Back in early 2005, Hoover approached specialist training company, Beyond The Box, to provide a field training team that would help them to increase market share and promote the Hoover brand in key retail outlets throughout the UK.

The solution suggested by Beyond The Box was to set up national training team under the guidance of a national training manager. This team of 10 regional trainer merchandisers would cover the whole of the UK and have responsibility for several key elements in the retail/purchasing environment.

“The brief from Hoover was to train retail staff on Hoover products to ensure that they had a positive response to the Hoover brand and that they demonstrated confidence and knowledge to offer Hoover products to customers,” comments Christine Knott, Managing Director of Beyond The Box. “Our trainers visit the stores on average once a month which helps the team to develop key relationships with stores staff. The training is provided either one to one or in group sessions.”

But the regional trainers don’t just offer training for the retail staff, they also act as ambassadors for the Hoover brand. Whilst in store they check that the product is displayed correctly on the shop floor, place point of sale material, ensure that all Hoover products are clean and undamaged and then action any specific area that requires attention.

“We wanted the team to provide Hoover with feedback not only on the training that the retail staff were receiving but also to provide a monthly snapshot of the stores they were visiting. This includes commercial information about competitors, price changes and product placement as well as feedback on the condition of the goods in store,” said Christine.

Feedback from Hoover has been very positive. The training support programme has been running for over two years and has been very effective. The team has received positive feedback from retail outlets around the country. At Currys in Watford training on washing machines was provided. Two weeks later the trainer returned to the store to be told that the member of staff she had trained had been selling Hoover washing machines due to the training he had received, where he’d never sold them before.

At Comet in Pontefract a member of staff now only sells Hoover products because she feels confident with them since she received the training. At Comet in Chester, the training manager helped store sales manager Tom, increase his sales for MDA by 80% that day.

Mark Barratt, Marketing Director for the Hoover Candy Group comments, “Having a field training team provides us with more direct access to the consumer at the decision making point. The team provides us with feedback from the sales staff as to how the consumers feel about our products. Another benefit of using a face to face team is that they are able to improve product knowledge in a way that written information simply cannot. The team also help to develop effective POS and merchandising with the sales staff to ensure they are comfortable with our product range. All of this means that the sales staff, after training, are able to sell our products with confidence.”

Pat Smith, recently retired Sales Director for Hoover Floorcare, comments, “Hoover sales have increased year on year as a direct result of the Beyond The Box training team being in-store.”

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There are many companies who offering specialised training to call centres throughout the UK but very few of these will carry out any research before starting a job. Beyond The Box was commissioned by the Co-operative Bank to identify the training needs and requirements of 100 inbound telephone sales staff. The overall objective of this exercise was to deliver increased levels of sales and customer service by providing the right training course for the right staff.Christine Knott, Director of Beyond The Box, undertook extensive research in order to meet this objective. The purpose of the research was to establish whether the department had a suitable foundation on which it could reach its desired goals. This included looking at whether the current method and times of training delivery was suitable and gauging the response of the advisors towards the training they received.

“It is vital when designing bespoke training courses for companies to ascertain what the current level of understanding is at all levels within the company. If individual objectives have been set then these need to be compared with the overall objective of the training. To do a training job properly you have to get under the skin of an organisation and understand how it works so that the course that you design will actually work from the ground level up,” said Christine.

The research used several methods including interviewing staff at all levels including those in the front line, dealing with the calls, through to staff at managerial level. Beyond The Box also prepared an analysis of current call standards and attended team meetings to assess communication levels within the department.

The Co-operative Bank also had objectives for each member of staff and Beyond The Box looked into all of these objectives and how these linked into the departments’ overall objectives.

The results of the research indicated that certain measures needed to be taken before any training delivery would be beneficial. Julie Marsh, Customer Service Manager at the Co-operative Bank comments, “Following Christine’s recommendations and guidance, we have carried out some extensive groundwork and any training delivered will be far more successful as a result.

“The research undertaken by Beyond The Box was, in my experience, far more detailed than any other company I have worked with and it exceeded my expectations. More importantly it was undertaken in a professional and non- threatening manner. Positive feedback about Christine’s approach and style were made by all members of staff who came into contact with her. It is refreshing to see a forward thinking company who are keen to see real results rather than just delivering empty training solutions for financial gain.”

