Evaluation Results
Of the 172 participants surveyed, completed surveys were received from
127 participants (74%). To test for a possible response bias, a random sample (12 participants) of those 45 non respondents was surveyed by telephone. Of the 127 respondents, 77 (61%) indicated that they had made at
least one application of the Maxidata course learnings in a customer service
situation. It is surprising that of all the respondents, 50 (39%) indicatedthat
they had made no use of the Maxidata course learning since completing the
course. Possible survey response rate bias. In SCM studies, the survey tends to find
more users of the learning responding to the survey whereas non respondents
tend to be those with little or no learning application. Calls to a random sample
of 12 non respondents to the survey found only one more person who reported
usage of the training. The outcome of that one instance was rated by the service
representative as less than fully successful. This led us to believe that the
non respondents were likely to represent those who did not make much successful use of their training. Although we did not add all of these numbers into the
reported nonusers, we did feel very comfortable in reporting that the 39% who
did not use the training at all were probably an under representation and that the
actual proportion of trainees who made no use of the training was greater than
40%. For purposes of simple and clear communication, we reported a nonuseestimate of 40% in the remainder of our reporting documents andactivities.
Outcomes of service applications
. The survey asked respondents to rate the
outcomes of the service they provided using their Maxidata training. Of those
who reported using their Maxidata learning with a customer, all claimed a positive result. Follow-up phone interviews confirmed the success cases. We could
not find any substantial differences in the nature and value of the service
outcomes achieved among those respondents who reported adequate outcomes,
those who reported very successful outcomes, and those who reported something in between these choices. There was no doubt from the findings that the
training, when applied, was successful with satisfaction to the customer
. But
such results were claimed for only 60% of the respondents. Given the non
-
responses, it was likely that this 60% estimate was exaggerated
.
Evidently, the training was working well when it was being used. How-
ever, there was a large proportion of the trainees who were making no use of
their training at all. Had this been a mandatory, soft-skill training, this finding would not be surprising. Yet, this was technical training for a very specific purpose: initializing and servicing newly installed customer computer
equipment. And, it was very expensive training that took a service technician out of the field for a full 2 weeks. The cost of training all of these nonusers was in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Given the pressure to serve
customers and save money in a market of declining profits, the question
would be, Why would people go through training and not use it not even once?