Customers are aware that they deserve quality service.
If you do not take care of your belongings, someone else will.
It’s always a good idea to train your employees in customer service and support skills.
How can customer support training be incorporated into a company’s culture?
This article discusses some customer service training ideas that can be used to develop a strong educational foundation, regardless of the industry in which you work.
Customer Service Training Topics
1. Reflective Listening
When responding to customers, it is extremely useful to repeat what they say in order to ensure that you and the customer are on the same page.
If customers are dealing with a frustrating or time-sensitive issue, it also helps them feel heard.
Teammates should take turns practicing reflective listening with each other.
Here’s an example:
Sarah: I was charged more than usual, and I didn’t approve it. I want a refund.
“I’m sorry that you were charged twice this month, Sarah. I’ll make sure you get your money back. Are you seeing any other strange charges?”
Miguel quickly identifies and diagnoses Sarah’s issue by repeating it back to her, assuring Sarah that help is on the way for her problem.
2. Product Demonstration
To see if new support reps are ready to take calls, have them give a product demonstration.
Product demonstrations are in-depth presentations that ensure service representatives are knowledgeable about the product or service.
Prospective customers should be given a 10-15 minute product presentation and demonstration by a representative, walking them through everything they need to know to successfully start using it themselves.
A good manager should be able to listen and explain complicated topics in a clear and concise manner. They should also be knowledgeable about every aspect of the product, website, app, and its features.
3. Call Review
This means that feedback is essential for success and it is something that support reps should take advantage of.
The idea behind a call review is to listen back to a customer service call with the intention of identifying what went well and what could be improved. It is common for successful customer service teams to hold call reviews. The idea behind a call review is to listen to a customer service call again with the goal of figuring out what went well and what could be improved.
Teams should occasionally get together to listen to a recorded customer call and discuss what went well and what could be improved.
Calls with actual customers can give you an idea of what their real expectations are, and getting input from other team members can provide a different perspective that can help representatives improve constantly.
One way to train customer service teams is through a presentation. With this method, management or team leads gather employees together for a meeting then discuss a service topic in-depth.
This allows the speaker to focus on specific training materials while the rest of the team can provide feedback or ask questions.
The following are some types of presentations you can use to conduct training:
Visuals
The use of visuals is an effective way of engaging a larger audience.
Images that align with what you’re saying make your presentation more understandable and therefore more powerful.
Although PowerPoint presentations are an effective way to train customer service staff, there are some common mistakes that should be avoided, as outlined in this video.
Storytelling
If you’re looking for a way to motivate your audience, you can try using storytelling. In this presentation style, the speaker tells stories that are relevant to their audience.
The text is discussing how a company provides customer service and how this can be used to provide an actionable plan for the audience. The company overcomes customer service roadblocks by demonstrating how someone on their team was able to do this.
Instruction
When presenting a new or complex topic, it is best to use instruction. This will help your audience understand the topic better. For example, if you were to launch a new product, holding an instructional presentation explaining what the product is, how it works, and why it was created would be beneficial.
In these scenarios, speakers often use metaphors and paradoxes to make complex topics more relatable and easier to understand. By comparing confusing points with other topics that the audience is more familiar with, speakers can connect complex topics to relatable concepts.
Q&A
In this approach, the speaker briefly discusses a topic and then solicits questions from the audience.
This is a good choice for smaller audiences because it allows everyone to take part in the group discussion.
Although Q&A’s are excellent for engaging employees, the speaker must have extensive knowledge on the presentation topic to be successful.
If the aforementioned options do not appeal to you, there are other presentation styles available.
5. Sensitivity Training
While it is good that employees are exposed to new perspectives, there is potential for conflict between coworkers.
As an owner or manager, you are responsible for making sure all employees are working towards the same goal.
Sensitivity training is an exercise that helps employees understand their professional goals as well as their personal biases. By diving into these topics in-depth, employees can better understand one another and be more considerate of their differences. Therefore, sensitivity training can help create a more cohesive work environment.
It is important to conduct sensitivity training regularly with your team, this will remind employees of how they should treat one another, as well as how they should voice their opinions if they need to confront an issue.
If you frequently go over these concepts with new hires, they will be more at ease when joining your company, and as a result, be more productive from the start.
6. Customer Experience Simulation
Instead of interacting with a mock customer, the service rep becomes the customer and goes through the purchasing experience.
Reps can see the roadblocks they troubleshoot from the perspective of the user in order to relate to the frustration or disappointment customers feel.
This ensures that when they are working with actual customers, they have a better grasp of what the customers are going through and how to resolve their issues.
7. Social Media Training
Social media platforms are a necessary part of an effective support system that reaches customers across multiple channels. Customers have come to expect high-quality customer service from the brands they follow on social media.
Since almost half of consumers will unfollow a business on social media due to poor customer service, your team needs to have resources dedicated to supporting these channels.
Although social media is still relatively new to customer service, not all your representatives may be experienced in using these platforms for professional purposes as opposed to personal updates.
One way to improve social media communication and create more delightful customer experiences is by taking a training course on how to use social media. HubSpot Academy offers such a course.
Customer service Training With Easy Exercises
1. Bringing Positive Attitude
However, you do need to indicate that you are happy to see the customer and that you want to be helpful. Your customer service team members’ biggest asset can be as simple as a smile. This doesn’t mean you need to be cheery or grinning like a maniac, but you do need to show the customer that you’re happy to see them and that you’re eager to help.
