Article • 6 min read
Customer service training: 6 steps to effectively prepare your team
By Douglas da Silva
Last updated June 28, 2021
Considering that 61% of consumers say that receiving good service is more important than the price or quality of the products, investing in the creation of efficient customer service training is no longer an option, but rather an obligation for small, medium-sized, and large companies.
The fact is that consumers define customer service as an important element in becoming loyal to a brand. And why loyalty is so relevant?
One reason for this is the cost to retain a customer, which is around 5 to 25 times lower than the cost needed to acquire a new customer.
In short, excellent customer service training will help your company to:
Increase sales
Retain customers
Reduce costs
Strengthen your image in the market.
But how is this training created? Below are some team training tips that your company needs.
Customer service training
Customer service training focuses on preparing professionals in the field to deal with customers in an assertive and attentive manner.
Training for excellence in customer service presents a challenge:
To resolve the customer’s problem,
In the quickest time possible,
In the channel that the consumer prefers,
Showing empathy,
Understanding the customer’s history with the company.
Therefore, we have prepared a step-by-step guide on how to create customer service training:
Develop interpersonal skills
Share everything about the product or service
Use cases to provide training examples
Create and share service standards
Establish a mentoring program
Provide training on how to use the tools
Before delving into each of these steps, it is important for you and for all professionals in the field to keep in mind that each customer interaction is unique.
Every contact is an experience and one mistake can compromise the relationship with customers who have been with the company for years.
1. Develop interpersonal skills
70% of shopping experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. Thus, it is essential to make sure that the professional serving the customer treats them with attention, interest, and empathy.
Speaking in this way seem quite obvious, but working with customer service can also be quite difficult because there are customers and customers.
Therefore, in addition to technical training, it is important to teach the professionals how to deal with customers who are impatient, aggressive, and frustrated.
It’s not that every customer will be like this, but there are definitely a few matching this profile.
And truth be told, customers who contact the company because they are having problems or difficulties using the product or service are generally not in a good mood.
In these cases, the customer service manager should know how to act in order to resolve the problem, to calm the customer down, and to “respond” to any unpleasant words they may use.
One of the ways to do this is to carry out simulations to show, in practice, how to deal with stressful situations.
It is important to train empathy, which is the characteristic of putting yourself in someone’s shoes, in this case in customer service interactions.
2. Share everything about the product or service
Few things are worse in the context of customer service than a professional who does not understand the customer’s problem because he or she does not understand the features of the product or service.
In addition to personal skills, it is important for the customer service manager to possess a deep understanding of the services and products offered by the company, as well as all of their features and the most common difficulties faced by customers.
This entails continuous learning, especially since the product or service is likely to evolve over time.
Keep customer service professionals in the loop about everything that is done.
Update the customer service professional about each new product. Take the time to share predictions about areas that may generate more questions from customers and highlight the most effective solutions.
A tip for team training is to make a face-to-face presentation and update the knowledge base so that the professionals can have quick access to shared content.
This reduces the service time, resolves the customer’s problem, and improves their experience with the brand.
3. Use cases to provide training examples
There is nothing better than real situations to help you share your knowledge with customer service professionals.
Very often we learn from our mistakes and successes in our day-to-day work, and this can be used to provide examples about what to do and what not to do in different situations.
Additionally, it is likely that good service can become great service if only a few small details are changed.
To know what to change, it is important to analyse the service provided and to propose solutions.
An interesting dynamic that addresses this aspect is to ask the professionals during training to share stories of their most complicated cases of customer services. The other collaborators should give suggestions on how to improve the work done, for example.
Create an environment in which employees feel motivated and not under pressure.
4. Create and share customer service standards
If you wish to achieve a high standard of quality in customer service, it is important to create a document about service standards containing a service flow chart.
Organize the approach strategies for before and after the sale, and plan support processes.
Everything must be documented and shared with the service professionals so that they always know what to do.
5. Establish a mentoring program
Within your company, a mentor should be a professional with more experience in the business, who can help with the professional development of new arrivals.
The mentor shares knowledge, offers help, and keeps a close eye on his or her “pupil”.
This is an effective way to share the responsibility of training with other professionals who have already shown good results in customer service, by engaging them.
Mentors can continuously share real information about their day-to-day work without depending only on the time scheduled for customer service training.
6. Provide training about the use of tools
For quality service, it is essential to invest in tools that allow you and your team to put into practice things such as:
Omnichannel support
Access to the knowledge base
Platforms such as chats
Data and reports.
With a complete and integrated customer service software you can offer your team the tools they need to operate and ensure an excellent customer service experience.
However, in addition to making the tool available, you must also train your employees so that they know how to use it.
Share all of the features and resources, and include each step in the standardized service process mentioned above.
Zendesk integrates in a single system various features for support, sales, and customer engagement.
With Zendesk Suite you can offer a complete customer service experience and make the team’s work more productive and efficient. Offer integrated support, have access to a knowledge base and self-service, and more!
