The Customer Is Always Right: What Should Customer Service Training Involve?

Support problems can easily arise when you haven’t implemented a good training plan within your customer service team.

Not only can a lack of training lead to poor customer service, but it can also result in a high turnover rate as staff don’t feel they’re being given the opportunity to progress. This can result in added costs for the business through lost customers and recruitment charges.

Therefore, instead of filling the gaps with more untrained staff, crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, it’s far better to invest time and money in proper training.

What is Customer Service Training?

This type of training is what will help your employees transform from people helping customers to top-notch customer service professionals.

If an agent hasn’t been provided with the right foundations upon which to build on, the experience your customers are going to receive will be negative. But with a little bit of training, this can be avoided.

So who needs training? Well, the obvious answer is the team that’s dealing directly with your customers. Correct. But that isn’t where it should end. In most cases, anyone who’s dealing with customers should be provided with customer service training (if possible), as this will improve the service they provide.

For example, if you provided your marketing team with the same training as your customer care staff, they’ll be able to see what customers need from your company. This, in turn, will help them target their advertisements to the customers’ needs.

How Can You Train Your Workforce?

There are a number of different customer service training methods, including class-based training and on-the-job training.

Class-based training includes a tailored lecture that covers a range of different customer service theories, best practices, tips and tricks. This allows your company to train a large group without having to spend lots of time and money on resources. Plus the training will be the same for all of your team members, which creates a consistent level across the board.

On-the-job training can be used instead of or with the above, the latter being more preferential. By putting their skills into practice while they’re doing their job, agents can see real-life examples of how their customer service influences clients.

This training could be provided by a leader or expert in the area, with the agent taking fewer calls while they’re learning.

How Can You Provide Your Team with Everything They Need?

To make sure your training program is as effective as possible, there are a few things your agents may benefit from, including:

Answers to FAQS

As your agents are learning it’s inevitable they’re going to have some questions they need answering. Therefore, it’s important they know where they can get these answers from, and that they’ll learn from the answers they’re provided with.

For example, you might want to make them aware what articles are available on the company’s database and what topics they cover, or which team leader is an expert in which area.

Offer Tools and Resources

You may find it beneficial to have a shared to-do list for your team members so they’re able to coordinate tasks among themselves with greater ease. Something as simple as a Google Doc that’s shared between them could help them plan their work and training.

Having tools in place that assist with communication is a good idea too, as this will allow agents to contact someone for help when they need it. It’s also a great way of getting your employees to interact with one another.

Spend More Time on Common Issues

Even though you’ll want to make sure your agents can deal with complex issues, it’s important that they’re clued up on the most common cases. As this will account for most of their work it’ll help smooth out the process if you spend more time on these issues, demonstrating the different ways they can be resolved.

For example, if one of the common questions is how to sign up to a newsletter, make sure your new employees know how to do that before moving onto something else.

Don’t Isolate New Hires

As a new agent is getting to grips with the ropes, it’s important to make sure they’re not left on their own as they’re learning. To make sure they’re progressing and that their training is working, shadow them to see how well they’re interacting with customers. If you notice an area for improvement, provide them with beneficial tips as to what they can do to excel in this area. You might also want to refer them to a particular module within the training program that they may benefit from.

Creating a training program for your staff will depend on your company and its needs, but by investing time in this you’re far more likely to achieve greater results within your business.

Tyler Jarvis shares his knowledge of training staff to be their best every time. Read his informative articles on a range of business, employment and employee blogs.