Maintaining a positive outlook is a crucial aspect of the job.
The way your customer service reps act speaks very loudly about what your brand is like. Your customer service training should therefore cover topics such as posture, language, and tone of voice.
Make sure your agents attitudes are positive, as this will be contagious to customers.
Customer service training exercise:
- A customer wants to get a refund. However, he is not eligible for it. Try to explain it to him without forming negations like “don’t/won’t/not.” Try to end on a positive note.
2. Listening To Customers
The majority of people see themselves as good listeners, however customer service demands a special ability known as active listening. Being silent and permitting someone to talk is not merely what active listening entails.
Active listening is when both parties are engaged in the conversation.
Customer service agents who have received training know how to reply to customers, paraphrase what the customers say, and ask follow-up questions.
Sometimes people need to clarify or summarize what has been said in order to ensure understanding. Being a good active listener requires practice and cannot be done naturally.
Customer service training exercise:
- Collect a list of typical complaints of your customers and then try to paraphrase them in your own words. Use the formula: “So, you have [describe the problem]. Is that correct?” Asking for confirmation shows that you pay attention.
3. Cultivating Empathy
The customer service agents should be able to understand the customer’s feelings and needs.
If your employees are finding it difficult to connect with customers on an emotional level, don’t worry. Empathy can be learned.
The ability to empathize with customers is one of the most important customer service skills. Customer support agents should be just as concerned with the problems of their clients as the clients themselves. When an agent and a customer are able to understand and share the same feelings, they can work together more effectively to achieve their shared goal.
Customer service training exercise:
- Role-play a situation in which agent A pretends to be a customer and agent B tries to be the worst agent ever. But don’t tell agent A about the goal of agent B. Afterward, ask agent A what was wrong and how it should be done correctly. This exercise helps them understand the position of an upset customer.
4. Improving Communication
Customer service agents must be able to translate complicated matters into easily digestible language. They must also have great communication skills and the ability to shareThat knowledge with others.
They should say things confidently, organizing and structuring them in a way that is easy to follow.
Beware of being too straightforward in your communication as it might come across as rude or insensitive. It’s important to focus on the facts, but be mindful of how your delivery might be perceived.
You need to deliver information to your customers in a way that they can understand it and at a pace that is comfortable for them.
Customer service training exercise:
- Come up with a customer issue that requires a longer explanation. Divide your team into two groups. Let one group write a single email with instructions on solving the problem. The second group should write 3-8 live chat messages with instructions instead. Compare the results and discuss their effectiveness with regard to clarity.
5. Learning De-Escalation Strategies
You can’t be a good customer service representative without learning basic conflict resolution skills. For example, instead of saying “yes, but” you should always try to say “yes, and.” If you’re defensive, it will always escalate the problem.
Instead of trying to prove they are right, a customer service agent should focus on being helpful.
Other ways to de-escalate a situation involve presenting different outcomes and negotiating possible solutions. You can find out more about how to deal with different types of customers here.
Customer service training exercise:
- Search for funny customer service videos for training on YouTube. There are many great examples from cinema and real life. Discuss the materials and try to analyse what went wrong and how the conflict could have been avoided or resolved.
6. Expanding Knowledge
Customer service involves more than just soft skills; your customers need to feel like their issues are being solved in a timely and effective manner.
Although emotional intelligence is important, it won’t be helpful if you don’t have the required knowledge for the job. Additionally, having to deal with a customer service representative who doesn’t know what they’re doing is not a positive customer service experience.
The majority of customers expect to be able to resolve complex issues by speaking to a single customer service agent. This means that you should focus on having a small team of well-trained agents who are experts on your product.
A single quality agent is better than multiple agents any day. This is because people don’t want to have to deal with multiple people.
It’s just as important to give your ecommerce customer service employees product training as it is to give them empathy training. By knowing all the details about your company and products, they can build better relationships with customers.
Customer service training exercise:
- Prepare a quiz with random questions related to your products. Divide your employees into teams and turn it into a competition.
7. Boosting Efficiency
It is better to have a few agents who are knowledgeable and efficient at problem-solving than to have lots of agents who are only mediocre.
Solving problems quickly is a skill that will empower agents and eventually be profitable for their company. Good customer service is necessary for both large call centers and small businesses.
If you want to be more efficient, use the right customer routing and customer service tools. This will save time for everyone involved and help you track the performance of your team.
Customer relationship management software and live chat are both solutions that you could try out. They could also be used as platforms for customer service training.
Customer service training exercise:
- Add a live chat button to your website and use chat analytics to check the performance of your agents. After several months, ask your top-performing agent to prepare time-management workshops for the rest of the team.
Key Takeaway
Some customer service representatives learn the necessary skills through on-the-job training. As they gain more experience, they will learn how to handle all types of customers.
But some customer service kind people may require additional help. A in-house product knowledge or an online class is always a good suggestion.
Even though the most expensive training program might not be necessary to become a great customer service agent, enrolling in one may be beneficial.
The biggest benefits of all types of customer support training are:
- Better business results through increased customer satisfaction
- Improved understanding of products offered by your business
- Delivering high-quality customer experiences
- Being able to help customers solve their problems with more efficiency
- Learning more about yourself, your colleagues, or employees
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