What Job Includes: Project Management + Customer Service + Training
Customer service is tough. The expectations of the role might seem clear — it'south about helping and guiding customers to solve their issues and answer their questions. But the basics and bolts of how yous actually practice that can be easier said than washed. That'southward why client support teaching and training is so important. To retain customers and keep them happy then you can grow your concern, you need to prioritize employee training so they're equipped to meet client needs. In fact, we constitute that customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that don't prioritize customer service. Your customer service preparation should comprehend 3 aspects of the service function: attitude, skills, and knowledge. Developing your squad in each of these areas can provide them with a well-rounded skill set up to tackle virtually any customer issue. Below are some customer service training ideas y'all can employ to build a strong educational foundation — no matter what industry you work in. Reflective listening is repeating what people say when yous respond to them. This is an extremely useful client back up skill that makes sure you and your customers are on the same page. Information technology as well helps customers feel heard if they're dealing with a frustrating or time-sensitive issue. To practice growing your cogitating listening skills, pause team members into pairs, and inquire them to take turns responding to their partner by reflectively listening. Here's an example: Sarah: Hi, there was more than coin taken from my account than usual, and I didn't authorize that. I demand my money back. Miguel: Hello Sarah, apologies that you were billed twice this month. I'll brand sure to go yous your money back in full. But to confirm, yous're not seeing whatever other unusual payments, right? Taking the time to repeat Sarah'south issue back to her helps Miguel to quickly identify and diagnose her issue, every bit well as clinch Sarah that help is on the way for her trouble. A bang-up test that new support reps should take before getting on the phones is a product demonstration. Product demonstrations are deep-dives that make sure service reps know the production or service within and out. Reps should exist tasked with giving a ten-15 minute product presentation and demonstration — walking a prospective "customer" through everything they need to know to successfully start using information technology themselves. Managers should listen for their power to succinctly and conspicuously explain complicated topics — and to make sure they know how to utilise and explicate every facet of the product, its website or app, and its features. Feedback is the breakfast of champions — and of support, reps also. Call reviews are a common practice among successful customer support teams. (We do it here at HubSpot.) Periodically, teams should gather to listen to a recorded call with a customer and talk about what went well, and what can be improved. Existent calls tin can give you lot insight into real expectations, and input from team members tin provide a unique perspective to assistance reps constantly improve. One of the most traditional means to train customer service teams is through a presentation. With this method, direction or team leads gather employees together for a meeting so discuss a service topic in-depth. This lets the speaker touch on specific training textile while giving the rest of the squad a chance to provide feedback or enquire questions. In that location are a few types of presentations yous can utilize to comport training. Let'south review some below. Visuals like PowerPoints and graphics are a great way to hook in a larger audience. These images clarify and support your speaking points, making your presentation like shooting fish in a barrel to follow and more impactful on the listener. PowerPoints are a proven format for client service training; nonetheless, if you are going to take this road, exist sure to avoid some of the common pitfalls outlined in this video. If you're looking for a motivational format, you tin attempt storytelling. With this presentation, the speaker retells experiences that are relevant to their audience. They recap what happened, why it happened, and how they overcame it. This not only provides the audience with an actionable plan but besides demonstrates how someone on their team surmounted customer service roadblocks. Instruction should be used when presenting a new or circuitous topic to your audience. For case, if you're launching a new product, y'all may hold an instructional presentation explaining what information technology is, how information technology works, and why information technology was created. In these scenarios, speakers often use metaphors and paradoxes to compare confusing points with other topics that the audience is more familiar with. This makes a complex topic much easier to sympathise because the speaker has connected it to a relatable concept. Question and answer, or Q&A, is a presentation style that'south more intimate than the ones listed higher up. In this arroyo, the speaker briefly discusses a topic then opens the floor for the audience to ask questions. This is swell for smaller audiences because each person has the opportunity to participate in the group give-and-take. Q&A's are an excellent format for keeping employees engaged, but they do crave your speaker to take extensive knowledge of the presentation topic. If these options aren't best for you, check out more presentation styles here. The beauty of hiring a diverse workforce is that your employees come across unique perspectives they may not have experienced before. While that diverseness is great for fostering new ideas, it can also pb to friction betwixt teammates. Every bit an owner or manager, information technology's your chore to ensure all employees are working towards the same goal. Sensitivity preparation is an exercise that helps employees understand their professional person goals likewise as their personal biases. By diving into these topics in-depth, employees tin better understand one another and be more than considerate of their differences. No