talk to employees who encounter the problem most often.

  • Ask employees for input in team meetings.

When in doubt, I often start with the most experienced employees. Yes, some employees become set in their ways over time. Other employees, like Betty, use their experience to anticipate solutions to new problems.

What do you do once you find Betty?

Go spend time observing Betty doing the job. The goal is to discover their secrets so you can share them with the rest of the team.

Your role here is to observe and listen. A few things stood out as I watched Betty.

  • She made each offer with enthusiasm.

  • Every offer included a brief explanation of the credit card's benefits.

  • Betty closed the offer by inviting the customer to use the card right away.

Another thing I noticed was that Betty got excited and said, "Congratulations!" when offering the card.

It's helpful to ask questions while doing an observation like this, so I asked Betty why she used the word, "Congratulations." She explained that she wanted the customer to feel special, like getting approved for the credit card was a big deal.

Some people worry that employees won't be honest or forthcoming when you observe them. That's not been my experience at all.

I've found that Bettys are usually eager to share what they know. They generally want other employees to benefit from their discovery and are willing to share if they believe you are there to help spread the word.

What do you do after spending time with Betty?

It's often helpful to find out what other employees are doing so you can compare their process to Betty's. This often makes the differences even clearer.

For the credit card project, I spent time with other agents who did well, some agents who were average, and a few agents who never got customers to accept the credit card.

This really crystalized what Betty did so well.

The agents who had a five percent success rate simply read the offer to the customer when it popped up on the screen. "You've been pre-approved for our credit card. Would you like to sign up?"

Most of them didn’t know the features and benefits that came with the card, so they weren’t sure why a customer would want it. That led to an unenthusiastic sales pitch.

By contrast, Betty used a slightly different approach.

"Congratulations! You've been pre-approved for our credit card! It's a great way to keep track of all your purchases with us. Would you like to use it on today's order?"

[Note: this was before online ordering, when it was much more difficult to keep track of the orders you placed with a company. Using a company credit card to track your purchases was a big benefit back then.]

The contrast between Betty's approach and the agents whose success rate was zero was even more clear. Those agents told me they felt uncomfortable pitching the card, so they didn't.

I asked them if their supervisor ever talked to them about it and they all said no. One agent pointed out that the credit card offer wasn't on their quality assurance scorecard, so they weren't held accountable for the results.

If you had been there, you would have seen a lightbulb appear above my head.

How can you share what you learned from Betty?

The final step in the process is to share Betty's solution with the rest of the team. This could be a short update to the team, a new process, or even a training program.

In my case, I compiled a list of solutions that went beyond just a training program.

  • Add "Congratulations!" to the screen pop telling agents to make the offer.

  • Give agents a job aid with the credit card's features and benefits.

  • Add the credit card offer to the quality assurance form.

The training program I created lasted just 30 minutes.

Some agents were initially reluctant to try the techniques I shared with them, but almost all of them changed their tune when they learned the techniques came from Betty, not management. That’s another bonus that comes with finding your Betty: more credibility.

And the best part? Our average credit card success rate quickly climbed to 20 percent.

You can learn about using techniques like this from my LinkedIn Learning course, Quick Fixes to Attain Excellent Customer Service.

A LinkedIn Learning subscription is required to view the entire course, but you can watch a short preview here.

All You Need to Know About Training Remote Employees

I've been getting a lot of questions about remote training.

The shift to work-from-home has caused leaders to re-think how employees are trained. Onboarding new hires, re-skilling existing employees, or just meeting ongoing development needs is a challenge.

My experience with virtual training started in the late 1990s, and I ran my first full-time virtual training program in 2002. As a Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP), I've seen what works, and what doesn't.

This post summarizes all you need to know in just three principles. I've also included resources and examples to help you out.

An employee logs into a remote training class.

1. Train to solve a problem

We train employees because we are trying to solve a problem. In the workplace, that problem is fundamentally connected to helping employees do their jobs. That doesn’t change when your leaners are remote.

