How do we measure training? It’s a question I hear frequently from my prospective Pinnacle Performance tire/auto service clients. By that they mean, “we’ve budgeted X amount of dollars for sales and/or customer service training, how do we measure our results and ensure we receive a worthwhile return on our investment?”
That is a great question, one I would no doubt ask if it were I in their position.
An obvious answer is to track and record sales results, close rates, customer appointments and other key performance metrics prior to training and then compare them to the results after training. While that is certainly recommended and should be charted throughout the course of any training implementation, this method does little to let you know how you stand in real time.
The best way to measure the effectiveness of training and employee’s sales performance is to evaluate activity at the point-of-sale.
There are two point-of-sale areas that tire business owners should be monitoring on a day-to-day basis; face-to-face and telephone interactions.
For an objective look at employee performance in face-to-face interactions, I highly recommend contracting the services of a professional mystery shopping company. A high-caliber mystery shop company will use well-trained “secret shoppers” to provide you with an accurate picture of a potential customers perspective while conducting business with your company. Over my 10+ years in the training industry, I have had experience with both very good and a few not-so-good mystery shop companies. If you’re looking for a recommendation, email me at steve@saleawayllc.com and I’ll provide my best choice for your consideration.
Then there’s the phone. As detailed in my Top 3 Reasons Why Phone Skills Training Is Most Important In Sales article, for business’s that sell both face-to-face and on-the-phone, phone skills is the most important area of employee development.
The best way to manage employee performance on the phone is to record and evaluate actual customer calls. While call-in mystery shops can be useful to establish a baseline and determine if employees are performing their selling fundamentals, these scripted interactions simply don’t have the spontaneity and challenge employees the way genuine customer calls do.
I am quite familiar with the companies that provide call recording services and have found none better than my resource partners at Convirza (formerly LogMyCalls). For ease of operation, recording and tracking capabilities, scorecard administration and reporting analytics their program is simply top notch and my recommendation for all my Pinnacle Performance clients.
A PROVEN PROCESS
As described in my Are Your Salespeople ‘Winging It’ On The Phone? article, our 50,000+ customer/salesperson interaction evaluations have proven that, before training, the vast majority of employees are indeed ‘winging it’ on their calls. With no real sales process they default to order takers, create little to no meaningful customer engagement, and most often sell on price alone.
In my Pinnacle Performance Training for the tire/auto service industry, I teach clients a finely-tuned, proven process to engage prospective customers on the phone, improve customer relations and your brand image, sell value over price, and win more business on a day-to-day basis!
BEEN THERE NOT DOING THAT
It’s important to note that many companies are already recording their customer calls. If so, you’re only halfway there. The other half – the more important half – is monitoring and evaluating those calls on how well employees are meeting, or not meeting, the established selling system.
In the case of my clients, industry-specific scorecards are created to evaluate and measure every element of our proprietary Pinnacle Performance sales process as tailored for the business. Armed with the evaluation data, we can then pinpoint precisely where an employee is weak or missing key elements and provide the coaching to improve sales/customer service performance in real time!
As renowned management consultant Peter Drucker said: “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” That is certainly true of sales/customer service training and there’s no better way than evaluating employees real-time performance at the point-of-sale.
For details on Call Recording/ Evaluation Services for your tire/auto service business visit > MEASURING TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
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Steve Ferrante is the Grand PooBah & Trainer of Champions of Sale Away LLC. As producer and host of Pinnacle Performance, “The Best Reviewed Sales/Customer Service Training Program in the Tire/Auto Service Industry”, Steve has received national acclaim for teaching independent tire and auto service businesses how to improve customer relations, produce greater sales results and build a ‘winning team’ corporate culture. Steve is also contributing “Selling Smart” editor for Tire Review Magazine.
To learn more about Pinnacle Performance Training for your tire/auto service business, visit Pinnacle Performance Training. Steve can be reached directly at 866-721-6086 ext. 701 or via email at steve@saleawayllc.com
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