Pipeline Articles
BEST PRACTICES IN TRAINING NEW TECHNOLOGY
How to ensure a smooth transition and avoid common training pitfalls when rolling out new technology.
By Rebecca Gibson,
Interactive IntelligenceW hat’s one event that every contact center manager simultaneously welcomes and fears? A new technology implementation. “Welcomes” because new technology promises enhanced capabilities and efficiencies. “Fears” because a technology implementation usually comes with tight timeframes and requires heroic training efforts to get the new tools trained and successfully rolled out on time.
Unfortunately, almost every contact center manager can share painful war stories that illustrate how NOT to roll out new technology in the contact center. You, of course, want to avoid the common pitfalls, and better yet, take a proactive approach to ensure that the contact center team is confident and prepared to seamlessly transition to using the new technology features and tools.
With a test lab of thousands of Interactive Intelligence customers, we’ve identified best practices for contact centers and training teams that will increase the likelihood of a smooth transition and successful adoption of the new technology. The following are some of the key recommendations.
Involve Training Early
Whether you’re planning for a simple system upgrade that offers a few new agent features, a new-to-the-contact-center technology tool like webchat, or a communication platform replacement, “early” is when the decision is made to implement the new technology. You may think, “It’s too early to involve the training department at this point. We don’t know enough of the details.” Stop! The time to engage the training team is when you know a change is coming.
Involve them from the beginning to determine:
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How the new technology will impact and integrate with existing processes and workflows, which will determine the scope of training. For instance, if you are
implementing CTI that integrates with your CRM, the training scope encompasses more than just the functionality of the CTI screen. In this case, the training focuses on the new technology-facilitated call flow, with the CTI technology positioned as a supporting component of the new call flow. After all, the purpose of CTI isn’t just a “screen pop,” it’s a method to more effectively respond to incoming customer interactions by proactively providing valuable information with the call.
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How much of a shift the new technology represents and how best to approach that shift. It’s the training team’s business to know their customers and their customers’
work. Trainers play a critical role in determining how and when to communicate upcoming changes to workflow and technology to set the stage for a successful training, as well as how to develop a training approach and content that will support skill-building and promote confidence in applying the new skills. It’s not uncommon for system developers to make a feature change that seems like “no big deal,” but which ends up being a very big deal for the end user.
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How to incorporate your system implementation timeline into the training team’s strategic training direction and operational plan. The winds of change shift quickly in training departments and training managers are used to that. But outcomes are ALWAYS better when the training department is able to prepare for transitions that rely on their participation. The training team knows what their workload is, what the training calendar looks like for the rest of the year, and the strategic objectives assigned to their team. When the request comes late in the process, there is less time for them to plan and consider the best, most creative, most efficient approach.
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How much support the vendor will provide and how valuable that is. If a vendor is involved in the implementation, the beginning of the project is the time to ask about Rebecca Gibson
Interactive Intelligence
support tools that will be available. Don’t make assumptions when you see “training included” in your contract. With some vendors, that might be a few cheat sheets and
“help.” With others, it’s a full training curriculum, delivered by the vendor. See the sidebar on page 36 for questions to ask when you talk training with your software vendor.
The bottom line is, leaving training planning to the last minute, or handing training responsibility over to your vendor, puts your implementation at risk. Your training team should take the reins early and continue to develop and revise the training plan throughout the life of the project.
Make a Business Case for Your Proposed Training Plan
Once the training team has had a chance to identify the scope of the new technology and the impact on processes and workflows, they need to document the proposed approach. This is an opportunity for the training team to demonstrate that they are attuned to and aligned with the needs of the business. Their goal is to determine the minimum time and financial investment necessary to achieve the desired outcomes:
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If it’s a simple upgrade, can training be accomplished with a video explanation and demonstration of the new features and the impact to existing processes, with a short follow-up during the next team huddle to answer questions, test retention and gauge confidence?