Here are just a few examples of common training programs and the problems they solve:

  • New hire training: do a job effectively.

  • Software training: use software productively.

  • Customer service training: deliver outstanding service.

The challenge is words like "effectively," "productively," and "outstanding," are too vague and subjective. Assessing subjective qualities becomes even more difficult when we aren’t in the same physical space with our learners. We need a concrete way to define whether someone has been fully trained.

The solution is to create clear learning objectives.

Here are two learning objectives I helped a client create for their new hire training program using the A-B-C-D model. The new hires were contact center agents who answered customer calls.

  1. New hires will achieve a 100 percent monitoring score on four consecutive live calls.

  2. New hires will be available to take live calls for 5 or more hours in one day.

Employees had to complete both objectives to pass the training.

The learning objectives helped my client do two things. First, it was now easy to evaluate whether someone had been trained. Second, it allowed the training program to be laser-focused on helping employees achieve the course objectives.

More on that second part in a moment. First, I recommend you try to create your own learning objectives for a program you are working on.

You can use the the A-B-C-D model to write learning objectives like the ones above.

Some people might feel pressure from a boss or senior leader to just wing it and implement training without clearly understanding the problem. Here's a short LinkedIn Learning video that describes how to communicate with project sponsors.

Bonus tip: Training will only solve problems that are caused by an employee's lack of knowledge, skill, or ability. In many cases, training isn’t the right solution, or at least not the only one. Here's how to spot whether employees need training.

2. Bad in-person training will be bad virtual training

A class that is boring and ineffective when delivered in-person won't magically improve when you move to remote training. In fact, it will likely get worse.

I asked people on LinkedIn to share what they dislike the most about participating in training. There were a lot of great responses. Here are some common complaints:

  • Boring lectures

  • Takes too long

  • Not enough relevant content

  • Content not tailored to the audience

  • Lack of hands-on or practice opportunities

There are two ways to fix this.

First, see principle number one above. Your employees are more likely to sense the training is a waste of time if it isn't clearly connected to helping them solve a problem. You need learning objectives before you move forward!

Second, training programs should be laser-focused on helping employees achieve the objectives.

I once designed a training program to help employees use a new software program. The approach was extremely simple:

  1. Highlight the differences between the new software program and the old one.

  2. Use the new software in class perform common tasks.

  3. Identify job aids and other resources to help if employees got stuck.

No boring lectures. No death by PowerPoint. No theory. Employees were using the new software within the first five minutes of the class and were able to use it to do their jobs in less than an hour.

You can improve your own training program by focusing on helping employees achieve the learning objectives. 

My LinkedIn Learning course on Adult Learning Principles can provide some more insight.

3. Adapt what you'd do in person

Adult learning principles remain constant, whether you are training someone in person or remotely. An easy way to improve remote training is to think about best practices you use when training in-person and adapt them to the technology.

Let's look at webinars versus an in-person class as an example.

Imagine you are facilitating an in-person class starts at 9am. What are you doing at 8:55? Hopefully, your classroom is all set up and you are spending that time greeting participants as they come in. This immediately helps break the ice and builds energy for the upcoming training.

Why not do the same thing for a webinar?

Open the webinar room 5-10 minutes early and greet participants as they login. I often use this time to test out the webinar features we'll be using and make sure participants can hear and see me.

What are some other things you might do in person?

  • Ask participants to complete a pre-assignment.

  • Give participants a handout.

  • Have participants work in groups.

  • Facilitate a group discussion.

  • Demonstrate a specific skill.

  • Assign hands-on activities.

  • Invite participants to share their knowledge.

You can do all of these things when facilitating remote training! In fact, there are some advantages of going remote that make it my preferred way to deliver customer service training.

Here's an example of a webinar that I co-facilitated with ProcedureFlow’s Micah Peterson that demonstrates many of the ways you can adapt to remote technology.

Take Action

Going remote does not mean doing 100 percent of your training via webinar. There's some early research that shows spending too much time on video chats can be exhausting.

