Our Sales and Customer Service course development and training software has been used successfully by F100 companies, and is specifically designed to address customer facing competencies in both Sales and Customer Service roles. The competencies fit easily into any existing competency mapping framework and comprise the 5 essential negotiating competencies of Avoiding, Accommodating, Compromising, Collaborating and Confronting, and the 3 critical probing skills relating to Strategic Open Ended questions, Tactical Open Ended Questions and Close Ended Questions.

As the course development system creates individual sequential modules that are assembled into a course then, if unexpected results occur in the field, the modules can be re-videoed with a new emphasis in minutes and the redesigned course can be distributed immediately. 

The course development software translates the initiatives of Sales Managers and Customer Service Managers into front line performance improvements through volume training that can be made in-house by existing training staff. The integrated training course deployment software is designed not only to run the interactive multimedia training, but also to collect trainee performance information for managers that can be used to develop management leadership capabilities and grow the collaborative relationship with customer-facing staff.

As customer-facing confidence and performance grows with experience of successful application in the field, the course uses videos of real people simulating the customer so the trainee has real time input to judge responses based on the verbal content AND the body language of the customer. 

Each time the trainee chooses a response, this Learning Management System information is collected and translated into a competency framework update so that a coaching report can be generated for the employees' manager. The coaching report targets managers to structure "Work-Withs" and "One-on-Ones" to maximize their coaching efforts around real capability gaps instead of the "Any problems?" One-on-Ones and observing the employee dealing with carefully selected compliant customers. The coaching reports also introduce accountability in coaching for the manager, as the next training module taken by the employee measures any change in competency, and therefore measures the managers' coaching competency and training needs. 

The captured trainee competency mapping data also produces best practice success profiles when employee performance is measured, which can be then be translated into on-boarding modules, recruitment profiles and competencies for best practice transfer. The training software also becomes a powerful recruitment tool, as, by putting a potential new-hire quickly through a few training modules, a competency profile is produced which can be compared with existing performance achieving competency profiles. 

The Learning Management System also includes a "strategy gauge" where each potential response choice is graded against corporate policy and acceptable corporate ethics to automatically produce an evaluation measurement of how close an employee is to the way the company wants to do business. Finally, the Learning Management System also includes a budget reporting facility. If, when signing employees on to the training system, the system administrator enters salary information, the LMS automatically captures cost of training information for each employee and updates the spend against budget report on-the-fly.

The Best Practice Transfer Ltd. Development and Training software has been designed by a trainer for trainers. The template-based module approach means that any trainer in your company who can point and shoot a simple video camera and can fill information into any red boxes on the screen can make interactive multimedia training modules with no technical skills whatsoever. Course development is therefore focused exactly where it should be - on gathering subject matter expertise relating to opportunities and problems and translating that expertise or best practice into meaningful, measurable competency training modules. The modular approach to course development also has two significant advantages. Firstly, each module is designed to address a specific competency in the competency framework, and each module becomes an available module in the center of excellence library that can be withdrawn and assembled with others into a full training or on-boarding course that is relevant to each individual employee's training need. Secondly, it mitigates the substantial cost of developing training courses that become redundant. In any changing environment, competencies have a significantly longer shelf life than procedures, and competency training modules can be quickly modified or replaced to reflect new thinking or best practice as it occurs. Empowering trainers to analyze training needs and opportunities, and then produce immediate training interventions in-house, not only motivates a training department, but also introduces accountability to demonstrate a measurable effectiveness and Return On Investment for all training modules produced as the learning management system reports any changes in trainee competency. 

Our Sales Training and Customer Service Course Development system

The 6 steps to easy course authoring:

Our course authoring system was designed by a trainer - for use by trainers. The input to the system was designed as a series of templates where the data needed to construct a course module is clearly indicated on the templates by red boxes that turn green once data has been entered. Trainers are free to concentrate on analyzing training needs, and collecting solution information from subject matter experts to fill in the templates. The authoring system turns this data into multimedia interactive course modules that evaluate training effectiveness and cost, without any input or programming and scripting knowledge being needed from the trainer. The template format greatly simplifies the gathering of information from managers requiring training interventions, and their staff, as it focuses discussion on the directly relevant information required to construct a solution. When using the system, all that has to be remembered is:

If anything on the template is RED- Information must be obtained or data must be entered.

