It’s that time of year again…time to reflect upon the achievements of the current year and strategize goals for next year. For those with direct reports, this includes self-reflection, reflecting on your team as a whole, and goal setting for each individual team member. Whew! This can be a lot to take on in addition to your day-to-day responsibilities. Rest assured that taking the time to plan goals for the year can save you and your team a great deal of time in the long run. Having clearly defined goals, and knowing how those goals relate to the larger goals of the department or company as a whole, can increase employee motivation and therefore increase individual, department, and company success.
Career goals are important to address each year. Having career goals, and a plan in place to achieve those goals, can help members of your service and support team feel valued and understand how important they are to the overall success of the organization. A training game plan is often needed to get yourself and your team on the right path to achieving those goals. Many of the characteristics of a successful support center can be directly attributed to its training program. Effective training programs impact almost every aspect of the service and support center, including customer satisfaction, new business growth, and employee turnover rates, to name a few.
Effective training programs impact almost every aspect of the service and support center, including customer satisfaction, new business growth, and employee turnover rates.
Quality assurance programs and skills gap analyses provide valuable input to determine training needs. Each person is different and training is not a one size fits all solution. For example, a service and support analyst may need more focus on the operational day-to-day processes and customer service. Team leads and managers may need more focus on tactical elements of their position and ways to improve team motivation and communication. Directors may need more focus on strategy.
Take the time to identify needs:
- Identify the skill gaps
- Determine what type of training will be required to fill those gaps
- Prioritize the training needs
- Establish an ongoing review cycle
Many methods of training are available for service and support professionals, including on-the-job training, elearning, virtual classrooms, and instructor-led training.
While training can be costly in terms of time and money, so can the costs of not investing in your team. Be sure you balance the investment with the return.
Looking to invest in training for your team? HDI’s 2018 course catalog is available online.
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Kate Bloom in an instructional designer for HDI where she specializes in curriculum design and development for instructor led and virtual classrooms and works closely with subject matter experts and thought leaders in the IT industry. She also has a passion for developing e-learning courses and staying current with emerging technology and trends. Kate excels in taking complex topics and taming them into creative, interactive courses suited to fit the target audience. She also holds HDI Customer Service Representative and Support Center Analyst Certifications. Connect with Kate on LinkedIn.