I like to give participants self-paced, hands-on assignments in between sessions. If they do need to watch a lecture, I’d rather them get access to that lecture on video so they can watch it on their own time. (And I always keep the segments very short.)

Your training will be much better if you keep your learners in mind.

  1. What problem are you helping them solve?

  2. What will make the training effective?

  3. How can you adapt to the technology?

To learn how to quickly create great training courses, I recommend my How to Design and Deliver Training Programs video on LinkedIn Learning.

How to Train Faster and Better with Microlearning

Contact centers constantly face pressure to make agent training faster, cheaper, and better. One way to achieve this is through microlearning, where agents learn new information or review content in small chunks at a time.

Chance are, you're using microlearning already.

For example, have you ever gone to YouTube to find a short how-to video? I did this when I had to change the battery on my solar-powered keyboard. I quickly found a short video and, a few minutes later, I had step-by-step instructions for doing the repair.

I used a YouTube video to learn how to change the battery on my solar-powered keyboard.

I recently joined Bryan Naas from Lessonly to present a webinar on how to train contact center agents faster, reduce costs, and deliver better results with microlearning. Lessonly builds easy-to-use training software that helps people do better work, so it was really helpful to have Bryan's perspective.

Here are a few highlights from the webinar.


Training and Reinforcement

Bryan and I shared multiple microlearning examples throughout the webinar. 

A simple one is my Customer Service Tip of the Week email. Anyone can sign up for free to receive one tip via email, once per week. These tips are helpful reminders to help us build lasting habits.


Budget-Friendly

Microlearning is generally inexpensive and can be deployed quickly.

The biggest cost associated with traditional classroom training is paying agents to attend training along with other agents to provide coverage while your staff is in class. One benefit of microlearning is you don't need to take your agents out of the queue for training, so it is far less disruptive to your operation!


A Proven Model

Bryan shared Lessonly's Better Work Method, which is a model contact center leaders can use to easily develop microlearning lesson plans. 

The first step in the model is to assess needs. It's very common for contact center training programs to deliver too much unnecessary contact, while omitting essential lessons. A simple assessment can help you deliver the right content at just the right time.

You can watch the entire webinar replay here.

Bryan and I mention a couple of links during the webinar that you can't see on the replay:

How to Train New Hires on Culture

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The first customer I ever served resulted in a service failure.

Some of it was my fault. I said the wrong thing to a customer and he stormed off, grumbling about the sorry state of customer service these days.

Some of it was not my fault. I was sixteen years old and this was my first job. I hadn't yet been trained and didn't yet have the experience to know what to do. The person who was supposed to be training me had gone on break and left me to fend for myself.

It all worked out in the end. I learned from the experience, discovered a passion for customer service, and eventually learned how to train others. 

Things don't always go this way. Many employees develop bad habits as a result of insufficient new hire training. The results is poor customer service, low engagement, and high attrition.

We need to take responsibility for giving new hires the right kind of training if we expect them to deliver our brand of exceptional service. 

You can hear my story in this short video:

The Woeful Lack of Training

A 2018 study by the research firm Ipsos revealed that 31 percent of employees get no formal training.

This statistic is even worse for low-wage jobs (earning <$50,000 per year), where 36 percent of employees report they received no formal training. This group encompasses a majority of frontline customer service employees. 

Even the training that does occur may not be sufficient.

I routinely ask customer service leaders whether their company has a customer service vision, which is a shared definition of outstanding customer service. Typically, 40 percent or more admit there is none.

A vision is critical because it provides a common framework for training that describes your organization's unique brand of customer service. Without one, new hire training must focus on tactical procedures and generic customer service tips.

The best companies know this. 

New hires at In-N-Out burger are trained around a vision of quality, service, and cleanliness; you can see that vision in everything they do. Guests at The Ritz-Carlton naturally expect a different type of service than at In-N-Out, so Ritz-Carlton associates are trained on that company's vision, We are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen.

 

Key Elements of Culture Training

An entire chapter in The Service Culture Handbook is devoted to training employees to embody the culture in their daily work.

