Miele GB

Training Provider Award

Miele GB

The Miele training team is comprised of a Product Training Manager and two Product Sales Trainers. Between them they build, coordinate and deliver head-office training courses, external demonstrations and field training. All trainers have passed Level 2 Food Hygiene & Safety for Catering so that they can offer hands on cooking demonstrations as part of the courses. The training team is flexible and responsive and always strives to offer a highly valuable experience for retailers attending courses.

Miele offers an online booking system for training courses, which enables retailers to easily access course information and availability.

When faced with the sudden change of circumstances in 2020, Miele moved quickly to ensure that training support remained in place for its Partners and a number of new initiatives have been put in place so that training can continue in a range of formats, hopefully offering a solution that works for every eventuality.

Prior to Covid-19:

In 2019, Miele offered 111 courses across its two Experience Centres in Abingdon and London. In total, 995 people attended these courses.

The courses, managed via Miele’s convenient online booking system, offered a mix of cookery demonstrations, hands on activities and presentation-style teaching to offer something to every style of learner.

The training team work closely with the Miele account managers and category teams to ensure messaging was in line with the key features and selling points of the products. Delegates received specific information aligned with the products that they sell, watched key features being demonstrated and learned how to upsell and increase attachment rates. If attendees were more than a 2.5-hour drive away, Miele organised accommodation.

In addition to the full day courses, Miele also provided shorter sessions at different times of the day. These were offered to accounts with smaller teams or high workloads that are unable to attend a full day of training.

In 2019, Miele’s Field Training Team carried out 990 visits to individual doorways in the field, training a total of 2,775 shop floor staff in electrical retailers. The training delivered was tailored to the specific needs of the account and the individual team within the particular store being visited, allowing the trainers to use their extensive local knowledge and relationships with the store staff to ensure the training targeted their areas for improvement and helped them to sell up through the range.

During Covid-19:

With many retailers completely closed for periods of time and lockdown rules in place for much of the past year, Miele has been unable to train in the usual way, but the team has acted quickly and put a number of new solutions in place to support its Partners. At every stage, Miele has kept in touch with Partners to see how they are doing and what they need, to ensure that what it is offering works for them and their unique situations.

Live Training via Skype & Microsoft Teams was introduced in April 2020. These are sessions on multiple different product topics of 30-90 minutes in duration. Staff register their interest via their account manager and are then booked onto Miele’™s online booking system. The sessions use live presentation, video and PowerPoint to illustrate the qualities of Miele appliances and explain the ranges and trade-ups. Each session offers a maximum of 20 spaces to create a personal feel and to allow time for questions and discussion once the content has been delivered.

To date almost 250 sessions have taken place with over 1700 attendees. Delegates are recorded using the online booking system and a short feedback survey is sent to all attendees afterwards to gauge how effective the training has been. Miele is constantly increasing the catalogue of training topics available and is able to quickly make alterations or add in bespoke sessions in response to feedback and requests. Feedback so far has been excellent, with many delegates commenting on how much they appreciate the effort that has been made to offer support to them during the current situation.

Training Videos were initially filmed using Miele appliances in the Trainer’s homes to highlight key features of products. Once access to the headquarters and the Miele Experience Centre was possible these were then re-filmed on site and edited at home by the Training team. A Miele Training Hub has been created on YouTube for Miele Partners to access. The videos are being offered as a supplementary learning solution to those who have been unable to attend a live training session or who express an interest in further learning.

Click here – Miele Training Hub – YouTube

The videos are also supplied to accounts to upload to their own staff learning portals where they have them. In addition, the Training team have been creating bespoke PDF training documents and quizzes at the request of its retailers for them to add into their staff learning portals.

Miele’s new and improved E-learning portal has been launched to allow Partners access to a full range of interactive online learning modules. As well as the full ‘desktop’ version, the portal can also be accessed via a mobile or tablet for a lighter version which focuses on only the main sales features of the product selected, making it a great tool to dip in and out of to build knowledge.

