Customer service training improves the experience your customers have in their interactions with your organisation. This includes all interactions in person, on line, by telephone as well as by sales, customer service, accounts people, or any others.
Customer service training aims to help people deliver improved service by helping them understand what makes better service and what customers expect.
In today’s competitive markets the need for customer service training is greater than ever. How your people interact with customers is a vital part of their experience with your brand. Get it right and you create loyal customers. Get it wrong and you feed the competition.
ITD approach to Customer Service Training
Customer service training designed and delivered by ITD covers the key processes and interpersonal skills. We get to understand the service your organisation gives, to ensure our training is delivered in the context of your market and your organisation.
Our style of training is a blend of training and coaching to help participants make the behavioural changes they feel necessary.
We also use the Live! approach. This means that you are working on your actual work situations and challenges whilst learning about models, frameworks, tips and ideas.
Our approach means you will gain ideas which you can use in your work place straight away.
It's always possible to improve customer service
Our belief is that it is always possible to improve your customer service. Just look at how the internet has changed our expectations of service. We expect to search and find pretty much anything we want within minutes. Our expectation is to buy that thing within minutes. We expect to get that thing delivered within days, but hopefully tomorrow. Some are promising delivery today. And we expect fast responsiveness. A reply now!
Customer service is changing. And fast! We all need to keep up. We need to consider our customers’ expectations and deliver. This means refreshing our approach all the time. Looking for ways in which we can improve our customers’ experience; whether this be in sales, after sales, accounts, how complaints are handled, or wherever. And this goes for external and internal clients.
Training Agenda
The following gives an overview of the subjects covered in the training, which is amended to your needs.
Experiences of service
To give the training contect we ask participants to share their experiences with both good and not so good service. It is especially interesting to hear of experiences when expectations where either badly missed or exceeded.
Factors impacting the experience of customer service
We review the factors inpacting the clients’ experience of service. Not only those obvious ones, but also the underlying factors which need more reflection to uncover.
Who's side are you on?
Of course the participants in the classroom, live or virtual, work for your organisation, but even so, the perception of your client as to whose side you are on can be vital. This implies how we position options and every word we use, from the customer’s perspective, is vital.
Handling difficult situations
Participants on this training are only too aware of what they deem to be difficult situations. Many people think some of these are impossible, nonetheless our approach is that there is no situation that we cannot deal with.
We structure this section as a question and answer session, so that we all brainstorm the best answers, facilitated by the trainer.
Communication skills
Commuication skills are vital in delivering customer service. We not only cover the basics, but also the details of assertiveness, power of the voice, positioning and refer to some of the ideas of Nudge.
The importance of words
We explore the importance of words, especially what not to say, as well as how to phrase offerings. The power of questions is explored and through scripts and scenarios we give participants practical ideas on the right words to use.
Taking responsibility
In some customer service situations there is a temptation to see the ‘problem’ as that of another department, unavoidable, or absolutely not ‘our fault’. Taking reponsibility for finding a solution is often vital with some customers. We not only explore how to do this, but also the impact it has.
Promises made
One of the fundamental ideas in customer service is about how you deliver against promises kept. These include when you will call back, what actions you will take and many other details. Our customer services training looks at how to get this right and conversely, what happens when we get it wrong.
Scenarios
A fundamental part of this training is the use of scenarios and practise. The scenarios we use are based on conversations with you in preparation for the training. This means they will be true to life from the participants perspective.
Personal actions
From the beginning of the training to the end, we encourage you to consider the behavioural changes you will need to make to improve the service you deliver to your customers.
From our experience with behavioural change we have developed a behavioural change action planning tool, which gives the participants the best chance of implementing these actions in their day to day work.
"The internet is driving customer expectations ever higher; customer service training helps you keep up."
Countries we have delivered customer service training
We have delivered customer service training with participants from a wide variety of countries including from across Europe, UAE, USA, Hong Kong and Australia
Some of the roles and teams we have helped with our customer service training
We have worked with a wide variety of roles and teams, helping them to take a fresh look at the way they deliver customer service. This not only includes skills training, but also a consultancy approach to give ideas on how you compete in the way you approach customer service.
What will you learn from our customer service training?
- Take a fresh look at customer service.
- Customer service models.
- A new perspective on your customers' assumptions and expectations.
- How to give improved customer service.
- A look at the customer service norms in the market.
