9 Ways to Train Your Employees to Deliver Good Customer Service

Like it or not, good customer service can make or break a business. Since the customer expectations for service are rising at a fast pace, nowadays clients no longer just want answers to their questions but instead look for a quick fix to their problems and desire a personal interaction with a skilled agent.

Earning a good reputation for good customer service do not just start with organizing a well-planned training. Yes, you heard it right. By simply training your support team in customer servicing isn’t going to work.

Apart from training, you will also need a top notch elearning tool otherwise it won’t give you the results you hoped for.

In this article, we will share some recommendations that will help you understand how you should treat and train the employees in order for clients to get the most of your customer service.

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#1 Allow your employees to be ‘creative’ while helping the customers

Even though numerous companies state that they care about their employees and want them to take a proactive role, this has become more like a formal statement. In many cases, there’s a lot of talking but the truth is the employees don’t often get a chance of sharing their ideas and having them accepted by the management. This isn’t correct.

Your employees, especially those working in customer service, should be encouraged to come up with practical solutions and new ideas because they deal with customers (happy, agitated, unsatisfied, etc) all the time. Hence, allow them to take decisions that will make your customers feel satisfied.

#2 Train your customer support team about the importance of ‘customer is always right’

Not every manager has a positive attitude towards the clients that contact the customer service. Some of them are pessimistic and have a judgmental attitude when it comes to communicating with clients. Many of them share stories about customers constantly trying to take advantage of them and mess with their businesses.

This is a complete ‘no-no’.

The first thing you should do as a good manager who wants to offer a quality customer service is to explain to his/her team is that you want them to help the customers as efficiently as they can. No person that contacts you should feel bad about it, and if your customer service treats one disrespectfully, you’re definitely on the wrong path.

#3 Set standards and ensure they are followed

Telling your customer service team you want them to provide high-quality responses to each client definitely is not enough for them to get your point.

Big words don’t mean a thing if you don’t have a concise and precise list of guidelines that should be followed in the process of communication with clients. Only then you can be sure that the team will efficiently do its job.

#4 Provide employees with everything needed to provide quality responses

In order for a customer service team to efficiently deal with the clients’ issues, you should support them the necessary tools (such as elearning software) that are easy to use, accurate and up-to-date.

Customer service is definitely a part of your business that you should not hesitate to invest in, especially because it doesn’t take too much money to establish a functional, practical, and reliable customer support.

You should also have in mind the number of calls (or messages) your customer service receives. If there are, too many calls per team member, you should consider expanding the team.

That way, you’ll make things easier both for customers (who are tired of waiting) and for the support team (who’ll be able to do their job more efficiently).

#5 Create a pleasant environment for your employees

It’s highly important that your customers have a pleasant working environment. If they spend their coffee breaks in a stimulating area that will help them not only clear their minds but also work out, take a shower, or enjoy their favorite TV show, you can be sure that they’ll be as efficient, productive after the break.

#6 Implement regular training sessions

The worst mistake committed when dealing with training organization is to think that it’s a one-time process.

Customer service training is something that should be done on a daily basis. You should try to improve the quality of service every day, by introducing different ways of learning. You can include role-plays, introduce various practical solutions, short lectures and workshops if the demand arises.

#7 Communicate with your customer service representatives

Before you introduce any major changes in your enterprise, you should make sure that the members of your customer service are aware of all the details. The last thing you want is your customer support to be uninformed, or, even worse, to be informed by the customers or media.

If you really want to have a good relationship with this team, you won’t only want to inform them about the changes, but also take their feedback and opinions.

#8 Listen to your employees and congratulate them for every success

What’s an important part of communication between management and employees, in general, is the management’s reaction when it comes to success they achieve. It’s crucially important for employees to feel appreciated every time they perform their tasks diligently.

A large number of managers tends to forget or simply doesn’t care about motivating the employees. Obviously, this should be changed since it leaves a negative impact on the employee self-esteem and on their work.

#9 Make your employees really feel like a team

The theory of teamwork sounds perfect and it’s a really good topic for managers to talk when they want to show off. However, when it comes to practice, not all managers put the effort in making the employees a real team or providing them ‘fun at work’ opportunities.

Find some time and resources to occasionally organize team buildings and meet-ups with your employees after successfully performed activities. They will appreciate it and do their best to keep up the good work.

Conclusion

There is a large number of ways for a manager to improve the quality of the company’s customer service and prevent giving lousy customer support.

Besides all the recommendations we’ve provided in this article, you should also think about the benefits a reliable customer service training software can bring.

A quality tool of this kind will help you continuously train the employees and help them improve their skills, providing them with courses, multimedia contents and analytic.

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