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Posts Tagged ‘business training’

Maintaining good records, employee benefits, and solid numbers are all considered an important part of any successful business, be it big or small. It is a common rule in business that if you want your business to succeed your costs and expenses need to be less than your sales. And if you want to draw in strong, well educated, employees you need some sort of 401k , health insurance, and benefits package. Unfortunately, once the employees are hired not much is done by the company to keep them well trained and working happily, much less help them improve their stations. This is where the importance of building a strong foundation of employee-training programs comes in.  Business training programs are a great way to help your employees further their education. These programs can help your company as well. Well-educated employees that are at the top of their game are going to help keep your company at the top of its game with new and fresh ideas. Knowledge begets understanding and understanding begets freedom. When employees understand what they are doing and why they are doing it, they will feel more freedom to excel at their jobs and come up with innovative new ideas. Management training programs help employees develop the skills they will need to one day be in management as well as further understand the methods and expectations of the company. They can also help employers identify future leaders for the company. The bottom line is this, employee-training programs offer new opportunities for employees to learn and grow. They will be better equipped to offer new insight if they have a better understanding of how and why the company works. Employee-training programs also help employers, and the company, by allowing a flow of better trained, highly motivated employees. It is something that no company should go without.

Why is it that some businesses retain loyal customers, while other seem to just barely make it?  What is it that creates the attachment to one specific place, even though it may not be the nicest or the fanciest, as in a small local pub as opposed to a trendy and fancy club.  The one is filled every night with people who have been going there for years, while the other seems to just wilt away until the next trendy club takes its place.  Check any business training manual and one of the first topics to be discussed, are those frequently used words, customer service.  This is one of the many lessons I learned years ago working in a small, sixteen seat Italian restaurant.  We were packed with a two hour wait every night of the week, while the bigger and more fancy restaurant across the street sat empty.  The food there was Italian as well, and to be honest it was just as good.  What our tiny restaurant they just couldn’t compete with, and that was honest and open customer service.

A management training program will give managers the tools to use themselves, as well as to pass on to their staff, regarding the importance of customer service.  But the thing is, it must be genuine.  When regulars would come in, even the chef’s would come to sing happy birthday, and many of the times, the regulars would head back to the kitchen just to say “Hi” to the dishwasher.  Customers and the staff celebrated the holidays together, and we knew the names of everyone’s children.  A few years later I worked in a larger corporate restaurant in Arizona that was not so successful.  We were told exactly what to say and how to say it, and when to smile.  But if we did happen to strike up a real conversation with one of our tables, we were scolded later for not using that time to sweep the steps or polish the furniture.  The customer service was forced, and not genuine.  In Chicago, the customers felt like part of the Via Carducci family, because they really were.  The customer service was really just us taking care of our friends, and it was a great way to work.