March 12, 2003
Dear Everyone:
I’ve been very busy this week with training the telephone Operators in using an electronic document management system. Here’s the interesting thing: They have exactly one (1) document in their database. Just one.
So far, that’s all they need. When you call an 800 number and hear, “Thank you for calling FIB (fill in blank)…” you’re talking to an Operator. What you want to talk about determines how the Operator handles your call.
If you say, “I have a question about my credit card,” that opens a whole can of worms. Are you asking about…
- Your credit card with the Company?
- Your company-issued credit card that you use
for business expenses?
- That you want to get a credit card, in which
case which kind?
- Etcetera!
Over time, the Operators have built up a listing of
possible answers to questions.
This list is in a
Word document.
The Word document (two-columns per page) is currently at around
92 pages. It’s sort of
listed in alphabetical order, with lots and lots of cross-references.
Every time a new question arises, the answer is added to the
document in case the question comes up again.
Everything from “How do I reach an offshore xxx in the
Recently, the Operators’ supervisor decided they should have a more automated system for looking these things up, so we put the document into the electronic system which, among other things, indexes every word in the document and allows for keyword searching. Last week, I started training the people in how to use the keyword searching, continuing this week (there are a total of 12 people who needed to be trained.)
There are several tricks to training.
First: Know your subject. Learn the system completely before you try to teach it to someone else.
Second: Arm yourself. Have written documentation in hand, everything from step-by-step directions to a “quick reference guide”, also known as a “cheat sheet”. Keep your directions as simple as possible. The object here is not to prove how smart you are, but how well you can explain things to people who are not well-versed in the system.
Second, part two: Bring food, games, toys. Bribe your trainees whenever necessary. This time I used shamrock cookies, yo-yo’s and pinwheels.
Almost invariably, you get someone who, for whatever reason, doesn’t want to learn the new way. They like the old way. (This is not entirely true: Generally these people hate the old way, they just hate the new way more.) These are the people who are happiest when they have something to complain about. They see the glass as half-empty.
And they will want to argue with you. The trick is to not let that happen. If you’re in a large, classroom setting, push it over to the “issue bin” (an imaginary holding place for discussions). If you’re going one-on-one, as I was last week and this week, agree with them. (Nothing takes the wind out of a person’s sails like agreeing with them.) Say something like, “You’re absolutely right, this way does take one or two steps more than the old way. That’s part of the tradeoff to get (fill in advantage here). By the way, have another cookie.” (It’s hard to argue with your mouth full of cookies.)
It’s also difficult to be negative while playing with a yo-yo and/or pinwheel.
In other news, we got “Jeannie’s” PC back from the computer store. They diagnosed the problem as “a software problem”, which is technician-ese for “I have no idea what the hell is causing the problem”. They suggested changing Internet browser systems, so we did that. And the problem appeared to be solved. At least while I was there. But “Jeannie” called tonight to say the problem had come back again. The computer freezes whenever she’s on the Internet. So I’ll see what I can come up with next weekend.
Finally, I’ve decided that my birthday present to myself this year will be shutters for all the windows. They will add to the value of the house and will allow me to make use of the cooler evening breezes in the summer, while maintaining a modicum of privacy. And besides, they’re on sale right now.
Love, as always,
Pete
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