The difference between mediocre customer service and great customer service is the quality of training. By taking the time to properly train your customer service employees, you empower them to be accurate, timely, flexible, and most of all, helpful. Well-trained employees will be able to handle most problems as they arise and will know what to do if they face the unexpected.
Excellent training creates excellent customer service staffs. Your staff should hit the front lines armed with all the information needed to handle every aspect of customer transactions. If your staff appears unknowledgeable about your products and services, you risk losing customer trust and repeat business.
Initial training costs are the heaviest. However, as your company grows, training costs will scale down to a proportion of sales. The important part of training is that it's promptly implemented and well done. The amount of money potentially lost to ineffectual, incomplete, or nonexistent training is too great to ignore.
No- to low-cost solutions. For the start-up, training costs time ? your time. Providing in-house training is your best option for keeping monetary costs to a minimum. If you train customer service staff yourself, using the manuals provided with the equipment and developing a customer service plan according to your own expertise, you will have ultimate control over the quality of service provided by your employees.
Mid- to high-cost solutions. Outside training resources, such as online universities, consultants, or conferences, specialize in effective general training techniques. Expenses for these services can include tuition, contracting fees, and travel, which may be cost prohibitive for small businesses.
You really can't go wrong as long as a training plan and its costs are integrated into your business strategy. All well-organized and relevant information provided to your customer service staff will help your customers. That being said, there are a few things to watch out for:
Beware of rigid policies that make sense for the company and the bookkeeping department, but cause frustration, resentment, even anger among customer service employees who find the policies unhelpful or unusable. This translates into lost sales. Just because a policy has been put into place doesn't mean it should be defended at all costs.
Be sure to listen to comments and suggestions from your customer service staff. Input from the front lines can provide the most immediate data on customer satisfaction and problems with your products and services.
Don't depend on training to solve all your problems. Because training is less expensive than new equipment, many managers try to train their staffs to overcome deficiencies caused by outdated equipment and policies. While this is possible, it can cause frustration among your employees and your customers. Make sure equipment and policies are in sync with the knowledge of your customer service staff and your customers' expectations.
Do-it-yourself. If yours is a small company with one or two employees, in all likelihood you'll develop your own customer service training procedures.
Off-the-shelf. Many books, manuals, and ready-made training packages are available to supplement your in-house customer service policies. Some software manufacturers provide training with their products.
Turnkey
solutions.
You can outsource all your training
to consultants or companies that
specialize in training customer
service staffs. The larger customer
service software packages provide
free training. And as the product
changes, the vendor should provide
free training updates.
Author: Jennifer LeClaire