What’s the difference between a vendor and a partner? Vendors sell what you think you want, partners deliver what you need. Vendors talk, partners listen. Vendors produce products, partners create solutions. This is all true whether you’re adding a new product line or training your staff. For all aspects of your business that affect your bottom line, you need a partner, not a vendor.
How to Choose the Right Training Partner
Training is an investment in your most important asset – your staff. As with any investment, choosing the right partner can mean the difference between success and failure. So much is at stake with training, you can’t afford to select just any training solution. Consider these criteria when evaluating prospective training partners.
- Real-world industry expertise. The biggest detriment to any training program is a lack of relevance. Make sure the courses your training partner offers are developed by experts in the convenience store industry. This is especially important for topics related to compliance and customer service training.
- Opportunities for customization. Not every c-store operation can afford fully customized training, but it makes sense to choose a training partner who offers both off-the-shelf and customized training solutions. This way, you can add customized topics to your learning library for critical brand-related issues.
- Career progression learning paths. Staffing is one of the biggest challenges of c-store operators, and training is a key component to employee retention. The best learning solutions allow training managers to create career-focused training paths for employees who have the potential to move on to store positions.
- Blended learning approach. It’s a given that the more ways you engage employees on a specific topic, the more likely they are to implement what they’ve learned. Choose a training partner with blended learning strategies built in to their solution.
Convenience Store Training
At ReadyConvenience, our background is in a business like yours. Click here to learn more about us, and be sure to explore our complete online learning library.