Here are a few highlights.

Element 1: You need a customer service vision. Your training will be generic and unfocused if you skip this step. You can use this guide to create one.

Element 2: Create learning objectives for your training. Think about what you want your new hires to know and be able to do. I recommend setting an objective that employees will be able to answer three questions by the end of the training:

  1. What is our customer service vision?

  2. What does the vision mean?

  3. How does I personally contribute to the vision in my daily work?

Element 3: Develop activities to achieve your learning objectives. This is your chance to get a little creative, but make sure you can verify the learning objectives have been achieved by the end of the training.

 

New Hire Training Examples

Here are two sample training plans that have both been effective. Both training plans share the learning objectives described above (i.e. participants have to answer those three questions).

Sample #1: The Scavenger Hunt. I ran this exercise for new managers at a parking management company. 

The training started in the classroom, where participants were introduced to the customer service vision. We had a group discussion around its meaning and talked about the answers to the three questions.

Next, participants were split into small groups and each was given a list of locations to visit near the company's downtown headquarters. Each group was asked to take pictures of scenes that showed the vision in real-life. This included signage, employees interacting with customers, etc. The entire assignment could easily be completed in less than an hour, with the teams walking from location to location.

Finally, we gathered in the classroom again to look at everyone's pictures. The teams took turns walking us through what they saw and explaining how each image connected to the vision.

 

Sample #2: The Thank You Letter Challenge. I did this exercise with Clio, the winner of the 2017 ICMI Global Contact Center award for best culture. 

Employees were first asked to identify places where they saw the customer service vision before coming to class. This one was easy, since each person had a small sign hung at their workstation.

Next, employees were asked to describe the answers to the three questions in their own words. 

Finally, each person completed the Thank You Letter challenge. They started by writing a thank you letter to themselves from an imaginary customer. The letter reflected service that aligned with the company's customer service vision. Then participants were asked to read the letter each day for two weeks and try to earn feedback from a real customer that matched the letter.

At the end of the two weeks, we reconvened and participants shared their experiences. It was amazing how they were able to generate so many success stories! (You can try this exercise here.)

 

Take Action!

Start today by asking two questions:

  1. Do we have a customer service vision? (Y/N)

  2. Do we train new employees on the customer service vision (Y/N)

If the answer is "No" to either question, you'll see immediate results by adding that element to your training program.

Three Ways to Leverage Knowledge-Centered Service

A story about the tragic death of a pet hamster recently made national headlines.

Belen Aldecosea was traveling from Baltimore to Fort Lauderdale last November. She wanted to bring along her pet dwarf hamster, Pebbles, which she claimed was certified by her doctor as an emotional support animal.

When a Spirit employee told Aldecosea the hamster was not allowed to board the plane, Aldecosea flushed Pebbles down the toilet in airport restroom.

She claims she did this on the advice of a Spirit employee. Spirit adamantly denies any employee told her to do this.

Here's one thing that's not in dispute: Aldecosea contacted Spirit prior to traveling and was erroneously told by another employee that the hamster was allowed.

The stakes can be high when customer service employees are asked about seldom-referenced policies or obscure problems. They need access to the right information in the right place at the right time.

Here are three ways Knowledge-Centered Service can help.

Tiny three-ring binders sitting on a computer keyboard.

Reduce Memorization

Knowledge-Centered Service, or KCS, is a process organizations can use to capture, structure, reuse, and improve critical information used to solve problems.

Reducing memorization is one clear benefit. Here's a short experiment to highlight a common challenge:

Name all of the planets in our solar system in order from closet to the sun to farthest.

Many of us will struggle to recall the first eight. There's controversy by the time we get to Pluto. Is it a planet or not? NASA's website is surprisingly unhelpful when it comes to settling this question.

We need clear, reliable information that's easy to find in situations like this.

One client of mine struggled to get employees to remember a three-step procedure for greeting office visitors via a security intercom system. They tried team meetings, emails, and written memos but nothing worked.

