Effective customer service training is critical to your organization’s success. Without your customers, you wouldn’t be in business.

In this course we cover all the most important elements of service any person involved in direct interactions with customers should know and apply. From the necessary behavioral and communication skills to the right attitude and including specific methods to analyze and improve the service provided, we cover it all in a straight forward and effective manner that will help participants ensure customer satisfaction and delight in the most challenging situations.

Whether an employee works directly with customers, produces the products you sell, or provides support for those who perform these essential functions, the goal for everyone is to help keep customers – whether internal or external — satisfied and coming back for more. Without customer service training, you are undermining your organization’s chances to grow and prosper.

Course objective

Employee customer service training activities can also provide both theoretical and practical learning for your workers. For instance, sales customer service training can provide courses for employees to take for telephone interactions, such as how they can build rapport with customers, and how to handle problems and stress effectively, etc. At the end of each course, you can test their knowledge by having them go through mock calls that specifically target the knowledge they’ve gained. This will help you know in which areas your employees’ customer service is already adequate, and which areas need more work.

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• Explain the importance of customer service in a competitive environment
• Defend the vital role internal customers play and show that their satisfaction is key for the success of an organization
• Practice the techniques of managing customer expectations and delighting customers
• Provide better, faster service and increase customer satisfaction
• Recognize early signals of customer irritation and respond appropriately in order to quickly find a workable solution to the problem

Course Outline

• Definitions and concepts
• Quotations on customer service
• Service definitions
• Quality service requirements
• Some interesting numbers
• Cost of bad customer service
• Customer care foundations
• Learning from the best
• Additional comments about service
• Internal customer service
• Identifying internal and external customers
• Elements of service
• Customer requirements
• Foundation of great service people
• The links in the service-profit chain
• Internal customer service
• Managing customer expectations
• The Importance of customer expectations
• Perceived service quality
• What to say and what not to say
• Calming upset customers
• Tips for calming upset customers
• Comments you should avoid
• Managing customer expectations
• 'The Service Quality (SQ) factors
• Flying over customers' rising expectations
• The customer loyalty ladder
• Role-plays and exercises on dealing with different personality styles
• Effective communication skills for handling customers
• Effective communication
• Verbal communication with customers
• Active listening
• Effective listening skills
• Phone etiquette
• Professional behavior with customers
• The power of behavior
• Principles of effective behavior
• How to behave professionally with the customer
• Interesting study
• Interpreting nonverbal communication
• The right behavior with the customer
• The wrong behavior with the customer
• Assertive, passive and aggressive behavior
• Verbal and nonverbal components of communication styles
• Dealing with difficult customers
• Dealing with different personality types
• Typical customer personality types
• Service recovery

Who Should Attend?

Customer service representatives, technical and support personnel, field service representatives, account managers, credit and billing specialists as well as managers who want customer service training in order to reinforce their skills and train their staff.

Course Methodology

Several methodologies are used in this course. In addition to brief presentations by the consultants, we use case studies, self-awareness exercises, exercises to practice some of the methods learned during the course, video clips and role plays.