How Macy’s Used the Kirkpatrick Model to Improve Their Customer Effort Score
Our 2015 ATD Valley of the Sun Don Kirkpatrick Scholarship winner, Marta Wilmoth, has been successfully implementing her new training program for Macy’s over the past year.
The success of Marta’s program led to an improved Customer Effort Score. Macy’s Customer Effort Score is a metric to measure customer service satisfaction with one single question. The underlying thought is that service organizations create loyal customers by reducing customer effort.
April 2017
Since my last update, our Learning and Development team successfully launched a new and improved New Hire Training Program for our macys.com business. Over 2500 associates successfully completed the redesigned New Hire program. Implementing the Kirkpatrick’s Blended Evaluation Plan™, I was able to demonstrate the value of the improved New Hire Training Program.
Level 1: Reaction
I designed a survey structured to gather the reactions of facilitators and participants. The survey aided in measuring the degree that participants reacted favorably to the learning event, and in identifying any pain points or issues experienced during the training.
In addition to survey data, the Instructional Design teams held information focus groups bi-weekly with the Facilitation teams to gain insight into agent engagement and reception in the live classroom environment.
Level 2: Learning
To measure the degree to which participants acquired the intended knowledge, skills and attitudes from the training event, I constructed a post-training survey to solicit feedback from the participant and their direct supervisor 4 weeks after the conclusion of the training program. The bi-level response data provided insight into the aptitude and confidence the participant exhibited upon completion of the training event.
Level 3: Behavior
In partnership with our Business Intelligence team, I created interval reporting to monitor behaviors through key metrics. Over the course of 5 months, during peak season, I have been able to demonstrate that the training program had a positive impact on key “behavior driven” metrics.
Level 4: Results
In addition to key “behavior” metrics, I monitored customer response data and our company’s financial performance to measure the impact the training program had on both our internal and external leading indicators. I was pleased to report our financial performance was comparable to our retail competitors, and our YOY Customer Effort Score showed considerable improvement.
Using the Blended Evaluation Plan™, I have reached the “top of the mountain.” Manned with the skills I learned during the program, I successfully created a visual story showing the measurable impact our new and improved New Hire Training Program had on the business. The Senior Vice President of Customer Service stated, “Learning and Development’s results-driven approach to the training of New Hire agents positively influenced the Customer Effort Score during peak season.”
My Kirkpatrick certification achievement has not only reaped benefits for our company, but has been truly self-rewarding, as well. I look forward to continuing to pay it forward using my Kirkpatrick certification toolkit and contributing to the success of future company results-driven goals.
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Additional Resources
Kirkpatrick Four Levels® Evaluation Certification Program – Bronze Level
Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation
Reaching the Summit: Two Tips from the Latest Scholarship Winner
