Q: Our Department handles both the Open-to-Public classes for business and industry (like MS Office classes, Industrial Maintenance, Leadership, Small Business, etc.) as well as Customized Classes for business and industry.
Here is the scenario: Let’s say we have ABC Company that has requested mostly MS Office classes from us for their company. We have 1 Programmer that specializes in this so she is assigned to this account as the Main Rep. Now they are customized Leadership classes. The Main Rep is not versed or does not specialize in Leadership Training.
· Would it be appropriate to have 2 Programmers service this client?
· Or, would it be more appropriate that our Programmers are versed in all things so the Client has only 1 person from our team servicing them?
We want to do the right thing and I thought with all of your communication with other Customized Training Teams, you could offer some advice.
A: To answer this question well, I need to know more about how you are organized. If your staff have content areas where they are accountable and where they sell programs and support clients, it is difficult to shift to having everyone involved in all programs. This has a potential to create problems, and to increase unhealthy competition. .If your staff are accountable for generating a certain amount of business and there are no guidelines for who works in which area, you could have internal conflict..
If however, you are thinking of organizing differently, then there are some considerations to make. The accountability piece is very important. However, instead of thinking in terms of “programmers” for your contract programs, you might want to think in terms of sales. One person can be responsible for sales within many different areas of content. This would give the client a point person, allow you to establish a relationship with the client and let you set criteria for performance, and avoid the potential for conflict that might occur if everyone just worked in" every program area.”
Your sales people could be responsible for working with specific companies, create and nurture relationships with these customers, and build a solid base of regular, dependable clients. This is very important in your contract training effort.
Your sales staff could refer the client to the proper person for content specialty, but still give the client the opportunity to have one person as a point of contact.