- Ideas for specific customer service challenges
- New approaches on exceeding your customers' expectations.
"Customer service is the 'how' you deliver, and is as important as what you deliver."
Typical challenges of participants on our Customer Service training
- “What do I do with a customer who is shouting?”
- “How do we decide what is outstanding service?”
- “What is the best approach in handling annoyed customers?”
- “What are the best ways to communicate service?”
- “How important is what they get, to what they expect to get?”
- "I find it very nerve racking when speaking up in meetings with seniors."
- "I want to learn how to work with colleagues who ask really detailed questions."
How does our customer service training help your people?
Training Overview
- Improve confidence in dealing with challenging customer service situations.
- Gain ideas on how to approach customer service.
- Get better conscious awareness of your customers' experience.
- Explore good and bad scenarios of customer service.
- Learn customer service models.
- Practice customer service situations.
- Get coaching on your customer service skills.
What does our customer service training include?
Our customer service training gives participants ideas on how to improve the experiences of their customers. It looks at both the processes and people touch points where you and your customers interact. These touch points really matter. Get one wrong and it can have impact on the whole customer experience. To summarise, this training helps people deliver better service.
Cost
The cost of your customer service training course depends on; the duration of the session; the number of people; the number of sessions. Our pricing follows the market norm and we always help our clients to fit the cost with their budgets.
We do not charge for adapting our customer service training course to fit your needs. Contact us for a quote and read more about our approach on fees. Click here for more on our approach to fees.
"Customer service training is about learning how to take control of your customers' experience."
Service recovery is a given even in the best organisations
Our training can really help all customer facing people, especially those people who face challenging customers on a daily basis. It will also help those who want to improve the service they deliver.
Clients with challenges are by definition under a degree of stress. Things haven’t gone they way they want. Service has not been as good as they expected. But here is an opportunity to create a loyal and appreciative customer. Research tells us that a customer who has had a service issue resolved can be more loyal than one who hasn’t.
Managing expectations is key, but so is how we deal with the customer. That means not just what we can do for them, but also how we communicate with them. How they are treated can be at least, if not more important to what happens about the fundamental issue.
Customer service training can help people deliver great service, even in very challenging situations.
Duration & Location
Typically sessions last from 2 hours to 2 days, depending on the needs and objectives.
The location of the training can either be in your offices or at an external location such as a hotel or conference centre.
Pre Workshop Activity
- Conversation to discuss the participant’s needs, the team’s service requirements and the needs of the organisation.
- Draft workshop outline tailored to your needs.
- Agreement of agenda.
- Participants complete a short pre workshop task to engage them with the subject.
Typical Participant Outcomes
Participants gain strategies, ideas and tips on their customer service challenges, which makes the training practical and very useful.
Everyone concludes the training with action points specfiic to their needs, so that they can improve their work experience immediately.
Post Workshop Activity
We follow up the trainingby emailing the participants with their actions and offer further support by email. This means they can ask any questions on customer service as they implement their actions.
Participant Feedback
We ask all our participants for feedback on our training, so that we can refine and develop. This means we’re constantly looking for ways to improve. Typically participants say that the session made them think differently, and was very realistic and practical. They particularly like the workshop style which means they are interacting with each other and engaged with the session throughout.
Client Feedback
- “It was a great programme tailored perfectly to our team.”
- “Good balance of ideas and practice.”
- “Exactly what we needed.”
Models included in our customer service training
It's not what you give, It's what they get
This ITD model explores the customers' experience and shows how this should be your focus not what you deliver.
Expectations Research
Research into expectations looks at what people expect from a service and what they would describe as exceeding their expectations. Model then applied to your organisation.
ITD Personality Work Styles Model
The ITD Personality Model gives you a context for how personality impacts on service expectations and how to adapt your service.
ITD Coaching Checklist
The ITD Coaching Checklist can be used by both service providers and their managers to review their consistent behaviours when they deliver customer service.
Why organisations choose ITD for their customer service training
We get contacted by a wide variety of organisations for training, who choose us for the following reasons. Firstly we are easy to work with. Secondly we are very responsive, which means you can expect a call back within 24 hours.
Then there is our focus on your needs. This means we discuss your request to understand the underlying needs for training. Another reason is our experience which is demonstrated in our quick understanding of what you want. Then there is our flexibility as seen in our approach to tailoring the content and our fees.
In conclusion, we make things easy for clients to do business, so that you get what you want, when you want it.
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