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If classroom training is necessary, how long will it be and what will be accomplished in that time? How can the team make classroom training more efficient and lessen the impact of lost productivity on the business? For instance, can a document be shared ahead of the training that positions the scope of the new technology and the processes it will affect so trainers can jump right into the classroom lesson? Can you take a blended approach, in which agents complete an elearn module before the training that covers the new features and processes, and use the classroom time for hands-on practice and interaction?
I’m not suggesting, of course, that the training team skimp on training or acquiesce to demands to “make it shorter.” That’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid. The training plan proactively describes:
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The recommended training approach, including:
- delivery method;
- time requirement;
- financial investment for elearn and job aid development; and
- why this is the best approach (and why the team didn’t choose other approaches, if they are common delivery methods in your contact center).
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The outcome(s) the training team believes that this approach will accomplish and that will be measured.
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The potential training barriers and risks associated with the project, and the risk plan, which details how the training team and contact center leadership have agreed to address them (see “Identify Barriers and Agreement, and Create a Risk Plan”).
Identify Barriers and Agreements, and Create a Risk Plan
An important part of any training plan is the honest identification of barriers to success, stakeholder agreements to mitigate or address those risks, and a clear risk plan.
All too often, the training plan is created using a best-case scenario, for instance: “IT will be
ready to go with a fully functional system when training is slated to start. We’ll have a training environment that mirrors the live environment. We’ll have all the details about how the new features will work or impact our work.”
But, let’s be honest. That isn’t always the case. And the time to start talking about those less-than-ideal scenarios is before they occur.
It is critical that the training team identify potential barriers, based on what they know about the project, their experience with the contact center, concurrent initiatives, and other environmental and cultural factors. This is where it’s helpful for the training team to be involved in project meetings and develop relationships with project team members so they can keep track of project progress, identify emerging barriers and risks, and identify alternative training scenarios.
Here’s an example of a training team that has identified system readiness as a potential barrier to the training plan and their proactive plan to gain stakeholder agreement about how to handle the barrier, should it occur:
Barrier: The system is not ready when training is scheduled to begin.
Risk: If the system isn’t ready, we will have to train with PowerPoints and screenshots.
Agents won’t have hands-on practice. This will decrease agent confidence at go-live, possibly impact agent morale and confidence in leadership, and make it more likely that agents will not follow the required processes or use the system functionality correctly at go-live. We know that retraining agents when we haven’t trained them correctly in the first place creates agent dissatisfaction and puts the customer experience at risk, as well.
Option 1: Move forward with PowerPoint and screenshot training. We will, of course, attempt to make the best of this “better than nothing” approach by shoring up go-live support and distributing job aids and other print support materials.
Option 2: Delay the start of training and the go-live date to provide for hands-on training and to support what we believe are better outcomes from a performance, morale and customer experience perspective.
Option 3: Delay training. Double up training classes by training after hours and on Saturdays. Assuming the system readiness is not delayed beyond January 5th, this will ensure that we will meet our go-live date, but will require compulsory overtime and the costs associated with overtime. In the past, this approach has put a great deal of stress on contact center resources, resulting in increased absenteeism and work-life balance conflicts for agents and support team members.
The Training team strongly recommends Option 2 because it allows us to deliver the training approach that we know will result in the best system implementation outcome(s).
We would like to discuss this alternative scenario with project stakeholders so we can come to agreement about what we will do if the system is not training-ready by the current December 15th training readiness date.
Design Training from a Functional, Not Feature, Perspective
The training team has designed the training approach and they know what delivery method
they’re using. Now it’s time to develop the materials. Regardless of whether your company
employs a seasoned instructional designer or employs the services of a gifted supervisor, a key
rule of user-focused software training is to create all training content from a functional (how to
complete a task or a process) rather than a feature-driven viewpoint. It’s an easy shift to make, but an important shift for training participants. Here is an example from a training manual:
Feature-driven
view Training Topic 2: “Ask for Assistance” button Functional-driven
view How to request supervisor assistance using the “Ask for Assistance” feature
In training, the goal isn’t to teach agents to use the new technology features. It’s to teach them how to perform the required work processes using technology. It’s important distinction that will play a critical role in the transition of learning from the classroom to the job. A successful training is one in which the participants understand the context of the new technology, how it will be incorporated into their work processes, and how to do that.