matter how well your team works together, it'southward important to conduct sensitivity training regularly. This will remind employees how they should care for one another and how they should voice their opinions if they demand to confront an issue. Past reviewing these ideas consistently, new hires volition feel more than comfy when joining your squad, making them more productive early on. Customer experience simulation is substantially the contrary of role-playing. Instead of interacting with a mock customer, the service rep becomes the customer and goes through the feel of purchasing your product or service. The benefit of this practise is that reps tin can see the roadblocks they troubleshoot from the perspective of the user. They tin relate to the frustration or thwarting that customers feel when something goes incorrect or when expectations aren't met. That manner, when they're working with real customers, they have a ameliorate agreement of what people are going through and how to resolve their issues. Social media is a key component of a robust omnichannel back up solution. In fact, customers await nifty customer service from brands on social media channels. Well-nigh 49% of consumers say they'll unfollow a business on social media due to poor customer service, and so your team needs to take resources dedicated to supporting these channels. Yet, social media is nonetheless relatively new to customer service, and not all of your reps may be equally experienced with using these platforms for professional needs as opposed to personal updates. A training course dedicated to teaching them how to use social media might be helpful (Hither'southward one from HubSpot Academy). That way, communication will exist smoother on social channels and will create more than delightful customer experiences. If your company sells a concrete production instead of software or services, it can exist helpful for employees to see how the product works, within and out. Accept your production apart in forepart of your employees and show them step-by-pace how it's put together. Educate them about where your production's resource come up from and how the manufacturing process is carried out daily. This can really do good employees who don't piece of work closely with your products. If your product is software, manifestly, information technology can be tricky to have apart. And so, instead, talk to your employees about where your servers are located and how your software is powered. Talk over contingency plans for potential shutdowns and what employees can share with customers if they ask about sensitive information. When you're supplying software to businesses, it'due south not uncommon to receive phone calls from their It teams and it can really make your support team stand out if they tin can relay this data offhand. Corporate culture is extremely important for customer service employees. That's because they're working on the front lines with customers, interim as the face of your concern. If they don't believe in your company'south culture, your customers certainly won't either. Corporate culture training doesn't accept to exist extensive, merely information technology should be consistent. Every day employees should exist reminded in some way nearly your visitor'due south core values and how they contribute to that culture. One fashion to do this is with a culture code. This resource lists all of the company's values and what it expects from its employees. This will assist you hold employees accountable and show customers that you're committed to creating a positive experience. Every company makes mistakes, but the all-time companies know how to make clean up their messes. And, they know it starts with their customer service teams. Successful companies don't await for a problem to happen, they anticipate it and set up their teams accordingly. They create crisis advice plans and educate every rep on how to respond to mutual questions that customers will have for the business. This preparation can be the departure betwixt your team saving loyal customers or losing them to churn. Client service teams are ofttimes very decorated, and you may non have time to host a formal training. All the same, this doesn't exclude your squad from performing activities that can help them sharpen their skills. If this is the case for your business, you should endeavor the exercises below for improving customer service skills. Forth the same lines as the reflective listening exercise, mock calls are a time-tested strategy for practicing a task before actually doing it. Team members should be paired up and given real scenarios that customer support reps take to tackle every day — like shooting fish in a barrel ones, and difficult ones, as well. Have support reps have turns serving as the client and the back up rep and so they tin can become an idea of how to handle common issues — and how to suit during stress-inducing calls. Team members playing the role of the client should feel free to be creative — all customers are dissimilar, and support reps should be prepared to conform to different situations and personalities before they get on the phones with existent customers. This practise will teach support reps how they can still exist helpful if they don't give a customer the answer they want to hear. There'south simply one rule: No saying 'no.' (This includes all 'no'-oriented words and phrases, like "I don't know" and "We don't do that.") This practice will challenge support reps to reframe the conversation with a client when, in fact, the answer truly is 'no.' Simply when customers are upset or frustrated, answering their requests with a apartment-out 'no' might serve to aggravate them and won't motion the conversation forward. Squad members should be put into pairs and take turns office-playing the customer and the support reps. "Customers" should brand big, assuming requests that support reps can't say 'no' to — merely instead, have to figure out a solution-oriented response. For example, if the client asked for a discount that the support rep wasn't authorized to offer, instead of proverb 'no,' the rep could say, "If you're looking to reduce the cost of your CRM subscription, I