Independent retailers are vital to Miele’s success and every training course is offered to them. Miele endeavors to tailor its courses to ensure that independent retailers get all the support they need to be able to confidently sell its appliances, as well as having field trainers that are able to visit and support staff on the shop floor with additional training. The training team work flexibly with department and showroom managers to ensure that they can meet the needs of busy independent showrooms and shops, offering early morning, evening and weekend training to fit round opening hours and ensure all staff can get the training they need. The relationship that has been built with accounts over time mean that partners are proactively contacting Miele to request training, and the feedback is that they appreciate the flexible approach Miele has in supporting them.

Miele’s net promoter score for its training has consistently been over 85% for the last three years with several months scoring 100%.

Please see below NPS results for Miele Head Office Training courses, Field Training and the new Live Online Skype Training.

Would you recommend a Miele Training Course to colleagues? – 86%

Would you recommend Miele Field Training to colleagues? – 95%

Would you recommend Miele Online Training to a colleague? – 88%

Feedback on Experience Centre Training Courses:

‘The course was brilliant and makes you want to get back to work and start selling.’

‘Not sure I would change anything. The content, presentation and ambassadorship of the Miele brand is spot on.’

‘I thought that the trainers were exceptional, professional and amazing brand ambassadors.’

‘I thought the course was just right, it didn’t feel like we were rushing through anything but also it didn’t feel like it was dragging on either. There was a good balance of listening to the presentation and being able to walk round and see/use the appliances.’

‘Really informative, best training I’ve been on yet!’

Feedback on Field Training:

‘Very good knowledge and training for already experienced partners and new partners as well. Felt very respected as a sales representative and was given great insight into functions and features that I was unsure of.’

‘Very well explained on all products – learned a lot in such a short time! new starting on the shop floor as a salesman – and this has boosted knowledge and confidence in selling Miele products.’

‘A very good training session. It was extremely knowledgeable and I definitely benefitted a lot from it. After this session my initial view of Miele has changed and I have a much better understanding of Miele as a brand.’

Feedback on the New Live Skype Training:

‘As always Miele out do themselves when it comes to training and to be able to achieve this quality within these circumstances is remarkable.’

‘I found the training provided new and interesting information and I would appreciate this kind of training on-going, not just in current lockdown conditions as it is not always possible to take time away from the studio. I do feel this will help me and my staff to sell more / upgraded Miele.’

‘Some training can be a tad boring but this was my first training with Miele and I was really pleased with how it kept me intrigued, the pace was perfect. Most of all the trainer was very knowledgeable and very pleasant to deal with always happy to answer questions no matter how trivial.’

‘Paced really well with clear images of the products so that we can go on to demonstrate the products well to customers, very useful.’

‘Thank you to the Training Team. I am furloughed and thrilled to receive training. This format is excellent and I appreciate a lot of hard work has gone into making this new format available.’

The Future:

The Miele Training Team is determined to remain flexible and reactive to the changing conditions and the fresh challenges faced by Partners as they transition out of lockdown conditions. Miele will stay in close contact with its accounts throughout and ensure that it is tailoring its offering to individual circumstances as the situation evolves.

Remote training will remain a key offering but Miele hope to be able to expand this to include live product demonstrations and cooking sessions to enhance the learning experience, with the ability for Partners to request certain demonstrations in advance of the live video session. To this end, a bespoke recording studio kitchen is being installed at the headquarters to allow Miele to improve the quality of the videos and remote sessions it is producing.

Miele will start to run bespoke face to face sessions again soon to allow focus on the areas and accounts where extra support is needed. Miele is shortly about to open its third Experience Centre in Edinburgh, which offers a base from which Miele can support its more northerly Partners with training and product demonstrations.

Now that things are opening up, Miele is exploring ways to further support its independent accounts and is hoping to introduce a multi-functional field team to look after merchandising and displays and to deliver key selling messages to shop floor staff. This will complement the more detailed training provided by the Training team and allow Miele to keep the sales environment in optimum condition and offer quick refreshers on the features to assist with selling. 

Throughout all of this Miele will work closely with every account to ensure that it is abiding by their specific requirements and maintaining safe practices.

As always, Miele remains committed to offering best in class training to meet the needs of its Partners, whatever the future may bring.