Pictured: Steve Dolman prepares for a training session
With the re-introduction of scheduled training courses here at EVOCA UK, it’s never been easier for you to ensure that your service engineers are up-to-speed with the very latest developments in vending and HoReCa technology.
‘When I first came here and for the first five years we had a full training schedule’, Technical Director Craig Jukes recalls, ‘but then, if you remember, the whole industry went into a bit of a dip. People were downsizing their organisations: for instance, they may have had seven engineers and they took it down to four, which meant that sending one for training was suddenly much more of a problem, because they had the same network with fewer people to look after it.
More demand than we could cope with…
‘It meant we were getting very low uptake on training courses so we were having to cancel them, because you can’t run a two-day training course with one person on it, that just wasn’t a justifiable use of our time’ Craig said. ‘But then last year, certainly from the middle of the year onwards, there was more demand than we could cope with and because we didn’t have a training schedule in place, we found ourselves always playing catch-up and trying to crowbar training courses in where we could.’
The ad-hoc training solution that had served us well was under pressure. For the previous few years, somebody would request training on a particular machine; we’d know of a couple of other customers who’d put in a similar request so we’d contact them and bolt a course together. By the middle of 2017. It was clear that this system had outlived its usefulness…
‘…uptake has been very, very encouraging.’
‘Demand was such that a training schedule has been put in place from 1 January 2018’, Craig said ‘and that decision has been vindicated, because uptake has been very, very encouraging. Re-introducing a training schedule was definitely the right thing to do.
‘The more we can educate and train, the better the engineers’ experience – they have more confidence in front of the customer and that means the customer in turn has a better experience’, Craig said. ‘If you were to take your Ford to a Ford dealer, you wouldn’t want it to be serviced by somebody who’d never seen a Ford before, who scratches his head and says ‘Oh, I’ll ring the help desk’! You want somebody to walk in confidently, understand the problem and fix it.’
Training these days is not just about fixing machines: optimising the set up is critical to make sure that people enjoy the drinks at their very best . ‘You don’t want people buying a drink and saying ‘I’ll never use that machine again’, you want them looking forward to their next drink’, Craig said. ‘In terms of the customer’s experience, success follows success.’
*Make sure you take advantage of EVOCA UK’s FREE training courses. The schedule is below; simply find the course you want at a time that suits you, then contact us via our dedicated training email address training@evocagroup.com to book your place.
