Customer service training do you need it?

Good customer service is essential for any business. Earlier in the year we explained how research has proven that customer service adds to the financial performance of an organisation and in this article we set our Top Ten Rules for Customer Service.  If you or your organisation are breaking these rules, then you need a strategic approach which will also include some customer service training.

In essence good customer service is all about delivering a customer experience that keeps customers coming back to you.  Get this right and the customers will recommend you to their friends and contacts.  Get it wrong and they will become detractors.  This is why contact centres are now focussing on Net Promoter Scores as a way of trying to measure whether they are winning or losing the customer service challenges.

At its heart great customer service is about forming a relationship with the customer.  This means engaging with the customer so that they want to come back and do business with you.  As soon as there is dissonance between what we say, or promise, and what we deliver the relationship is damaged.  That is because our customers will judge us onwhat we do, not simply what we say we will do.

To help benchmark how you are doing we’ve developed our Top 10 Rules for Customer Service.

1) Rule Number 1: Be responsive.

It sounds obvious but answer the phone, respond to the email, reply on Twitter and engage on Facebook.  We’ve seen research that says nearly half of those aged under 30 do not phone organisations as they do not want to be kept waiting.  It simply is not good enough to have a message saying: “Your call is important to us, please hold the line”.  If the call is important then answer it.  This may have implications for your resources and processes.  Check out our ECI© model for more ideas.

2) Rule Number 2: Keep your promises.

Creating and maintaining a great customer relationship is all about doing what you say you will do.  If you promise something, you really must deliver on that promise.  Nothing is more annoying than a promise not met.  So if you promise even something as simple as a call back then make sure you do it within the timescale you said you would do it in.

3) Rule Number 3: Pay attention to your customers.

At a personal level this means listening to what customers tell you.  This is hard enough but at an organisational level it is more challenging.  The customer does not appreciate telling someone on the phone what they are calling about and having  to do the same again when the call is transferred.  How many times when calling a bank do you key your account number into the automated system and the first question the call handler asks is: “What is your account number?”  This is frustrating. In terms of how it feels to the customer, it only conveys a message that the customer is not important and simply a number, a transaction, nothing of consequence.

4) Rule number 4: Think “service” and be helpful

To forge an effective long term relationship the organisation has to be something that the customer wants to have a relationship with. This means too that each member of staff the customer touches has to be someone that the customer will want to have a relationship with.  So we need to remember the ‘service’ part of ‘customer service’.  Being helpful is the key here.  Helping customers with their interactions with your organisation may sometimes not result in a sale of a product or service.  However, over the longer term you are encouraging the customer to come back, each time they return there is a chance to deepen the relationship and so over time that customer will form an even more positive view of your brand and organisation and will purchase more.

5) Rule Number 5: Resolve complaints

Complaints are a real opportunity.  Instead of telling other potential customers that your organisations has not delivered, the customer is telling you.  Here is the chance to prove you value the customer relationship and sort it out.  We’ve heard that some organisations actually try and avoid complaints by simply logging them as comments and feedback rather than complaints!  The whole bureaucracy of complaints handling systems often feel to the customer as if the organisation really wants to make it as hard as possible to deal with a complaint.  This is not the way to a valuable customer relationship and risks the customer being a significant detractor of your brand.

6) Rule number 6: Get some Customer Service Training for your staff

A key ingredient of customer service is consistency.  When we have large teams, each person needs to be delivering the customer service to the right standard. Our service is only as good as our weakest member of staff. One person can damage the perception of your brand.  It only takes one poorly handled conversation to leave a lasting impression.  It is the way we are built to remember the bad more easily than the good!  We don’t want to become robots but we should be singing from the same song sheet when it comes to customer service, so get some customer service training for your team.

7) Rule Number 7: Go the extra mile

We love the saying that: “There are no traffic jams on the extra mile” when it comes to customer service. This quote comes from Roger Staubach.  Roger was a star player for the Dallas Cowboys during the 1970’s and is the source of many motivation quotes.

A simple example of this extra mile is often seen when a member of staff takes you to help you find the item you are looking for and then checks to see if you need anything else.  Of course that takes time as compared with telling the customer where to look, but the customer service value add is significant.

8) Rule Number 8: Delight the customer

One of the challenges with customer service is that if you consistently deliver a service that really feels good to the customer that in itself may not really delight the customer.  We often value something different and get very used to something that is the same each time we experience it.  That is not an argument to slack off, because the bad experience will certainly be noticed! Instead it reminds us of the need to do that bit more now and again to delight the customer.

9) Rule Number 9: Empower your people to deliver

To really make sure you deliver great customer service you need to equip your staff with the right skills and then trust them to deliver.  This means empowering them to make key customer service decisions to resolve complaints or delight the customer. Of course if your staff have the wrong attitude then you are starting from a long way back.  In which case you need to be thinking of a programme of customer service training linked to a customer service change programme to win over the hearts and minds.  Then you can build the skills.  Finally, once that is in place you can explore the empowerment issue.

10) Rule Number 10: Be strategic and start with the end in mind

Customer service is often difficult to achieve over time and across a wide range of people.  This needs a strategic approach.  Well-meaning customer service workshops, training sessions,and  organisational values on their own often do not make a real change in the customer service of the organisation.  What is needed is a goal.  A strategic approach is needed.  So ask yourself some questions:

• What is the customer service strategy?
• How will it be delivered?
• How will we know when we have achieved it?

Does your organisation need Customer Service Training?

Having read the Top 10 Rules for customer service if your organisation is falling short then you need some training and you may first need some work on the customer service strategy.  Start with the end in mind. Our team of customer service consultants can help you with this. Take a look at our ECI© model to get a feel where you need to be focussing efforts.

When building a customer service change programme you will want to include some training.  If you are ready to consider this here are some pointers about customer service training.  The customer service training should be tailored to your needs but will include elements of the following:

• Your corporate values and priorities as they relate to customer service
• The Employee Customer Interface© and what should happen in this vital area
• How to increase customer focus across the organisation
• Satisfying customer needs and recognising the importance of personal service
• How to use the personal side of service to differentiate the organisation.
• 10 secrets to success with customers, increasing motivation to rise to the challenge of dealing with even the most demanding of customers
• Refining interpersonal skills to really make a difference
• Increasing  telephone and face to face communication skills, including how to build empathy, and use voice modulation, appropriate language, tone, greetings and closure, even during stressful interactions
• Understanding Body Language and how to project yours and read theirs
• Being able to handle successful conversations with customers, develop appropriate levels of rapport quickly and easily, promote your services confidently and feel in control and confident.
• Recognising the importance of perception and how that customer perception drives and influences behaviour
• How to think quickly and generate solutions when handling complaints, in line with policy and processes
• How to end the conversation but not the customer relationship

At Training To Achieve we specialise in customer experience transformation.  Our consultants help clients with developing a strategic approach through to customer service training.  If you need our help do get in touch.

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