E-Commerce Sycam

In order to establish an effective employee training and development program at SYCAM Department Store to improve customer service, a training needs assessment must be taken. Included in this assessment will be an organization, task, and person analysis. It is the goal of SYCAM to be the leader in providing quality customer service.

Individuals Involved

The individuals that will be involved in this training needs assessment will be trainers, upper to mid-level managers, and full and part time employees.

Techniques Used

The techniques that will be utilized in this assessment, will be observing employees on the phone with customers as well as on the sales floor, interviewing and conducting focus groups with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to identify tasks and knowledge, skills, and abilities, and other characteristics required in providing outstanding customer service to SYCAM customers.

Organization Analysis

This type of analysis involves identifying whether training will support SYCAM's strategic direction toward being the leader in providing quality customer service. The desired outcome of this organizational analysis is to determine the level of support of this training by managers, trainers, and employees. In addition, this analysis will confirm what resources are available to make customer service training a success. Interviews will be conducted with current trainers and managers to verify information that should be involved in the customer service training as well as specific training needs. In order to obtain the support of managers for this training program, it must be effective as well as prioritize to the business needs. For example, the outcome of this training must have a strategic direction to improve the quality of customer service, which will result in an improvement in SYCAM's customer loyalty. Lastly, it is important to gain the support of all employees who work directly with SYCAM customers. It is very important for employees to understand that this training is to assist in their development and improve their current skill set.

Task Analysis

Once SYCAM's organizational analysis has determined that the company wants to invest time and money for customer service training, a task analysis is performed. This type of analysis is a description of tasks performed by employees as well as their knowledge and skills required to complete tasks. Full and part time employees that work directly with customers will have their job analyzed. With this analysis, a preliminary list of tasks performed on the job will be developed by observation as well as interviews. Once this information is collected, a focus group will answer in a meeting several questions regarding the tasks of the employees analyzed. The desired end result of this analysis will be