Question #1
“What fundamental skills are asked when employee talk to a customer?” This question asks Tao to describe what kind of tone, speech, and phrases would be necessary to communicate professionally to the customer and what is the enterprise standard that organization insists.
Question #2
“How to guarantee an effective and efficient customer service under a determinative time?” This question focuses on the process that employee allocates a determinative time to solve and meet the requests from clients.
Question #3
“How to address the complaints or misunderstandings from customers? Is there any specific techniques or tricks?” Complaints from clients are inevitable in all industries, especially in service and retailing industries. How to communicate professionally to the clients to turn the complaints or misunderstanding into a positive interaction is very important. I want to know if there is a process to address complaints or misunderstandings in the workplace.
Question #4
“Do you have any suggestions for the salesman on how to communicate with clients or potential customers?” This will provide applicable examples to the trainees that will become the salesman. Also, practical examples will be helpful to trainees’ performance and understanding.
Question #5
“How important is listening skill in retailing? Scale (1-5)”. Listening is an important skill that employees need to understand what the customers want. This question is about if the organization understand the importance of listening skills.
Question #6
“What are some communication obstacles that present in the communication with customers?”. This open-ended question will show some common obstacles that happen in the communications with customers. I want to know what problems he has run into the most and what obstacles that are not listed.
Question #7
“What will you suggest to the trainee who lacks the skill of communication?” This will be used as tips for the trainees on how to implement great communication and give them more knowledge of such to grow their skills.
Question #8
“The impact of nonverbal communication when interacting with customers? Scale (1-5)”. This scale will show me that how much the organization knows about the impact of nonverbal communication. This will be expanded on in detail in the training program to show how both verbal and nonverbal must match for interactions to thrive between organization and customer.
Question #9
“What are some characteristics of a great salesman?”. On this question, I want to know what the organization wants in employees and what characteristics the employees need to possess to be a great salesman. These also will be turned into examples and visuals for the training program.
Question #10
“How to promote or attract customers through different channels?” This question focuses on the channels of promotion in this organization. Business promotion is communicating with the public to influence them toward buying your products or services. Trainees might train to communicate in person through direct selling or in a retail store, via the internet through a website or social media platform, electronically through email or text messaging.
Assignment Four (A4): Task Analysis [Worth 35 Points]
By now you have identified the needs areas of your organization along with a focused set of skills to be trained. This assignment allows you to articulate that in a training plan. (See Chapter 3 Task Analysis pp. 71‑77; “How to Teach a Skill”; Chapter 4 pp. 82‑88 and pp. 90‑95; There’s a sample Training Delivery Plan for a Specific Skill at the end of these assignment instructions.)
Objective
The purpose of this assignment is to help you begin planning, in detail, everything you need for an actual needs‑based training program. This assignment is also designed to help you begin presenting your training ideas persuasively and professionally, as you will in your Final Training Plan.
Although you do not have to actually conduct a training session for your organization, here you’ll organize the content of your training program as well as the logistics for how the actual training would take place.
Content, Structure, Format
Your delivery plan content should account for all of the following numbered items using the example deliver plan below for format. Use section headings.
- Based on the results of your Needs Assessment, specify one behavior/skill training subject that you believe would benefit your organization (e.g. conflict management.) Then explain why this behavior/skill needs to be taught. Give enough detail on the skill to be taught to identify its sub-skills (e.g., for conflict management, repeating what a person says in order to confirm that you understand them).
- Connect the actual results of your Needs Assessment (Assignment 2) to explain this. Be specific about how your findings support it (rather than “the contact said we need this”).
- Select which Training Methods ‑ type or format – that will work best for training your group on the subject you have selected (e.g. case studies, scenarios, role‑plays, specific task training, etc.) and explain why these methods are best for your group of trainees.
Sequence your training session in this section to demonstrate the progression of your training methods, and to ensure your training session is well‑planned from the icebreaker to the final learning assessment.
Delivery Plan Format
Follow the format in the example delivery plan below to explain:
- Behavior/Skill to be Trained: Describe the behavior or skill to be trained and the reason you’ve determined that it’s necessary. Include each step or part comprising it rather than giving a general description.
- Icebreaker: Describe the type of icebreaker you would use to open your training program and materials you might need for it. Explain why this icebreaker would work well for your group given their demographic and the training methods that will follow.
- Technology: Specify what technological equipment you would need in order to teach this behavior/skill (i.e. overhead projector; LCD; screen, video recorder etc.) and how you’ll use them in the training session.
- Logistics: Be detailed about all logistics and whether they are to be provided by you or the client: transportation of equipment, access to power sources, lighting, catering, access, furnishings and the layout of your training room.
- Handouts: Describe the handouts needed for this training session in detail (e.g., copies of presentation, brochures, descriptions of activities, etc.), their content and why each of these needs to be used.
(Review the information about preparing Participant Guides and Handouts on page 181 and pages 216‑218 in your textbook.)
- Supplies: List the supplies you will need for your training sessions (i.e. markers, paint, white boards) and explain how the supplies will be used.
- Training Format: Time constraints, techniques to be used. In your Final Training Plan, you’ll also provide detailed explanations and justifications for these techniques.
