Mechanics from Huurre Group meet many customers every day. They play a big role and carry huge responsibility for creating the right customer experience. It is not enough anymore to repair the refrigerating piece of equipment or system – also other skills are required.
„We have trained our maintenance personnel for meeting the customers, but the trainings were too far from everyday work and resulted in only temporary improvements. The message was just not convincing. This time we wanted to do things differently“, says Ilpo Mäkelä, Head of Maintenance Services at Huurre Group.
Muutostaito managed a project that aimed at better understanding and measuring of the customer experience as well as getting better tools for supervisory work and training.
Customer experience information was collected through interviews with current and potential customers. Some of the interviews were videotaped, as were several maintenance visits of different mechanics.
The most important topics were taken up in workshops of the maintenance business group. All mechanics and maintenance supervisors from Finland were participating in the workshops, as were several members of the management team.
Muutostaito’s gamified workshop surprised the participants. „We never got so honest and positive feedback. Many participants said this was the best training day they ever had“, says Ilpo Mäkelä.
For the workshop the participants formed several groups. These groups had to discuss questions about everyday situations involving customers. Questions could be like the following: how do I announce that I will come for on-site service? How do I make sure the customer knows when my work is completed?
These questions did not have right or wrong answers. It was all about describing different ways of working and justifying them in the discussion.
„Since there were no right answers there was a lot of discussion. The groups trained each other without even noticing it. When one participant described his own actions, the others got new ideas for their own behaviour. In addition, video clips showed how other colleagues behaved in the type of situation under discussion“, adds Mäkelä.
Video clips also brought the customer perspective into the workshop.
„This time there was no consultant saying what the customer wants. Customers said it themselves in the video clips. Those were memorable customer statements.“
Though training sessions were long, everybody participated actively. The gamified approach, the close relation to everyday practical work and Muutostaito’s facilitator’s humoristic yet firm approach helped to keep up the spirit and interest. Also, the prizes were carefully thought through, as an attractive prize wakes up the participants“, explains Mäkelä.
Often the learnings of a training day do not follow into everyday work practices, but this time there were concrete learnings for everyday work for both participants and the organization.
In the workshop, every participant made a personal pledge. These pledges showed that the customer video clips had made a deep impression.“ More than one participant promised to regularly announce the on-site visit and report about the completion of the task to the customer from now on“, states Mäkelä.
These promises change everyday behaviour. The customer is asked for feedback after every on-site visit.
The training material from the workshops is still in use. „We use the video clips and cases in the orientation programme for new employees“, says Mäkelä.