When you’re running a company that relies on a telephone answering service or large teams of otherwise customer-facing staff, great customer service skills are essential. While all business owners understand the importance of periodical customer service training, it can be easy to let this become unstructured and rudderless. Here are five of the most important facets to cover in customer service training…
Empathy and patience
Some customers your staff talk to will be angry and upset. Others will be confused about your product or service. During training, you need to teach your staff to handle all these different customer types, and deliver a consistent quality of service.
The ability to adapt
Humans are volatile creatures. Every customer will be different, and some will even seem to change drastically from one day to the next. With this in mind, you need to train your staff to be able to deal with surprises, pick up on subtle cues, and adapt their tone accordingly.
Clarity
Teach your customer-facing staff the importance of speaking clearly, and in a way that will convey exactly what they mean. You don’t want customers getting angry with your brand when they’re confused about what they’re getting. Stress the importance of staff never putting the phone down until they know that the customer understands the situation perfectly.
Knowledge of the business
Customers will expect your staff to have fairly extensive knowledge of your product or service, and rightly so! Make sure your customer-facing staff are informed enough to respond to some of the more detailed questions they might face. If things ever get too technical, there should be someone on-hand to resolve the issue promptly.
Great attitude to work
Customers always appreciate a company rep who’s willing to put the work in, and see their issue or inquiry through to the end. While a plain and simple positive attitude is fairly important, you should also make a point to enhance your staff’s personal time management skills, and never spend too much time helping out one customer if another’s been waiting for a long time.
For more tips and advice on customer support and communication, contact us at Frontline today.