Customer Service Skills training – What is the point?
Let’s start with an assumption: Every business owner/CEO/MD/manager understands that ultimately their success is down to a good customer experience. This assumption is like us all understanding that physical fitness is fundamental to good health and wellbeing. We all want our businesses to be successful and we all want to be healthy, although we know what it takes are we doing it?
I spend a great deal of time discussing customer service, the “customer experience” and customer satisfaction with businesses leaders. It always astonishes me how each of these leaders assumes that good customer service is being delivered to their customers. It astonishes me because when I ask “How do you know?” very few can offer me a survey or a feedback analysis that they have undertaken to check on their business and how they are looking after their customers. Also, in my view, this feedback analysis is essential to ensure the teams involved are delivering “the customer experience” they planned and to help them understand their customers’ needs and how they may adapt their practices to achieve this. Many businesses (not all) simply are not “talking” to their customers, thus they cannot assess if they are achieving their goal nor can they develop and implement strategic training and education for their teams to better deliver a great customer experience. Like exercise is fundamental to physical wellbeing and health, customer service training and customer satisfaction assessment is fundamental to every company’s success.
As with physical fitness you can do the same exercise again and again and this will be better than doing nothing, but it won’t grow your business. Like changing and upgrading exercise grows muscles, so too you have to target your strategies and sharpen your practices to grow and strengthen your business. By focussed customer service training, your team can start to grow your profitability and customer loyalty and with that the possibilities grow too. There are certain customer service practices that again, like certain exercises – are fundamental to great conditioning, are fundamental and businesses need to routinely check that their “form” on these is maintained to fully benefit them. It is worth saying that initially the “something being better than nothing” approach, will deliver results, and if maintained even small positive changes will over time increase profitability. Also, even a small amount of training and proactive engagement with your customers for constructive feedback will boost the general health and wellbeing of your business. However, in the long run to measurably succeed and quantify the physical change, growth and development desired, it is vital to assess your current results and (regularly) identify what targeted exercise is needed to shape and define. So too it is true of targeted customer service skills training and customer experience assessment is crucial to delivering to your customers’ specific needs and expectations and thus shape, define and grow your business in the measurable terms you desire. When last was your team given affirmative, positive instruction on how best to deliver great customer service? Given that almost every manager I talk to accepts whole heartedly that their customers’ satisfaction is the lifeblood of their business, it is confusing to hear almost every business is NOTregularly training the teams who are dealing with their customers on how to best look after them. When I ask “WHY?” it is always down to cost and time, and so a circle begins to form… The most expensive thing to do when it comes to customer service skills training is nothing.
Great customer service skills can be taught. Great customer service skills can be learnt. The key, as with physical fitness, is to make the training a positive and engaging experience for those involved. Some companies do, on induction not routinely, deliver so called “customer service skills training” via computer-based programmes. Although in my view these are not without merit, the efficacy of these courses depends greatly on the motivational level of those individuals being trained and the post analysis of these sessions. These sessions also sometimes are not situational and so rely on the trainee’s ability to transpose the new knowledge into their specific workplace. Ideally training should be bespoke and designed around what your business needs, based on what your customer has told you they need. You can develop and design a great customer service training programme, it is completely possible, there is an abundance of great resources and excellent teachers out there who will guide you through this. Just like with physical fitness training, there is so much out there to choose from and get engaged with. The upside of this approach is initially there is no cost, however consider your time, which is your most precious commodity. Also consider who will deliver this programme and how well suited they/you are to training. As with great personal trainers to help you physically shape up, sometimes to get the results you desire with the most efficient use of time the cost of an expert is more than worth it. All and any customer service training should empower your team, motivate them to delivering an enhanced and improved service to your customer and ultimately success for everyone. A happy confident team, will deliver great service. Great service leads to happy customers. Happy customers, well that what every business wants. Happy customers getting a great customer experience, from a team who have had great customer service skills training, is a customer who will benefit and enjoy their interaction with your business and there in lies your opportunity to increase your profitability.
Customer Service Skills Training is like exercise, it is absolutely necessary to keep your business health and in great shape!