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Christmas is a key time of year for sales for retailers but it also brings with it the added problem of bringing in temporary staff to cover this very busy time of year. The problem that many retailers experience is that the temporary staff do not get exposed to the same level of training as the full time staff and therefore sales can be adversely affected.

One retailer decided to overcome this problem by introducing an induction programme for the ‘peak’ sales staff who were employed to cover the busy Christmas period. The course formed part of a ‘pilot’ to identify the benefits and returns generated by induction training.

Beyond The Box was brought in to deliver this induction training with the goal being increased awareness of solution selling techniques and an upturn in sales. NAME from Comet said, “We wanted to offer our ‘peak’ staff the same advantages in selling solutions that our full time staff had. It was an absolute priority that these people understood how to increase the average selling price, sell our warranty products and also feel that they were valued by the organisation.”

The results of the induction training speak for themselves. The number of sales per hour increased by 4% with the average transaction value increasing by 19%. Warranty sales improved by 0.6% and the average selling price rose by 10%. The course also had an affect on the overall happiness of staff with those who attended the course saying that they were proud to work at Comet and were also less likely to leave in the early days of employment.

Commenting on the results of the induction training, Christine Knott, Managing Director of Beyond the Box said, “The people who attended our training course were more at ease with solution based selling techniques and felt confident with customers. The sales figures achieved by those staff who attended the training course were very pleasing for the trainers. This demonstrates that induction training is a very effective way of helping new employees understand the retail environment and how customers purchase.”

As a result of these results Beyond The Box was asked to return and design an induction course for all Comet staff.

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Call centres throughout the UK are one of the busiest working environments and yet they are also very high on the list when it comes to training needs. Because the people employed in the call centres are coming into contact with the general public it is essential that their training needs are identified and then met by good quality and well delivered training courses that actually provide the skill sets required. Beyond The Box Ltd was commissioned by Comet to identify the training needs of its call centre staff and then to design a training programme that would cover all three levels of sales staff expertise – entry level, mid level and expert level.

Before designing the course Christine Knott, managing director of Beyond The Box, spent time researching at Comet. She observed all the various departments of the call centre, identifying the content for the modules of the training programme and how it should be designed. The overall learning programme had to link to Comets’ promotional and development programme with all levels needing to be completed by members of staff before the training course could be completed.

Each of the levels designed by Beyond The Box used a modular format with up to six modules per level for both customer care and sales. Each module has been designed for a Comet trainer to deliver either a group training session or a one to one training session and it also provides an option where the trainer can monitor the employee in a self study programme.

To end each module the delegate has to deliver an action plan on how they intend to implement their new learning on a daily basis. This allows Comet trainers to identify whether all key aspects of the training have been understood and whether the delegate is taking the correct elements of the training into the daily tasks that they have to perform.

Commenting on the training course Beyond The Box designed, Christine Knott said, “It was important the course design was able to deliver training in short modules. The time constraints on call centre staff is particularly restrictive when it comes to training so the modules had to deliver the required elements in short, snappy bursts that would be retained by all the delegates, no matter what level they were at. The research we carried out initially was key to this. It enabled us to understand the restrictions of the training programme and how the learning would need to be implemented on a daily basis.”

Julie Simpson, Training and Development Manager at the Comet Customer Information Centre said, “We are delighted with the programme that Beyond The Box designed for us. We use our own in-house trainers to deliver the solution provided by Christine and her team and all of our staff have completed different elements of the training. It was important to us that the training programme reflected our promotional and development programme and this modulated approach allows us to do exactly that whilst also monitoring all our staff in terms of further training requirements.”

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Beyond The Box, one of the UK’s leading specialist training companies, has recently secured a new project with electrical retail giant, Currys.

This will see Beyond The Box design a bespoke training package for the launch of a new range of communication products that will be available in Currys stores later this year.

Christine Knott, managing director of Beyond The Box, comments, “We have a proven track record in the consumer electronics market and have worked within the retail sector on a number of occasions. The courses that we run are designed to be effective and informative and provide our clients with a very high level of service. The fact that Currys have come to us to provide training for this new range of products is testament to our commitment to delivering effective training courses that are accessible at all levels.”

Commenting on the awarding of the project to Beyond The Box, Currys Product Training Manager, Chris Barrell said, “We have worked with Christine and her company before and are delighted to have the opportunity to work with her again. Beyond The Box offers bespoke training that provides our colleagues with tools designed to ensure our customers enjoy an exceptional shopping experience.”

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