No matter how revolutionary or exemplary your business is, you won’t get to build solid relationships with customers if your customer service leaves much to be desired. In a nutshell, customer service refers to the direct one-on-one interaction between a company’s representative and the consumer making the purchase or enlisting the service.
The truth is that customer service can be tough. The key to ‘good customer service’ is the ability to meet your client’s expectations. You know a business has great customer service when they meet clients’ expectations every single time a new or old customer reaches out.
Given how difficult it is to please some people, building a culture of excellent customer service can be challenging. While it may be tough to meet every single customer’s needs, it is not impossible. Here are some customer service training ideas to help improve your team’s performance:
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Product/service testing
In order for your team to understand where the customer is coming from, they should have first-hand experience with your brand’s products or services. This training idea helps them understand the company’s offerings deeply.
Giving your team a sample of your business’s offerings provides them the opportunity to empathize with your customers. In short, they would understand where your audience is coming from. Offering sample products or services to the team would allow them to empathize with customers.
Personality tests
Every person in your team is unique. Your company can get to know each member better by having them take personality tests. The CliftonStrengths assessment is a fun yet effective way to help your company maximise every person’s potential at work.
Another popular personality test is the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. Through these tests, you learn about each person’s strengths and room for improvement. They also have the opportunity to learn more about themselves. The results of these exams can be utilised to unlock every member’s potential by capitalising on their strengths to provide the best customer experience.
Role-playing
Improving a company’s customer service requires a lot of practice. Your team won’t become experts in handling clients’ concerns overnight. Role-playing is an effective method for sharpening your team’s customer service skills.
What’s great about role-playing is that it allows your team members to develop their communication skills and troubleshooting process consequently. Since you won’t be facing a real customer, you can practice new techniques that you may employ moving forward. Practice makes perfect, and role-playing is a great way to learn from possible mistakes.
Visuals
A study in 2019 found that employees are 75% more likely to watch video content than reading instruction materials. Videos are effective tools to demonstrate to your team what should be done to inspire them to follow suit.
Showing your team the proper process of executing actions can create a better impact than sending a step-by-step e-mail. Illustrating the problem and the best solution in the same video material clarifies the context of a scenario. Fortunately, there are online tools like Zoom and Loom to help facilitate this method for businesses conveniently.
Microlearning
It can be challenging for team members to digest plenty of information at the same time. Being overloaded with information can be counterproductive. This is where microlearning comes in. Microlearning enhances your team’s performance and learning effectively and efficiently through short pieces of content.
Microlearning makes it easier for team members to retain information. At the same time, they’re also encouraged to participate in every training session. Microlearning can be more effective in covering specific training areas at a faster pace. This is in comparison to an hour-long session that covers various topics.
Mentorship
No matter how competent your managers or senior executives are, they can’t be everywhere at once at the same time. Having a mentorship program delegates the responsibility of guiding newer or more junior team members to people with more experience.
With experience comes a lot of wisdom and knowledge. Giving team members the opportunity to be mentored by senior executives allows them to impart their learnings. At the same time, having someone focus on them specifically can give newer team members the opportunity for a more personalised plan for growth. They would also have someone to reach out to if they need some advice or assistance.
Question and Answer
Any great customer service representative would know your business’s products or services like the back of his hand. Your team should have a good understanding of what your company is about, and what it offers to the market.
Having a question and answer activity is a potentially fun and competitive way for your team to showcase their knowledge. There are plenty of online tools to make learning exciting and dynamic. In turn, you would also find out what your team knows about the business.
Request for feedback
No customer training plan is ever perfect. There is always room for improvement. When training your team to deliver excellent customer service, it would be a great idea to ask for their insight and suggestions. Doing so opens a healthy discussion on what your company can do moving forward.
Your team has first-hand experience with customers’ sentiments. Thus, your team members can provide valuable ideas to help improve the company’s customer service. By listening to what your team has to say, you build a stronger, more collaborative culture as well.
Building an excellent customer service culture takes time, effort, and patience. Learning how to improve your business is a continuous journey. The same principle applies to your customer service.
Investing in training your workforce is investing in your company’s future. With these training ideas, you can unlock every member’s full potential and build a stronger team. You also motivate them to improve as professionals and individuals. In turn, they can provide each customer with the best experience possible.
At The Global Brand Academy would be more than happy to listen and offer your organisation bespoke solutions to take your customer service to greater heights. We can help you execute the above-mentioned customer service training ideas and more. With our help, you can usher your team into customer service excellence. For more info, e-mail us at [email protected] or call +6592716973.