If everything on the Data Check page is GREEN - you're finished.

Step 1.

Firstly, the visual multimedia element must be captured. (This can be done using a simple home video camera.) The trainer normally works with a subject matter expert to simulate an anticipated real customer query or objection, and saves the video as a file.  Action: View videos from the list and when you find the one you want to use, click the red button

Step 2.

Action: Choose whether the trainee should Question, Negotiate or Close in response to the simulated customer situation and click the red button

Step 3.

When the trainee makes a decision, whether correct or incorrect, immediate feedback is given either to confirm the correctness of the decision, or to indicate why the decision is wrong. The trainee cannot proceed until the correct decision has been identified. If the trainee's first choice is incorrect, the Learning Management System marks the trainee as 'unqualified' and recycles the exercise to the trainee's workload as a pending training module. Action: Enter the feedback information you want the trainee to see when they click the Question, Negotiate or Close buttons in the red boxes

Step 4.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THIS TEMPLATE FULL-SIZE Action 4a: Choose between 3 and 5 responses the trainee could give to the customer and enter them in the red boxes. This is a good opportunity to introduce common mistakes that need to be eradicated. Action 4b: Choose what type of question or negotiating tactic the response represents (click onscreen Help for a full explanation if you're not sure) and click the appropriate red options. Action 4c: Decide how close the response is to company policy and click  a value in the strategy red box.

Step 5.

When the trainee chooses a response, whether correct or incorrect, immediate feedback is given either to confirm the correctness of the response, or to indicate why the response is wrong. The trainee cannot proceed until the correct response has been chosen. If the trainee's first choice is incorrect, the Learning Management System marks the trainee as 'unqualified' and recycles the exercise to the trainee's workload as a pending training module. Action: Enter the feedback you want the trainee to see when they choose each of the possible responses in the red boxes

Step 6.

It is impossible to save a module with data missing. If any required information has not been entered, red boxes exist on the DataCheck page which, when the cursor is run over them, show what data is missing, and where it needs to be entered Action: Go to the 'DataCheck' page, and click on any red items to find out what you still need to do. When everything is green - click the flashing 'Save module' button and you're done!

Sales Training and Customer Service Training

This video clip is part of a training initiative used by a global multi-national client to develop Best Practice sales competencies. What is quite typical, is that when sales personnel were offered the choice of negotiating, questioning or closing in response to the video, more than 80% chose to negotiate when the correct response is to ask a probing question.

The questioning skill is crucial to achieving a collaborative solution in both sales and customer service situations, and sadly it is generally the skill least displayed by customer-facing sales and service staff. Customers are the lifeblood of a company, yet so many companies treat them overtly as an annoying inconvenience. We are surrounded by examples of companies whose image, frankly, stinks with their customers, and it's easy to see why if you look through the customer's eyes:

All these situations have a commonality in that they all are an effect of accountability failures, and there are two different accountabilities that need to be addressed. Firstly, there is a board level strategic accountability to allocate direction and resources to customer facing systems that are fit for purpose. Secondly, there is  performance accountability by customer-facing management and staff, which is where the use of our Best Practice Transfer products is targeted.

The simulation of real customer situations is considerably more effective than traditional process and information training. With conventional training, trainees are accountable for acquiring knowledge but are not directly accountable for the translation of that knowledge into outcomes in the real world. The "I knew that, but nobody told me it applied here" escape from accountability is no longer valid, as accountability has been moved from knowledge acquisition to specific applications of that knowledge to performances on which the trainee has been provably qualified on the Learning Management System.

This transition to performance accountability is essential to developing a leadership culture in a company as appraisals, evaluations and coaching and mentoring activities need a quantifiable performance benchmark to succeed.