Customer Service Training Seminars:
Our customer service seminar teaches by doing with less than 15% lecture and 85% hands on
activities. Participants learn by Doing and not by being told. Exercises are
practical, realistic, fun and are skill based.
To maximize your customer
service teams effectiveness we suggest our custom, private
customer service seminars offered in house at the location of
your choice, usually in groups of 6 or more.
Contact
us for a free consultation on how we can best service your
training needs.
Seminar Objectives:
In our Exceptional Customer Service one-day seminar
participants will:
- Understand how to handle inquiries and/or complaints in
ways that create improved, lasting relationships with your
customers or clients.
- Learn to promote positive "chemistry" between
your company and your clients by recognizing and
responding to the needs of each individual.
- Learn how to handle doubt, misunderstandings, and
objections.
- Acquire techniques for seeing issues from clients'
perspectives, creating value-adding options for clients,
and making sure clients recognize the added value they are
getting.
- Learn how to gain agreement from clients and reinforce
mutually satisfying long-term relationships.
Customer Service Training:
Customer Service Management Seminar - Establish Rules & Eliminate Standards
As individuals, one of the earmarks of maturing is that we're allowed increasing latitude and discretion in how we handle ourselves and our personal relationships.
When we're small children, for instance, we don't really choose our playmates. Our parents do it for us, in conjunction with other parents.
But as we develop, we not only choose our pals, but we resent intrusions into that process by our elders as violating our personal rights as increasingly independent individuals.
The same can generally be seen as we grow in our careers.
Generally, when we're in an entry level capacity, it's likely that we'll be told exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it; and our work will be supervised and scrutinized much more closely and carefully than when we're Vice President of Operations.
Certainly, as we climb the organizational ladder, there are pressures to perform, but the pressures to conform are more relaxed.
Apart from our need to coordinate with others at specific intervals, as senior managers we become the captains of our calendars, seeing whom we wish, when we wish, based on our perception of what will make us most productive.
Our evolution progresses from being clerks, or receivers, preservers and dispensers of information, to knowledge workers; where we interpret, create, and prioritize information.
At first, we follow policy, and later, when we have earned our stripes, we help to set it.
Instead of complying with very specific work "rules" that have been defined for us, we learn to apply "standards," over which we come to have significant influence.
What's the difference between rules and standards?
Think of driving. The maximum permissible speed may be 70 miles per hour. That's a rule we need to obey, and it is quite clear and, as those of us who have been pulled over can attest, it's subject to being monitored, measured, managed, and enforced.
Drivers can watch their speedometers to make sure they comply, and law enforcers can clock vehicles as they pass by. Except in unusual circumstances, a rule will ALWAYS be in operation.
But let's say the road conditions are perilous, ice and wind driven snow are creating nearly "whiteout" conditions. Drivers can barely see in front of their vehicles.
What, then? Is the posted speed limit the maximum permissible?
No, a STANDARD takes priority over the rule. We're allowed to proceed at a speed that "is safe."
By shifting from a rule to a standard, it means we have gone from an objective to a subjective criterion.
There is only one interpretation of the 70 mile per hour speed limit under normal driving conditions, but when unusual weather is present, there are, potentially, as many interpretations of the safe driving "standard" as there are drivers or vehicles.
We may not like the speed limit, feeling it is too conservative or liberal, but it has been set based on getting as many people as possible to their destinations efficiently and safely.
In a word, the speed limit gets positive RESULTS.
We can adjust the rule, if we doubt its efficacy, by asking key questions.
For example, how many lives are spared and collisions avoided at 65 miles per hour?
What is the impact of lowering the speed limit on average commuting times?
What are the costs to individuals, to businesses, and the effects on fuel economy?
Now, imagine eliminating all speed limits, everywhere. What would some of the results be? Would you want to drive under those conditions, where it's literally, "Every person for him or herself?"
I think you'll agree that it is desirable to have rules, especially when we can connect their absence to a significantly deteriorated or chaotic outcome.
In the same sense, there is a huge role for rules, and their enforcement, in the handling of customers and the conduct of customer service. The most evolved customer service providers deliberately make a transition from using vague standards to embracing more manageable rules.
In business, the ideal situation is one in which all customers are handled efficiently and satisfactorily, just as it would be ideal for all vehicles to follow the speed limit.
It is ideal in customer service to have rules that are clear and that can be followed with a modicum of effort.
For example, we benefit from having a rule that says, "Whenever you ask a customer for information or to do something, say 'please,' and when they have complied, or done something for you, say 'thank you.'"
That's simple, isn't it? It is also subject to being monitored, measured, and managed by the reps, themselves, and by supervisors.
And most important, saying these words is a "difference that makes a difference" in the overall tenor of the conversation and it directly impacts customer comfort and satisfaction.
We know this by observing what happens when we eliminate "please" and "thank you."
Their absence makes conversations sound harsh, rude, callous, and alienating. Leaving them out contributes to defensiveness and it makes customers feel not only that they're not appreciated, but that they're being abused.
Knowing this, why wouldn't we make it a RULE to say these words ALL THE TIME?
Is there any equally valid argument for taking this potential rule and permitting it to be a mere STANDARD?
Should reps have the right to decide when and where and how often they can say please and thank you?
Should they say these words when they "feel like it," and leave them out when they aren't in the mood?
As I type these words, at this very moment in the history of customer service, a field that has been garnering astonishing attention and investment during the past few years, reps are still allowed to do just that: to make it up as they go along, to improvise, to "drive" conversations as chaotically and as recklessly as they wish.
Few "speed limits" have been posted by management for them to obey, so when their communications are unproductive, these road runners cannot easily be cited for their misconduct or be easily or convincingly corrected.
Rules are relevant when we know their observance predictably and reliably improves outcomes, and at this stage of research and development, some of us have developed techniques and technologies that optimize customer transactions, providing they're followed jot for jot.
We have mapped the "rules of correspondence," the connections between what we say, when we say it, and how we say it, with producing consistent customer satisfaction and customer retention.
Like a recipe, we can tell reps with utter confidence, if you follow these rules, for instance the Three T's: governing the best uses of text, tone, and timing; you'll consistently get certain wonderful customer results.
Your conversations will be more achieving, they'll be more pleasant, and they'll even be materially shorter, less taxing emotionally and above all, they'll be more rewarding for you, too.
But, having said all of that, many reps will want to rebel against the rules.
They'll resent having gone from a situation where THEY ALONE determined what are good, better, and best practices, without meaningful review or correction.
Reps who resist conforming feel it is a slight to their individuality to be told exactly what they can and cannot say, believing that as grown-ups they have earned the right to communicate exactly as they wish.
Off the job, before hours, and after hours, they're quite right.
But in business, we have rules to obey, profits to make, competitive pressures to resist, and customers to satisfy, and these things come first.
Maturing, in a business context doesn't mean being able to say or do as we please, it means consistently and conscientiously doing what has been proven to get objective, meaningful and measurable results, time and again.
Sometimes, if you manage a business or customer service, this puts you into the role of being a traffic cop.
No rep likes being pulled over and ticketed, but you have to do it; and though it makes you unpopular, it's your job.
But you can take comfort in the fact that without your continuing diligence, we wouldn't be nearly as successful as we know how to be.
Observing the rules of effective customer service, the type that result in consistent customer satisfaction and retention, should not be a matter of personal choice when it can mean the difference between merely getting by, and thriving.
Source:
Dr. Gary S. Goodman:
link
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