Question

Ali recently became a manager at a local furniture store that employs three managers and 55 non- managerial employees. As larger furniture stores such as IKEA and Home Center are coming to the area, the owner is concerned about losing customers to competition based on the price of products.

The management team met and discussed their strategic response to this problem. The team agreed that if profit levels did not rise in the next few months, some employees would need be terminated. It was decided that the furniture store would compete using customized designs and better customer service. Ali’s responsibility was to train all non-managerial employees in good customer relation skills, and was given a budget of AED65,000 for this.

After contacting several training providers, Ali has narrowed down his options to the following three training programs:

Expert Trainers Inc.

Al Jumeirah Consultants

Al Areej Training Services

Training Program: How to Build Long-Lasting Customer Relations? Three-Day workshop for AED35,000

Method: Lecture, Group Discussion, and Activities

Maximum Trainees: 50 per session

Training Program: Customer Service Skills One-Day Seminar for AED8,000

Method: Lecture and Question-Answer Session Maximum Trainees: 70 per session

Training Program: Customer Satisfaction Training for Sales Staff Three-Day workshop for AED25,000

Method: Customized Simulations with Feedback

Maximum Trainees: 25 per session

Each of the three options has its own advantages and disadvantages. Ali has been comparing these three options and is unsure if he should pick one of these or go with a different approach altogether. At this stage he is not even sure if training the employees would even help.

Case Questions

3. Ali is unsure regarding the importance of the training program. Explain the process that can be carried out to address this problem.

Answer 1

Importance of Training program

This is very important to understand the importance of training. Training helps in overall development of an employee. Training helps in increasing knowledge base as well as help organisation to grow much faster as well as to compete the competition in a better way. Now lets understand various benefits of Training Program:

1) Improving Employee Performance

There are various ways to complete a task. It means a person can do a particular task in more than one ways. But it is important to understand what is better way to do that. It is also important to understand what is cost effective way to complete a task. Now proper training will help in employee motivation and morale which will lead to build up confidence in employee to perform in much better way. Now for a local furniture store if employes are properly motivated then they will be able to make good relations with current customers as well as they would be able to handle new customers as well.

2) Increased Productivity & Consistency

When a employee attends a training session, he/she not only get himself aware of current market practices but also latest trends and technique which will untimately results in better productivity as well as also helps employee to be consistent in his/her job performance. For a local furniture store this is very important. If employees will be properly trained then they can help customers in a better way. Means they can not only understand customers need as well as suggest them better suggestions as per their requirements.

3) SWOT Understanding

Now a days it is very much important for any potential as well as current employee to get aware of his/her SWOT. It means "S" - "Strength", "W" - "Weakness", "O"-"Opprtunity", "T"-"Threat". If he/she understand his/her SWOT then he can focus on his development of Stregth & Opportunity and removal of Weakness & threats. Training helps in doing so. When employee will understand his SWOT then he/she can perform much better.

4) Inovation & Creativity

Training helps in upskilling of the employee to creat something new. New ideas can be formed as a direct result of training and development. This will help local furniture store to not only attract new customers but also to sucessfully retain old ones.

5) Improves Company's Reputation and Performance

Having a strong and successful training strategy helps to develop an employer brand and gets company's performance to a new height. Training also makes a company more attractive to potential new recruits who seek to improve their skills and the opportunities associated with those new skills. Overall this will help Local Furniture store to sucessfully compete with upcoming compeitions.

Now Ali have AED 65000 and he have three options. But as per management/owner Ali should focus on customized designs and better customer service along with increasing profit levels.

A) Training Program: How to Build Long-Lasting Customer Relations? Three-Day workshop for AED35,000

This training seems to be focusing on building Long-Lasting Customer Relations which at current scenario doesn't seems giving proper results which owner wants. As competition is just at the door, this training will give results in long term.

B) Training Program: Customer Service Skills One-Day Seminar for AED8,000

This training seems good. This will be One day and can train all 55employees at a go. This training will enhanse employee's customer service skills. This means they can perform much better in customer's satisfaction.

C) Training Program: Customer Satisfaction Training for Sales Staff Three-Day workshop for AED25,000

This training will focus on how to make customer satisfy. As per owner they are planning to make customize designs. so this training will help employees to gain knowledge on how to make customer satisfy but for that they need to have knowledge about understanding customer's need first.