The solution was putting the right information in the right place at the right time. My client hung a sign next to the intercom with the three steps. Problem solved.

Another client struggled to get employees to remember complex technical information about the medical devices it sold. The solution was creating a single page with links to information sheets for each product so employees could quickly and accurately answer customer questions without memorizing the answers.

 

Shorten Training

If you're old enough, you grew up during a time when you memorized all of your friends' phone numbers.

Today, I can barely remember my own phone number. Important information about our friends such as phone numbers, birthdates, and addresses are all safely stored in our smart phones. 

It's a phenomenon called digital amnesia where we've become less adept at memorizing information.

That makes training much more difficult since traditional training often revolves around getting participants to memorize facts, procedures, and other information.

KCS can help solve that. Rather than memorizing piles of information, participants are taught to use a knowledge base to identify known solutions to problems. I've helped clients cut new hire training time by as much as 50 percent by switching from a memorization-focused training regime to a KCS approach.

The best part happens when new information is introduced.

Let's say your company releases a new product. You can do a short hands-on training meeting with the new product and capture everyone's questions into a searchable frequently asked questions (FAQ) document that anyone can access. 

Now your team can quickly recall what they learned about the new product and sound like an authority when answering questions just by accessing the FAQ. That FAQ can be updated and corrected as new insights are gained or you receive feedback from customers.

 

Improve Self-Service

Good self-service often runs on information, which means that self-service can fail when that information isn't readily available.

For example, some airlines allow passengers to book free stopovers. This is essentially an extra long layover that allows you to visit one city and then continue to another hours or even days later for the price of one ticket. 

Here's what happens when I search the Spirit Airlines website for information on stopovers. (Yes, I added the space on purpose.) 

Screen capture from Spirit Airlines website search page, looking for "stop over."

Nothing useful here, not even a clear "we don't allow stopovers" policy. This will probably prompt a call to customer service if I wanted to find the answer.

A best practice is to routinely track what customers are searching for. So if you notice a lot of customers are searching for "stopover," "stop over," or even "layover" you can add a helpful resource that appears when a customer searches any of those terms.

Many customer service software providers have created an interim solution to help customers locate self-service. The Zendesk Answer Bot scans customer emails and intuitively suggests solutions before the customer hits send.

 

Conclusion

The principles around KCS have been around for a long time. I was first introduced to them 20 years ago and have seen first-hand how important knowledge is in the world of customer service.

You can read an overview of the KCS methodology here if you'd like to explore the topic further.

Improve Your Training With Greater Consistency

My client was surprised by how much training her company was doing.

She had to document the number of training hours employees participated in to receive funds from a state program. At first, she kept track of attendance at classes the company held, such as the customer service program I was hired to facilitate.

My client soon realized there was so much more.

That weekly team meeting was training because it kept employees up to date on critical information. On-the-job training was definitely training, even if much of it was informal. A product briefing from one of the company's scientists was training, too.

Tracking all this training helped my client boost her training hours. It also highlighted another issue. Was all of that training sending the same message?

classroomtraining.jpg

Training Defined

Think about the training that happens in your own organization. Take a closer look and there's probably much more than you think:

Training is any activity that helps employees develop knowledge, skills, and abilities to improve their job performance.

According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), training is much broader than just delivering classes. There are ten major focus areas in the ATD Competency Model for trainers:

  1. Training Delivery

  2. Instructional Design

  3. Performance Improvement

  4. Change Management

  5. Knowledge Management

  6. Coaching

  7. Integrated Talent Management

  8. Managing Learning Programs

  9. Evaluating Learning Impact

  10. Learning Technologies

Coaching is a fabulous example. Here's how the ATD Competency Model defines it:

"Uses an interactive process to help individuals develop rapidly and produce results; improves others' ability to set goals, take action, make better decisions, and make full use of their natural strengths."

Good managers do this every day. While they might not think of coaching as training, that's exactly what they are doing.

Knowledge Management is a hot topic in the world of customer service. We want to give employees access to product, policy, and procedure information in real-time so they can quickly serve their customers.