could help you consolidate your database to under 1,000 contacts. Would you like assistance setting that up?" The back up rep is essentially telling the customer that no, they can't offer them a discount. Simply, by offering alternative options, the client might feel similar the support rep is on their side, and won't get frustrated past what they perceive as stubbornness or inflexibility. Improving your customer service skills is like improving your golf swing. You need to keep practicing it, over and over again, until it's perfect — or in my example, until I can find the ball after I hit it. Role-playing is an constructive do for sharpening customer service skills. I employee pretends to exist a customer, then presents a service case for another to troubleshoot. Once the example is solved, reps switch places and repeat the scenario. Role-playing lets reps work on both communication skills and their troubleshooting process. Since it'south not a real customer, reps have a safety cyberspace that lets them do new techniques they may not have tried before. If your team works with customers face-to-face, this do gives them a live surround to perfect their skills without risking customer churn. On a regular ground, support teams should have turns giving presentations during a grouping lunch. The topic doesn't matter — information technology tin can exist piece of work-related, or it tin be a presentation almost their contempo vacation photos, or an organization they volunteer with. Any the topic, lunch and learns will go on support reps in the habit of being able to present and explain new topics to others. This is a disquisitional skill for back up reps, especially when onboarding new customers who might be completely unfamiliar with how to use a production or service. Additionally, the luncheon and learns will provide a safe space for reps to practice — and to acquire about each other exterior of work. Sometimes, working on the front lines of client support can be really stressful. No thing how hard you lot try, sometimes you lot might go the blame for a problem that's completely out of your control. You might too receive the burden of a customer's frustration and be presented with feedback that isn't especially diplomatic. Whatever the case, meditation can be a helpful tool for regaining and establishing mental relaxation — even in the middle of a busy workday. Dedicating fourth dimension to meditation, mindfulness, and relaxation — and encouraging employees to employ it for that purpose — will help train them to de-stress and stay positive during those tough moments with customers. Apps like Headspace or YouTube videos can help if you want to practice as a squad, besides. This isn't specific to customer support, but it's a good idea for new reps to take a personality test to larn how they piece of work and communicate best with others. Ane framework you tin employ is the DiSC contour, which evaluates people's behavioral and personality differences. Here's an example contour below. Source Other tests include the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Predictive Index Assessment (PI). All of these can give support reps helpful insights into how they work best, how they communicate with others, and possible sources of conflict they might encounter. You can't command the customer's personality — just you tin can control your ain reactions and responses. Learning the 'why' behind your deportment is a good first footstep. Your service reps are responsible for keeping customers from running to your competitors. This makes it but fair that your team should know what they're up against. Have your team call your competitor's customer service line, and if possible, purchase one of its products or gratuitous trials. Ask routine questions and pay attention to different details during the call, like the rep's tone, the cadence of their vocalisation, how quickly they were able to provide an answer, what type of follow-up options they offered, etc. These interactions will set the standard that your team will have to surpass. Your about experienced reps are some of your team's almost valuable resources. They've seen your production and company abound with its customer base of operations and have been nowadays for all the speed bumps and roadblocks forth the manner. Use their stories as testimonials for how your new reps should be treating customers. For example, if a rep had a really positive interaction with a customer, have that employee talk about that call and what they did to create such a delightful experience. Or, if the interaction is significantly negative, discuss the missteps that were taken and what could be done next time to avert a similar outcome. This practice can help reps master the soft skills that can dramatically impact a customer service instance. Attitude anchors is an activeness that helps reps manage their emotions. Split your team into groups and have each i brainstorm two different types of anchors: maintenance anchors and repair anchors. Maintenance anchors are actions that can be taken to maintain a positive attitude. These are things that reps use during a phone call to proceed them motivated and optimistic. Hither'due south a few examples of maintenance anchors: Repair anchors are things that can be done to fix negative attitudes. These are activities that are performed after a call then reps tin can quickly bounce back and work with another customer. Every rep is going to take a bad call, and it's important to not carry their negative emotions into the next ane. Repair anchors might look something like this: In one case each list is built, hang them upwards where reps tin can easily see them. That way, they can utilize each exercise when it becomes applicable during their workday. If reps are feeling undervalued by your customers — or even upper management — accept them write client letters. These are letters written from the perspective of the customer and addressed to the customer service employee. This exercise lets reps reflect on all of the good things they've done for their customers. And, that's important too, because it tin can often be hard to measure the value that customer service reps bring to a business. But, when