Why Customer Service Training is SO Important

Customer service excellence is crucial for business success. According to a Forrester survey, 83% of customers prioritize good customer service when making a purchase. Well-trained customer service representatives can navigate a variety of situations, turning every interaction into a positive experience for your business.

• Improves team performance: Training equips customer service reps with the knowledge, skills, and tools to be more effective, productive, and efficient.
• Decreases employee turnover: Satisfied employees are more likely to stay, leading to lower turnover and cost savings.
• Upgrades the customer experience: Consistent training ensures a unified approach and a positive, consistent experience for all customers.
• Increases customer lifetime value: Happy customers are more likely to return for more and become loyal advocates of your brand.
• Improves revenue: By enhancing customer satisfaction, loyalty, and efficiency, customer service training directly contributes to increased profitability.

Defining Excellent Customer Service

Before you can train your team, you need to define what "good customer service" means for your organization. Don't settle for vague goals like "customer satisfaction." Instead, be specific about what you want to achieve.

• Identify business objectives: What customer service goals will help your organization reach its larger objectives? This could include faster response times, improved issue resolution, or higher customer retention rates.
• Define key performance indicators (KPIs): Establish measurable metrics to track the effectiveness of your customer service program. This could include customer satisfaction scores, average resolution time, or first-contact resolution rate.

Uncovering Areas for Improvement

Once you know what constitutes excellent customer service, it's time to pinpoint areas that need improvement. This will inform your training program and ensure you focus on the most critical aspects.

• Analyze customer feedback: Examine customer satisfaction surveys, customer effort scores (CES), and customer satisfaction scores (CSAT) to understand customer expectations and identify recurring themes such as speed, tone, or product knowledge.
• Review help desk reports: Analyze help desk data to understand team workload, identify common issues, and gain insights into customer sentiment.
• Talk to your team: Engage with both leaders and individual contributors to understand their challenges, frequently asked questions, and areas of frustration.

Organizing Areas for Improvement

Once you've identified areas for improvement, organize them into categories to develop a structured training program. These categories can be tailored to your specific business needs.

Category	Training Focus
Product knowledge	Ensuring reps have a comprehensive understanding of the product or service
Technical skills	Training reps on the effective use of tools and systems for customer service
Time management	Teaching reps how to prioritize tasks, manage time effectively, and provide timely responses
Company vision	Ensuring reps are clear on the company's voice, tone, and values to maintain consistent messaging
Interpersonal skills	Training reps on building positive and trustworthy relationships with customers
Crisis and Customer Management	Equipping reps with the skills to manage difficult or challenging customer interactions
Social media	Training reps on how to handle customer service issues that occur on social media platforms

Prioritizing Training Needs

Prioritize your list of customer service training needs based on the following factors:

• Cost: Address the customer service issues that are causing the most financial loss for your organization.
• Relevance: Focus on issues affecting the largest number of customers or representatives.
• Ease of implementation: Begin with issues where you have existing knowledge or resources.
• Impact: Prioritize training that will have the most significant positive impact on customer service and overall business outcomes.

Designing Your Customer Service Training Program

Now that you've identified and prioritized your training needs, it's time to design an effective customer service training program. This involves choosing the most relevant and effective methods for your team and organization.

• Customer service training games: These can be used to improve empathy, adaptability, listening skills, questioning techniques, and the ability to think on one's feet.
• Demonstration sessions: These sessions provide in-depth knowledge of products or services, enabling representatives to effectively assist customers.
• Sell me this product: This role-play exercise challenges reps to demonstrate their product knowledge and personalize information for specific customer needs.
• Buddy system: Job shadowing allows new hires to learn from experienced reps and fosters skill distribution and team cohesion.
• Example conversations: Using annotated conversations as learning opportunities helps reps understand best practices and learn from both successful and challenging interactions.
• Lunch and learn: These informal sessions allow team members to share knowledge, skills, and perspectives across different departments.
• Secret shopper: This method provides objective feedback on customer service performance and identifies areas for improvement.
• 5 whys: This iterative technique helps teams identify the root cause of customer service issues and develop solutions.
• In their shoes: This exercise fosters empathy by having reps share their own experiences with customer service and learn how to improve interactions.
• Create a knowledge base: This collaborative effort allows reps to document their knowledge and create a valuable resource for the entire team.
• Role-playing: This popular technique simulates real-life customer service situations, allowing reps to practice communication and problem-solving skills.

Customer Service Training Resources

Leverage existing resources to save time and effort when developing your training program. There are numerous high-quality materials available, including courses, books, and videos.

Customer Service Training Courses

• Customer Service Training by Alison: A free online course offered by Alison, one of the world's largest free learning platforms.
• Customer Service Excellence On-Demand Training: Offered by Cornell University, this training provides eight online lessons on service delivery fundamentals.
• Culture of Services: New Perspective on Customer Relations: A free business and management course offered by edX, focusing on the social and cultural aspects of customer service.
• Innovative Customer Service Techniques: A LinkedIn Learning course offering insights into the techniques used by elite customer service professionals.

Customer Service Training Books

• Jeff Toister's Customer Service Books: Toister, a renowned customer service expert, has written several training-centric books and guides.
• The Best Service is No Service: By Bill Price and David Jaffe, this book outlines seven principles for reducing "bad contact" with customers.
• Exceptional Service, Exceptional Profit: By Leonardo Inghilleri and Micah Solomon, this book explores the anticipatory customer service approach developed at The Ritz-Carlton.
• Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Service: Written by the Disney Institute, this book reveals the secrets of Disney's renowned customer service practices.
• Strategic Customer Service: By John Goodman, this book provides guidance on leveraging customer service to build loyalty and maximize profits.

Customer Service Training Videos

• I Was Seduced By Exceptional Customer Service: A TEDx talk by John Boccuzzi Jr. discussing the power of exceptional customer service as a marketing strategy.
• Customer Service Vs. Customer Experience: A training video exploring the difference between customer service and customer experience.
• 10 ways to have a better conversation: A TED Talk by Celeste Headlee providing tips on engaging in effective conversations with customers.