It's also training. Here's the definition from the ATD Competency Model:

"Captures, distributes, and archives intellectual capital in a way that encourages knowledge sharing and collaboration in the organization."

 

The Need for Consistency

Imagine all of those training components in your organization. You have formal training, coaching from the manager, a knowledge base, and perhaps much more.

There's something in training called the 70-20-10 rule that explains how they all work together. This is a rough guide for how employees learn new knowledge, skills, and abilities they use on the job:

  • 70 percent comes from experience

  • 20 percent comes from a boss or mentor

  • 10 percent comes from formal training

These percentages aren't fixed, but they're roughly accurate (like the 80/20 rule). A challenge occurs when these pieces are misaligned.

Let's say you manage a nursery that sells plants, tools, and other gardening supplies. Your customer service reps use product knowledge to help customers select the right plants, fertilizers, and other items for their home garden projects.

How will you ensure your reps are as helpful as possible?

The old way of thinking would be to hold a training class and hope for the best. But the 70-20-10 rule tells us that's just a small piece of the puzzle.

  • What if employees struggle to remember critical information?

  • Who will train employees who missed the class?

  • What if employees have a hard time undoing old habits?

A better approach would be to align multiple training components.

A formal class could introduce specific skills, such as asking customers probing questions about their projects and using the knowledge base to quickly find answers.

As the manager, you would regularly coach your employees to reinforce the training. This would help people retain what was taught and build their skills even more.

Your nursery sells too many products for employees to memorize the answers to every question, so you'll also need a robust knowledge base. This will allow employees to quickly access authoritative, accurate answers to customer questions.

 

Additional Resources

You can greatly expand the impact of training if you think holistically. 

This blog post explains how to use the 70-20-10 rule to improve your customer service training by 900 percent.

Here's a short training video that explains how to handle a training request. In it, I share a five question framework to help uncover additional solutions that might help employees perform.

The video is a segment from my online course, How to Design and Develop Training Programs. You can view it on Lynda.com or LinkedIn Learning.

Simple Training Plan: Serving Upset Customers 101

UPDATED: June 14, 2023

I often get calls from customer service leaders who want to do some training for their team, but face a few challenges:

  • Budgets are limited.

  • It's an operational nightmare to get everyone scheduled into a class.

  • A single workshop won't produce sustainable results.

That's why I'm experimenting with a series of training plans that take a novel approach. They're inexpensive, easy to implement, and they produce lasting change.

Best of all, you can implement them without hiring an expensive consultant or trainer like me. The first topic is my most requested: Serving Upset Customers 101.

Overview: Serving Upset Customers 101

Participants will be able to do the following at the end of this training:

  • Recognize natural instincts that make it difficult to serve angry customers

  • Listen to upset customers with empathy

  • Retain more customers by neutralizing negative emotions

The course is designed to minimize disruption of normal work schedules:

  • Short weekly team meetings

  • Individual, self-paced assignments between meetings

This course is the first in a three part series:

Resources Required:

  • Worksheet: Workshop Planning Tool, cost: $0

  • Training Video: Working with Upset Customers. You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription for each participant. (You'll get access to the ENTIRE library, which is a huge bonus.)

  • Exercise Files: The Working with Upset Customers training video comes with a set of downloadable exercise files to help implement concepts from the course. You can access the files once you login.

Time Required: <1 hour per week for 4 weeks.

 

Pre-Work: Do This Before You Begin

You can boost the impact of any training program by properly preparing. Here are two simple assignments you should do before starting the training.

Assignment #1: Create a training plan. Use the Workshop Planning Tool to create a training plan:

  • Identify your goal for the training.

  • Determine what needs to be done to prepare for success.

  • Create a plan to sustain your progress.

Assignment #2: Announce the Training. Tell your team what to expect by announcing the training via a team meeting, one-on-one conversation, email, or some other form of communication. Make sure you address three things:

  • Tell participants what the training is about.

  • Explain why the training is important.

