At some point in your business training a customer is
unavoidable...
Whether you are in IT or an electrician...
If you do have to, be great at training...
Because being good at training customers can make your
business stand out.
Let me tell you a story of an experience of training that
made a difference to me changing supplier. For a long time I had used a certain
mobile phone which had a lot of contacts in the address book built up over the
years, and this was the sole reason to stop me changing over to a new phone. I
bet you can’t believe it, but hey, I find things like that just plain annoying.
In the past when I changed phone, I had to write out numbers and names and it
took me a whole day to do, so it was a case of never again.
Anyway, technology has moved on. At the shop, the shop
assistant eased my fears and inertia by showing me how to copy numbers off my
phone into my new phone so that I could do it in minutes when I got home. And
so the deal was done.
Small business training
Every day there will be small businesses training needs,
whether it is for staff or customers. Of course, with staff training this is
easy because you really know your staff and if they get things wrong they can
keep learning and practising to improve. But what if a new prospective customer
can’t get what you are offering them, or cannot get to grips with using what
you offer?
A prospect might only give you one chance or two chances at most.
So you will need to try to make sure your training is as simple and
understandable by anyone possible, even if you are training people with PHD’s.
The reason is that new things are hard for people to know
and fully understand the first time around. So when showing prospects and
clients how to use your products and services, your business needs to make sure
they can understand and do all the processes to get them from A to B.
Then get them to
demonstrate back to you how to do it. If they can’t and they say: “I think I
get it,” try not to leave it to chance, just say: “Well while we are here we
can try it again and it should be easier this time.” Or something along these
lines to ensure they can use your product or service.
Business training home page
When I trained customers, I always had the business training
home page ready as my emergency. Let’s say I’m training a customer to use
software, if they got lost, then we could go to the home page and get them back
to the relevant page in one or two clicks. Once the customer knew this, the
software felt safe and understandable to them. They knew how to ‘reset’ I guess
in a way and start again.
There’s times when I’ve trained online and I can’t see what
the customer is looking at on their screen, because they got adventurous. So if
I thought it was too confusing to try to untangle what they’ve done and make
them feel ruffled, going back to the home page and starting again always helped
them get used to feeling comfortable with the software. There’s always a way to
make customers comfortable with your product or service so try to find out what
that is.
Finance and business training
Simplicity is always important when dealing with finance and
business training. I have worked with financial people and found it easier to
have some pre-calculated examples to show these customers, mainly because they
would definitely be better than me at maths. Plus you can practise examples
which are easy for people to follow to reduce questioning.
But doing any training in finance without preparing and
pre-calculated examples will leave you confused and looking worried in your
training when finance directors start picking holes in your made up examples.
So why leave it to chance?
So, whether you are putting on business training seminars or
there’s a need for someone in your business training individuals, remember
this:
‘Making it easy for
clients to follow and do what you train them can make a difference in whether
they use your product or not’.
Examples include:
Apple: The giant of technology that thinks of everything. Go
to an apple store and you will find that the staff there are willing to show
you how to use the iPads and design software. Once you’ve got familiar and can
use it, you can’t live without it.
Google Maps: Easy to use map software. Just type in a post
code, follow arrows or move a bar to expand or reduce the map size. Who buys road
maps anymore and struggles with trying to find 38A19? (Although I do like to
show I can read a road map when the sat nav is wrong, just to make sure I can
still do it)
Flat – pack furniture: A great way to build furniture if you
are good at following instructions, have tools available, and like to build
furniture. But what if you are not good at building furniture but bought furniture
on assurances from staff that it should be easy to build? Well, many people will
give it a try, make an attempt to build, struggle, get frustrated, and send it
back. Remember, the product, price, design etc were exactly what the customer
wanted at this stage and the order has already been placed; they just needed
help so that they can use it.
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