Customer Service Training is Critical For a Company's Success
It's not just a 'nice to have' any more
When we first started our customer service training and consulting business in the early ’90s, a customer service training program was considered just a *nice to have.* From time to time it would drift into the conversation at executive levels, but would just as quickly drift away as the topics changed to more *serious* things. Operational things, like creating efficiencies, meeting revenue targets, achieving quality, etc. were more easily measured, and consequently treated as being far more important.
Customer service and CX are basic table stakes
This, of course, has changed. Customer service training is now an essential investment for companies, and a focus on CX has become basic table stakes for companies that want to stay in the game. Those who haven’t figured it out yet are watching their businesses slowly erode with no clue as to why it’s happening. Some very notable companies have already disappeared, and many others may already be past the point of no return.
AI is magical - but can't replace people
Over the last few years, this change has accelerated. AI is rapidly transforming how companies interact with customers. It has the ability to improve efficiency and responsiveness with greater speed and access to information. Its capabilities coming down the pipeline are nothing short of magical – but, as many organizations are already learning the hard way, the one thing it can’t do is replace the human component.
People create trust
Customer Experience, or CX, is the term used for the overall experience a customer has with a company. It includes people, processes, policies and practices – everything that influences the experience. Customer Service is the people part of CX – that part where we actually get to interact with a live human being.
CX creates customer loyalty by improving trust. Trust, we know, is created by demonstrating caring, competence and integrity. Technology improves competency – but it is ultimately people who deliver the caring and integrity. They are an essetional ingredient to organizational success.
Training is the secret ingredient
This is where customer service training comes in. It is often the difference between amazing customer experiences and catastrophic ones. We’ve all seen stories of a single individual with no training and few customer service skills creating outrage in this world where global word-of-mouth is a mouse-click away. (Remember Dr. David Dao being dragged off of a United Airlines flight?). But we’ve also all seen a skilled service provider compensate for a myriad of process and policy failures.
Don't leave customer service training to chance
Whatever you do, don’t leave a customer service training to chance. If you’re going to commit the valuable time of your team to attend the program, you want to make it count.
11 Rules for Customer Service Training
Here are the 11 rules that Belding Training follows when developing and delivering our Trust-Based Customer Service programs for our clients. If you have an existing training program for your teams, use this as a handy checklist to ensure you are on track. If you are looking at introducing customer service training, use this as your guide.
4 Myths of Customer Service
There are four myths about customer service that you can find here.
The other myth, about customer service training is that there is no return on investment for it. If that’s something you wonder about, try our free Cost of a Lost Customer Calculator.