  • Share how you expect participants to use the training in their daily work.

 

Training Plan: Serving Upset Customers

This plan is divided into four lessons that each take place one week apart.

Week 1: Kick-off. Call a 30 minute team meeting to kick off the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Review the purpose and goals for this course.

  2. Discuss situations where customers get angry.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

  • Watch video: Helping the customer be right

  • Watch video: Recognizing your natural instincts

  • Exercise: Find the Fight or Flight Symptoms Checklist in the packet of downloadable exercise files (you'll need to be logged in to access this). Use it to identify one situation where you experience the Fight or Flight instinct while serving a customer.

 

Week 2: Recognizing Our Instincts. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the importance of helping customers be right.

  2. Discuss situations where we experienced the Fight or Flight Instinct.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

  • Watch video: Listening with empathy

  • Watch video: Apologizing effectively

  • Complete the Empathy Worksheet from the Exercise files.

  • Complete the Apology Worksheet from the Exercise files.

  • Apply the LAURA and apology techniques when serving an angry customer.

 

Week 3: Empathizing With Customers. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss situations where participants used the LAURA technique to express empathy.

  2. Revisit list of situations where customers get angry (from Week 1). Discuss the root cause of each one.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

 

Week 4: Conclusion. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss situations where participants helped a customer become right. 

  2. Discuss situations where participants used the acknowledge and refocus technique.

  3. Discuss appropriate actions if a customer becomes abusive.

  4. Discuss ways to sustain the learning.

3 Ways Effective Employee Onboarding Can Boost Customer Service

Onboarding new hires can feel like a small miracle.

They start without many of the skills they need to serve your customers. Then, in a relatively short period of time, they transform into customer service superstars.

At least, that's how it's supposed to go.

The reality can be a bit different. Managers don't always devote enough time. Employees can get lost on the learning curve. Customer service often suffers.

This post explores three ways that effective onboarding can boost customer service.

To start, check out this short video that highlights the importance of onboarding by tracking two new hires who have very different experiences.

Increased Engagement

Poor employee onboarding can negatively impact employee job satisfaction, which is a key indicator of engagement. Here's a scary statistic from Benchmark Portal's 2013 Agent Voices report:

It just so happens that the average contact center takes about three months to fully onboard it's new hires.

There are two ways to look at this. One, is onboarding is so great that the actual job pales in comparison.

This might be true. But, the other way to look at this is onboarding is so disconnected from the day-to-day realities that employees are in for a rude awakening as they transition into their new job.

A good onboarding program prepares new hires for success. It helps them become engaged with the company's culture. They become committed to helping the company succeed and feel they can make a difference.

And, it helps ensure their satisfaction rises once they've graduated from training.

 

Customer Impact

It's awkward to be served by an obviously new person.

A new employee was recently learning the ropes at my local coffee shop. The line continued to grow as each transaction took longer than average. He smiled awkwardly as he tried to swipe my credit card several times before realizing he was doing it the wrong way.

Other customers asked him questions he couldn't answer. He repeatedly had to ask another co-worker for assistance, which made it hard for this employee to connect with customers on his own.

This situation wasn't his fault. He hadn't yet been trained. He didn't yet have the skills to serve customers quickly.

It was also an unfortunate choice train him on the register during a busy morning. Every customer that day paid a small price for this employee's learning curve.

Good onboarding programs avoid this problem. They use careful timing and smart design to train employees on important skills while minimally impacting service quality.

 

Wait Time

You hire more people because you need more people to keep up with demand.

The problem is those new people take time to fully onboard and train. Customers have to continue waiting longer until that happens. 

It's not just in my local coffee shop. Think hold times in contact centers, longer lines in stores, or slower service in restaurants. Short-staffed usually equals slow service.

A good onboarding program can help fix this. It ensures new hires are trained faster and better, so short-staffed periods are kept to a minimum.

 

Design Your Own Onboarding Program

My LinkedIn Learning course, Running Company Onboarding, shows you how to create an effective employee onboarding program. Here’s a short preview: