Program is a Direct Result of Customer Feedback, Desire to Provide World Class Experience
Fleet logistics provider AmeriFleet announced that it would undertake a company-wide training initiative that will touch all of the Alpharetta, Ga-based provider’s 350-plus employees located in over a dozen regional and satellite offices throughout North America.
A direct response to customer feedback gleaned during AmeriFleet’s “Voice of the Customer” activities conducted during the last year, the training efforts will be designed to help AmeriFleet staffers leverage the company’s considerable assets to provide an improved, world-class experience to its customers located in all 50 states, Canada and Puerto Rico.
The program, the first of its kind for the 17-year-old company, is being developed to enhance employee performance across the company’s many discipline’s, especially in 5 key areas identified during almost 20 customer Focus Groups and over 150 interviews with both top Fleet Managers and key FMC stakeholders, including:
1) Improving Customer Intimacy
2) Enhancing Outcome Ownership
3) Optimizing Technology
4) Streamlining Processes and Procedures
5) Being More Proactive
According to Steve Gibson, Senior Vice President of Customer and Market Experience, AmeriFleet wants its customers to know how serious it is about not only listening to their feedback, but doing something with the valuable information they received. Not only to enhance its offering, but to provide an over-the-top customer experience that’s light years beyond what they have come to expect.
“Our customers were very generous in giving us their valuable time and opinions,” Gibson said. “We want them to know we heard what they had to say, and that we’re going to be working hard to stand out at the things that matter most to them.
“This training initiative is a direct result of the customer feedback we heard during our “Voice of the Customer” interviews, and we believe it will help us not only optimize our offering, but help our people provide the kind of world class experience our clients deserve every day.”
Led by AmeriFleet-veteran, Terri Stiffler, efforts to design the new training initiative started in July with internal insights development and identifying key benchmarks that set a starting point, as well as timeline, for meeting expectations.
The program, which was built on the ADDIE Principle: Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, Evaluate – is being developed with direct employee input, and will be designed to align employee values and goals with what customers are telling AmeriFleet they want and need. In addition, it will also seek to standardize these new training procedures so they canbe better implemented, tested, re-tested, and fine tuned in the future.
Initial training – which is expected to start in the third quarter – will be followed by refresher courses on an ongoing basis. AmeriFleet is also planning to further engrain the initiative within its employee base by instituting a program of continuing education; starting peer to peer training groups; and incentives to keep the company’s goals and aspirations top of mind. It will also conduct periodic employee testing – as well as make adjustments based on employee feedback
In addition to the ultimate goal of creating a world class customer experience, the initiative also will strive to help AmeriFleet employees become not only better employees, but better Fleet professionals in general. It will also work to break down silos within the company, while growing a legacy of transferable skills that will help employees better understand – and support – a wide range of jobs not just throughout the company, but throughout the Fleet industry.
Already the new training initiative is paying benefits, as AmeriFleet learns new things about its employees, and the employees learn more about how the company operates across all departments. It’s also helping the company identify what kinds of skills employees have that can help the company build a better customer experience.
In one instance, a current AmeriFleet driver who is a former motivational speaker, has been tapped to help lead training exercises; while another AmeriFleet employee who was a former fleet manager for an office supply company will be a regular mainstay for their driver and customer service training programs.
Perhaps most importantly, the new training program is the first major initiative to come out of a robust, ongoing “Voice of the Customer” program the company expects to continue providing valuable customer insights for years to come.
