Do your customers sometimes have negative experiences with your brand? It's totally normal, but it can drain your energy and reduce the time you have to make strides in other areas of business. The good news is that you CAN fix it. In order to manage and reduce these experiences, it's important to understand what causes them. It's usually unmet expectations, which stems from inconsistent experiences. If someone's friend tells them to go to a certain coffee shop, because they had free biscotti, but then when you go, they don't- you are obviously unhappy. You don't have employees trying to give bad service. You have employees doing their best with what they have, and if they don't have detailed instructions and good training on the ideal brand experience, and how to deliver that, their service will fall short of the customer's expectations.
You WANT your customers to have consistently positive experiences, but something is missing. You need a real time way to reach out to all of your staff to let them know what the issues are, and give them better training to enable more consistent experiences. You know that your staff is technologically inclined and needs in-the-moment training, but you may not know the best way to deliver it. Just in time training is used by all the finest brands to implement consistently brilliant experiences for their guests. It may be product training, details on which items are approved for samples, or customer service training on returns, but your staff definitely needs it.
The way we learn has changed completely from 20 years ago. We ask Google for the weather report and to turn on the TV. We search online for the best restaurant, and we read reviews like crazy. The 21st century is all about crowdsourcing and mobile learning within highly technical spaces. This has caused a shift in what works best for training, particularly in the retail and restaurant industries. Reading a stale handbook is a start, but it's not going to put the information in terms of a real life situations and engage the employees mind. Mobile learning enables active learning and increased engagement. This style of learning is gaining traction because it works better and supports results for the companies that have implemented it.
The average retail employee needs at least 5-10 hours of training before they are considered trained on the basics. Unfortunately, this training is usually done by another retail employee that wasn't trained properly. Or, you can give them a connection to a mobile learning app that enables just in time learning and pulls them into situations that support active learning. It will still take time to train your employees, but overall, it will be faster. Plus, you are enabling your employees which empowers them and results in greater engagement. That's a win/win in our books.
For more information on mobile learning, download our guide, "5 Steps to Restore Brand Consistency in Your Restaurant."