they tin recall about it on a client-to-customer scale, it becomes much easier to see how important your team is to your organization as a whole. Whether you're training a new rep or a more than experienced one, shadowing support calls is a hands on way for them to understand a few things well-nigh the manner your company handles service interactions. Start, they'll get a sense of the types of calls that come in. After enough calls, they'll start to predict some of the most common problems. Side by side, it'll get articulate to your reps which types of solutions work best for specific situations. For example, while there's probably an extremely helpful cognition base article written on troubleshooting common product failures, the ameliorate solution in the moment may exist to walk the client through the fix rather than sharing a step-by-step certificate. Finally, new and experienced reps will take hold of on to the cadency of the conversation the rep has with diverse customers. Some may want to become straight to the point without much small talk while other customers will appreciate the representative building rapport with them. As your team becomes acclimated to the processes and procedures for serving customers, they'll need to maintain your company's service standards. Sometimes, standards can fall by the wayside when meeting a quota is the immediate goal for the squad each week. Having coincidental conversations well-nigh your company's customer service standards absolutely counts as training and it'southward a simple mode to keep this critical goal at the cadre of your processes and daily activities. A slack message, electronic mail, or quick statement in a stand-up meeting are all ways to keep customer service standards at the forefront of everyone'due south minds. Microlearning breaks downwardly employee training into manageable chunks which helps reps learn faster and quickly apply each education. By using short training sessions, ideally under thirty minutes, service reps volition be more than inclined to participate and volition retain more data afterwards. Microlearning can be used to cover specific grooming areas much faster than you could with an hour-long training covering several dissimilar topics. Microlearning training sessions can cover topics such as the almost common client complaint or a documentation process. 1 of the best ways to build empathy is by taking on the perspective of the customer. What ameliorate way to do this than by recognizing proficient customer service in your everyday life? There's an interesting case to be made that being a good customer begets nifty customer service. Making eye contact, smile, and beingness amicable can go a long way to go the best service from a customer representative. Once you do receive this world-form service, study the reps' techniques. How practice they respond your questions? Do they ostend your issue so they can offer the best solution? All of these factors and more tin can be uncovered just by being a client yourself. The best part is, you tin immediately apply what you lot've learned from those interactions with your own customers during your next calls. Any neat customer service rep knows their products like the back of their hand. Testing this knowledge tin can be a fun and competitive way to get the team on lath for customer service training. Equally a manager, you tin can review your knowledge base or production playbooks to create trivia-manner questions that reps can answer individually or on teams. The friendly competition and gamification of the preparation session can assist reps confirm what they already know and retain what they don't and so that after the game is over, they tin utilise their product knowledge when offer solutions to customer issues. Scenario discussions make for an interactive ice breaker, peculiarly if yous're grooming a big grouping. Yous'll brainstorm by creating a handful of scenarios with each one involving a dissimilar customer issue. There'due south no solution included in the scenario. Next, break the group into smaller teams to hash out the scenario. And then, each group volition decide on a course of activity to assistance the customer in the given situation. Afterwards all the solutions have been decided among the groups, bring everyone together, and have 1 representative from each team read their scenario aloud and explain how they'd solve information technology. This training thought can exist done nigh or in person with large or small groups. Panopto discovered in a 2019 study that employees are 75% more probable to watch a video than read text. Couple this finding with the microlearning statistics nosotros mentioned earlier and you've got a powerful preparation tool that your team will exist inclined to use. Showing your team how to follow a process using a short video prune can be much more constructive than sending them a step-by-step electronic mail (although that extra resource couldn't hurt!). Showing the problem and the solution in the same video can brand the context of the grooming more clear, especially if yous add a voiceover to the video. Tools like Loom and Zoom tin make video grooming quick and easy. Almost customers look to your self-service options to solve their problems with your products before they pick up the phone or type an email to your client service team. This training tip covers ii goals in one. Start, your reps tin review the materials in your noesis base to ameliorate solve customer problems. After all, if y'all're sending your customers to the knowledge base, it should be upwardly to engagement and helpful, right? In the case that it needs some work, the second goal tin can be accomplished. Your reps will observe outdated or inaccurate data that can exist updated to provide a better self-service experience for the customer. Every bit a manager, you tin't be everywhere at in one case no matter how hard y'all try. Training should exist an ongoing priority on your squad whether you oversee all aspects of it or if you delegate parts to team members that are best suited to carry them out. One style to do this is by starting a mentorship program on your customer service squad. Whether it's formal pairing or a more casual