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AS TRAINING IS NOTHING LESS THAN A BID TO CONTROL learning, the implication for trainers is inescapable: if we want to establish control over the learning process, then we need, as a basic requirement, to measure what is being learned in any training situation we care to design — we need to measure as best we can the behaviour changes brought about by the training. Only when we have collected such behavioural data are we in any sort of position to start focusing the training towards meeting defined individual and organisational needs.

The first article on the subject, which appeared in the August issue of Industrial and Commercial Training, described the development of a training course in BEA for Passenger Services Staff. The aim of this training is to improve personal service. Its most important element is role‐playing of typical interactions between staff and passengers; these are recorded on video‐tape and replayed for viewing and discussion. A good deal of reading, thinking and research was done before and during the training development. Visits were made to the training centres of several airlines, in Britain and the USA; research workers in both countries were also consulted. Five relevant views of the subject will be examined. These are: • the concept of social skill — Michael Argyle • the analysis of verbal behaviours — Neil Rackham • T‐group training — particularly the research by Cary Cooper and Henry Odie for the Hotel and Catering ITB • transactional analysis — work in Pan American Airways and American Airlines • applied learning in management training — by Mel Sorcher and Arnold Goldstein of Syracuse, USA A reading list giving references to these ideas and authors is given at the end of the article. The intention here is briefly to describe these views, evaluate their relevance to Customer Service Training generally, and show how they have influenced the philosophy and the design of the BEA training. Naturally, more weight will be given to one view than to another in the analysis that follows, but it should be emphasised that there is no intention to choose nor to reject any particular theory or training development. The different approaches are often complementary, each provides insight into the problems of human interaction.

FEW PEOPLE CAN HAVE WORKED IN AN ORGANISATION FOR ANY length of time without hearing, or perhaps even expressing, comments like these. Human relations: the oil that keeps the organisational wheels turning — or, more often it seems, the grit that makes the machine shudder.

Is social contact with the customer either necessary or profitable to a service industry? Does the salesgirl sell? Or, is she just a packaging‐and‐money‐taking component in a selling organisation? We have had the self‐service restaurant with us for several years, why not the self‐service pub? And in transportation, the Victoria Line is almost fully automated. Need an airline provide more than comfortable seats and a convenient schedule of flights? Just how important is it to have a pleasing social relationship with the customer? Obviously, the answers to these questions depend on a variety of factors in any given situation; and, inevitably a prime factor is the economic one. The situation for the airlines is an unusual one: market competition is constrained by the international regulation of fares and schedules and even of the type of meal service on particular routes. As a result the airlines compete in such narrow areas as the ambience of the passengers' surroundings and the social skills of their customer contact staffs.