If you are looking to improve your company’s customer service training, this article is for you.
While training and preparing your employees is clearly the first step taken by a good management team, it is nevertheless advisable to focus on what type of training they need and how to implement it. Below we will give you 6 secrets that will help you improve your customer service training and provide a significant boost to your business.
1. Train ALL your employees
Customer service is something that interests and concerns the entire company, not just a single department. In one way or another, the work of all your employees resonates with the end customer. For this reason, it is essential to provide customer service training instruction to your entire staff: not only will they be prepared to meet (or exceed) the expectations of users, but you will also be transmitting a consistent message across the company regarding the importance of customer service.
2. A coherent message: the customer comes first
While customer service training could include numerous technical aspects and personal skills, the essential message should be loud and clear: the customer comes first. These few words should waft throughout the organization as if they constituted a religious mantra. If your training is built upon this principle (which should be repeated until exhaustion), the foundation you are laying will help everything else run smoothly.
3. Practice, practice and continue practicing
If you want successful training, you have to commit to practice. Numerous studies confirm that experiential learning and learning by doing increase brain activity and the ability to memorize knowledge. Have your employees practice everything that they are learning so that they will never forget anything.
4. Exercise attitudes, positivity and empathy
Many customer service training programs forget to teach the basics: kindness, empathy, positivity and courtesy. While many of these skills could appear naturally, the reality is that they must be reinforced and fostered throughout the company. Make sure that your courses drive home the need to be positive, smile, refer to the customer by name, remain calm, have patience and walk in our users’ shoes. Never assume that your employees are capable of doing all this in their day to day tasks.
5. Personalize your training
Every company is its own universe, and every customer support service is different. For this reason, if your company has some particular processes that you want to implement (welcome greeting, presentation of a product, packaging, closing a sale, returning an article, etc.), it is worth investing time into personalized training that satisfies the needs of your company and business.
6. Ongoing training: reinforce, reinforce and continue reinforcing
Customer service training should be a never-ending learning experience. Running a course during a month or two will neither significantly impact your staff nor improve your business’s figures. Employees (just like everyone else!) forget what they have learned and easily fall back into their old habits. It is thus essential to hold regular training courses (e.g., changing formats) to continue shoring up all the new knowledge and skills learned.