connection, you can rely on more experienced reps to help railroad train those just starting out. Many of the tips, topics, and ideas we've mentioned thus far can help your team provide exceptional client service from the customer's perspective. But what about grooming to help the squad piece of work improve together? Later each training session, you'll want to request feedback from the team to assess whether the method, content, or delivery were helpful or harmful to their learning. This information tin can exist nerveless quantitatively through a rating arrangement or qualitatively in an open-ended survey. No affair the format, receiving feedback on your training program is a principal manner to make it better then your reps can do the work they do all-time. Side by side, we'll discuss some tips designed to assist make customer service grooming more than constructive and "sticky." Customer experience is common, so nearly anybody has a conception of what "good" client service looks like. However, those conceptions may not be physical enough or align with the vision you take for your arrangement. With that in mind, outset by setting expectations and then that anybody begins on the same page. Define the mission and big picture besides equally their office inside it. Customers don't just want their problems solved for them; they want to exist heard. Practicing active listening and communication techniques is paramount to delivering great experiences, and by cultivating these skills amongst your squad, you're setting them up for success. Even meliorate, if you lot bear upon these concepts early, they'll exist equipped with new skills to practice during the rest of the grooming (which is a win-win for you as the trainer). People learn in dissimilar ways. There are visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners, and more. That means that sitting new employees downward in front of a training video volition not be enough for maximum retention and, even worse, could issue in a snooze fest. To make your training effective, yous much appoint your reps. This tin exist done with interactive elements designed to keep them on their toes and interested in the fabric. Don't be afraid to have fun with information technology, either. If you practice end upward using games or other alternative methods to teach sure concepts, always circle back to reinforce the mission and their office. This helps strengthen their agreement of the concept and then they tin can apply information technology in their 24-hour interval-to-day. Shadow sessions and roleplays are neat for this reason. They can get a feel for existent-life scenarios they'll encounter earlier they're immersed in them. In an unfamiliar situation, a familiar procedure may exist enough to help new reps spread their wings and own their role. In other words, knowing what to do when they don't know what to do volition empower them to take on situations they're unfamiliar with. That's why it's important to have processes and systems in place and emphasize the adoption of those early on. Reps won't remember everything from grooming; getting out there and doing it is what helps retention and build competency. Therefore, they should ever be encouraged to turn to whatsoever available resource for help. Wikis, cognition bases, and other forms of internal documentation tin help reps help themselves (if those resource are organized and maintained). Information technology'due south also easy for reps to stagnate or develop bad habits. Ensure that you're providing ample continuing education to reinforce what they learned in onboarding and further the evolution of their skills. Outside of team meetings, in that location are plenty of online resource customer support and service reps can utilise to always continue improving. Whether your customer service team is brusque on fourth dimension, or completely remote, these topics, tips, and ideas are certain to go your reps excited and motivated to deliver the best service to your customers. A mix of interactive, squad-oriented, and roleplay activities will proceed training interesting for you reps so they sympathize and remember the information. If you're set up to plan your next client service training session, utilise the template below to go started. Editor'south note: This post was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
![→ Download Now: Customer Support Training Template [Free Template]](https://no-cache.hubspot.com/cta/default/53/78097403-61d1-4855-9aa4-90c3cba6d94b.png)
Customer Service Training Topics
Featured Resource: Customer Support Training Template
Download this Template
1. Reflective Listening
ii. Product Demonstration
3. Phone call Review
4. Customer Service Training Presentations
Visuals
Storytelling
Teaching
Q&A
five. Sensitivity Training
6. Client Experience Simulation
7. Social Media Training
8. Product Breakdowns
nine. Corporate Civilization Training
10. Crisis Communication
Customer Service Grooming Exercises
1. Mock Calls
2. No 'No's Immune
3. Role Playing
4. Luncheon and Larn
v. Meditation
6. Personality Tests
7. Call Your Competitor
eight. Employee Testimonials
nine. Attitude Anchors
10. Customer Letters
Customer Service Grooming Ideas
1. Shadow support calls.
2. Review client service standards.
3. Cover specific trainings quickly.
4. Practice being a practiced customer.
5. Conduct rapid-fire product Q&A.
half-dozen. Host scenario discussions.
vii. Bear witness rather than tell.
eight. Review knowledge base materials.
9. Start a mentorship program.
ten. Request feedback.
Client Service Training Tips
ane. Commencement with mission.
2. Double down on communication training.
3. Brand training fun and engaging.
4. Connect preparation to real-life scenarios.
5. Emphasize the process.
6. Supply robust internal resources.
7. Provide ongoing training.
Customer Service Grooming Your Team Will Love
Originally published Aug 26, 2021 12:00:00 PM, updated June 01 2022
What Job Includes: Project Management + Customer Service + Training,
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-service-training-ideas
Posted by: ellisreenamen.blogspot.com
0 Response to "What Job Includes: Project Management + Customer Service + Training"
Post a Comment