Evaluating the Cost and Effectiveness of Customer Training Methods

The talk will deal with alternative methods of training customers to use new telephone services. Various measures of training effectiveness will be discussed with regard to their advantages and limitations. It will be argued that several measures—including cost—must be taken into account when evaluating training approaches. Two field studies will be described that examine several different types of training: (1) “Hands On” (demonstration) vs. “No Hands On” training; (2) Media-based vs. Lecture-based training; (3) “Live” training vs. Self-Instruction. The advantages and disadvantages of each approach will be described in terms of several measures of training effectiveness.