This is why getting your hands on your vendor’s materials early in the project is so important.
Your software vendor’s materials are most likely feature-driven, since their standard materials aren’t customized for your work environment and processes. Outcomes will be better if you build in the time and resources to allow your training team to adjust those to materials to support your agents’ functional work flow (what they need to do).
Identify the Desired Outcomes and Test for Them
Of course, the goal of new technology training is to “teach employees how to use the new software,” but how are you going to determine if the training team is successful? What are the specific training outcomes that can be measured to determine if training hits the mark and if agents are ready to go live on the new system? Work with the training team to apply the standard four levels of training evaluation to technical training:
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Level 1 Reaction: Ask participants to evaluate training and be prepared to adjust. If at all possible, ask the first class to share their suggestions for improvement in a short, facilitated conversation at the end of the session (in addition to your standard Level 1 evaluations) and make adjustments for subsequent classes.
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Level 2 Learning: Ask participants to perform the required tasks or processes in a simulated environment. Depending on the complexity and level of risk, you can pair up participants and have them provide each other with feedback, or you can create a higher-stakes environment in which the participant must pass the Level 2 evaluation using a set of predefined criteria.
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Level 3 Behavior: Gather information on go-live day that can be used to determine how well agents were able to translate what they learned in the training environment on the job. Use this information to honestly assess the effectiveness of training approach and to identify if additional remedial training is required. Did the training approach hit the mark? If any of the barriers that were identified in the training plan became a reality, how did the training team’s adjusted approach work? Were there barriers the team didn’t identify that you should remember the next time?
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Level 4 Results: As the business attempts to determine if the new technology
is providing the return projected during the sales cycle, training is an important
component of that analysis. If, for example, the new software feature promised a
shorter handle time, but at six months post-implementation, handle time has stayed
the same, could it be that agents aren’t using the feature correctly? Did a training failure—not a feature shortcoming—influence the business result? Can it be fixed now so the return can be realized?
Of course, this is why training should know how the business impact of the new system will be measured—so they can outline their approach with the desired outcomes.
In some ways, training new technology isn’t that different than other types of training. What is different is the complexity of these projects—newly formed teams working under aggressive timelines, conflicting priorities, interrelated dependencies, and the convergence of IT, the contact center, the business, training and vendors. A strong training team with a seat at the table during planning and decision-making ensures that the maximum return the company expects on their technology investments is realized on the contact center floor.
ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
WHEN YOU TALK TRAINING WITH YOUR SOFTWARE VENDOR
You read the software contract and see that “training” is included with the technology you purchased. Great! Now, make sure you understand the details of what the vendor will deliver.
If the vendor is delivering the training:
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Who will provide the training? What are their qualifications and experience?
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How is the success of training measured? Do you provide us with the Level 1 (participant reaction) results? Do you conduct Level 2 (learning) evaluations and provide us with the results, or will we be responsible for these activities?
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How and when is the training scheduled? What if our go-live date shifts? Does the training shift, too?
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What is the training approach? Classroom? Blended? Hands-on? Can we see the descriptions, agendas and outlines now?
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How long is the training? Is it a train-the-trainer format or will you train all of our users? What is the limit to the number of participants or sessions?
If the vendor is providing training materials for initial or ongoing training:
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Will you provide us with copies of the training materials that we can customize?
What format are those materials in?
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What materials are provided? User manuals? Job aids and cheat sheets?
PowerPoint presentations? When will we have access to the material library?
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Do you provide elearn or video training support? Are those modules available on an ongoing basis to support new-hire training, or just up to go-live?
Rebecca Gibson
is a Strategic Consultant with Interactive Intelligence.[email protected] (317) 493-4746
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