Customer Service Skills Knowledge Base and Frequently Asked Questions
What Should Customer Service Training Include?
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One essential in improving customer service and customer service skills is to ensure that your employees have the necessary skills AND knowledge to provide a satisfactory customer experience. Customer service training and seminars is one tool to achieve this. But what needs to be covered in customer service training seminars and courses? Here's the answer.
There are four basic areas that are REQUIRED if companies are to provide excellence in customer service. They are: product and service knowledge, customer service skills, competency in using customer service tools, and understanding of authority levels.
First, employees need to be highly trained in the products and services they either sell or support. There is no substitute for product knowledge in customer service. So, customer service training should include some components to allow staff to have the product knowledge they need. Ideally, those involved in providing customer service should have the opportunity for hands on use of the products.
Second, of course, are customer service skills -- the communication skill that are critical to giving the impression that the customer is important and valued. Training in this area can be somewhat generic, since it tends to not be specific to a particular company, while product knowledge training may need to be customized.
Third, and often neglected, is that customer service representatives need to have clear ideas about what their authority levels are -- what they can do and not do with regard to addressing the customer's needs. What needs to be escalated to a manager, for example? Under what conditions are refunds issued? This information is almost completely unique to the specific company, so generic customer service training courses won't supply this. It must come from internally designed customer service training, or be clearly outlined by the manager/supervisor.
Fourth, customer service representatives must be trained in the use of any and all "tools" or equipment used in customer service interactions -- knowledgebases, cash registers, phone systems.
See Also: What Are The Most Essential Customer Service Skills?
Robert Bacal is the author of two books on customer service: Perfect Phrases for Customer Service: Hundreds of Tools, Techniques, and Scripts for Handling Any Situation, and Defusing Hostile Customers Workbook. Most of the questions and answers in the Customer Service Knowledgebase (which you are reading now) is based on the material in these books.