- Budget: Provide an itemized budget for all of your supplies, including meals or snacks. Indicate who will be paying for each line item (you as the trainer or the hosting organization.)
- Summary: Provide a summary paragraph explaining how all of these elements will work together to achieve your training goal.
To Produce a High Quality Assignment . . .
- To the extent you have outside sources, your responses must be fully supported with citations from your textbook and other resources you rely on.
- Show how the ideas from our textbook helped inform your conception of your training plan, especially your choices for training methods, handouts, and supplies.
- Your goal is to demonstrate that you have crafted the best possible training session for your organization. You’ll show that by basing your plan on quality needs‑based training and development strategies.
- Show the connection between what you have planned and what you have learned in this class to give your ideas credibility and support.
- Make sure you are being detailed for each answer
Example Skill Training Delivery Plan
Behavior/Skill to be trained
The communication skill I will teach the employees of my organization is how to sell a product to a vendor. This skill is important to the employees because their job is sales and thus company profits rely on their ability to sell. Moreover, employees can receive individual bonuses and benefits by being successful in sales. In addition, the manager I interviewed mentioned that some of the employees were not as strong at sales as were others.
From my Needs Assessment, the specific deficiency in communication skills that most adversely affect the company’s sales performance is listening. Specific listening skills to be trained include understanding customers’ needs through repeating their statements to confirm them, elicit further clarification, asking appropriate follow up questions, attentively discussing available options, recognizing signs of hesitancy, handling objections. Because of weak listening skills, they miss opportunities to upsell or expand the customer relationship.
I will have 6 training participants in a full day training session.
Icebreaker
The icebreaker I would like to use for this group is two truths and a lie. Each person stands up and says three things about themselves two of which are true and one that is a lie. The other people in the room have to guess which statement is the lie. I will not need any props or supplies. This icebreaker will work well for my group because they all know and are comfortable with one another so I do not think they would be uncomfortable sharing personal information, it is a funny way to break tension and get to know people you already work with a little bit better, I can use information I learn about them later in the training, and finally it is a good way to transition into reading people which is a component of listening.
General Logistics
I will provide all the equipment and printed materials needed in this training as set forth in our scope of work. I will coordinate with the company’s events planner for necessary accommodation of our equipment, access to power sources, lighting, catering, access, furnishings and the layout of the training room.
Technological Equipment
For this training session I will need a LCD projector, screen, laser pointer, three video cameras, speakers, four computers and one microphone. The LCD projector, one computer, and screen will be used to display my Power Point presentation. Since I have several graphs and want to highlight specific information I will need a laser pointer. I am requesting speakers just in case the volume on the computer is not loud because I will be showing videos and it is important that trainees are able to hear the information being discussed. In one of my activities I will have participants role play and video these sessions and will need 3 video cameras. We will require 3 laptop computers for pairs to replay and discuss their role plays.
Handouts
I will hand out copies of my Power Point presentation so the participants can pay close attention and not feel as though they need to write everything down.
Supplies and Materials
I will have pens and note pads for the participants so they can take notes. There will also be whiteboards so we can write information from brainstorming activities. I will also bring candy to reward participants for answering questions. Snacks and lunch will be arranged through a catering company.
Training Format
There will be a combination of a lecture, demonstration and role‑play format. Initially I give the trainees information about a fictitious new product of the same type your company already sells and that they will be selling to existing customers to enhance the customer relationship and to generate new purchases. Throughout the training this will be the basis of activities. Going through a lecture format with time for question and answers will be the best way to get this information across and I might have trainees take a short quiz to ensure they know specific information. There will then be a demonstration of poor customer encounter techniques followed by a discussion. Then we’ll break for lunch.
After the break I’ll review the morning coverage. The second half of training will use a scripted role-play. One person is a sales representative and the other is a customer (each person would play a role and then switch) and they will practice the specific essentials of listening described in the introductory paragraph: repeating their statements to confirm them, elicit further clarification, asking appropriate follow up questions, attentively discussing available options, recognizing signs of hesitancy, handling objections. Practicing is extremely important to ensuring trainees are confident and capable of these listening skills so role‑plays would work well. To conclude I will have a structured discussion to debrief the day’s session and determine whether learning objectives have been met.
Securing Resources and Budget
Because I am conducting the training session for free I will expect the organization to provide all necessary materials. In order to ensure that I will have the equipment needed I will develop a proposal and give it to the person who authorized this project and we will discuss the feasibility of my requests. If for some reason the company cannot pay for these items I will do the following (insert available options). The company has most of the items I will need so the major expenses will be for food and video camera rentals. I estimate the cost of lunch and snacks for six trainees and myself, along with video rental to be approximately $350.00.
Summary
It’s desirable to implement the foregoing training because of the results of my needs assessment with your company. It disclosed that the specific deficiency in communication skills that most adversely affect the company’s sales performance is listening. Because of that they miss opportunities to upsell or expand the customer relationship.
The described format and delivery are self contained and designed for a one day training of sales representatives throughout the experience range in this department. It is designed using multiple established approaches to adult learning: I provide specific written lecture materials and the related lecture; demonstrations and role play; a final debriefing to confirm that learning objectives have been met.
