Now more than ever, delivering exceptional customer service is vital to a business’ survival as consumers look to cut back on spending in light of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis and wider economic uncertainty. 

Often, customer service professionals are the unsung heroes in building and maintaining a sustainable business, so ensuring that they are sufficiently equipped to meet consumers growing demands has moved beyond a nice to have. It’s become a matter of business survival.

We spoke to Matt Bunn, co-founder of Scaling Partner, and Chibeza Agley, co-founder and CEO of OBRIZUM, about the value of AI-powered adaptive learning, and the role it will play in driving customer service beyond basic survival and towards more sustainable business growth. 

1.   What are the challenges of retaining talented staff?  

Matt: “Contact centres are facing the pressing issue of rising operational costs adding to the fact that customer service roles continue to experience high attrition rates.

“As agents feel the frustration of lengthy, repetitive onboarding processes, organisations are finding it increasingly difficult to find and retain top customer service talent to manage customer relations and protect brand loyalty.”

Chibeza: “Additionally, for the agents that remain, once they are deemed skilled enough to deal with customers, the work that greets them is often unfulfilling and stressful, requiring them to work long hours to meet incoming demands.

“Given that, with time, agents become more familiar with the company and develop a deeper level of understanding around the types of incoming queries and how best to deal with them, organisations would greatly benefit from retaining these experienced individuals.

“The key is to become more productive and efficient.”

Matt: “For example, contact centres are returning to onshoring as the need to focus on quality over cost effectiveness becomes ever more apparent.”

“It’s during times of intense stress and pressure that the true value of these individuals is realised. It’s unsurprising that we’ve seen contact centres double down on their commitments to agent wellbeing in the face of the economic challenges.” 

2.   How does adaptive learning help? 

Chibeza: “When it comes to training customer service professionals, one of the key metrics that managers should focus on are speed-to-competency and total call handling time.”

“Analysis shows that around 17% of customer service agents leave the company without answering a single customer call due to how long it takes for them to be deemed ‘competent’ enough for client-facing environments. The problem is, organisations still use long-winded, laborious, linear training programmes where each person, regardless of prior experience, is taken down the same learning pathway.

“But in reality, we know people learn in different ways and so linear learning fails to cater for unique needs.”

Matt: “This is where adaptive learning comes in. It provides a far more effective way of upskilling an individual to the point that they can demonstrate expertise in a specific subject area. By taking each learner through a tailored learning journey, these non-linear models fast track those with more baseline capabilities while providing the necessary levels of granular detail for those that need it.”

Chibeza: “Non-linear adaptive learning has already  increased  the confidence and capability of agents and this has been translated into significant improvements in call quality . Not only are calls dealt with more quickly, but customers are also left far more satisfied with the outcome. Additionally, an effective learning model will make onboarding agents far more cost effective.”

Matt: “People still want to speak to people, especially when it comes to more emotive situations. Whilst artificial intelligence and its conversational capabilities are incredibly powerful tools, there are certain aspects of the customer service role that stand well outside its capabilities. It’s therefore vital that agents are trained to the highest level to manage the situations that cannot be automated by technology.” 

3.   What is the value of data-driven decision making? 

Chibeza: “The best business practice is to make decisions that are based on strategically collected, relevant data.”

“OBRIZUM’S adaptive learning has a unique feature called the ‘confidence matrix.’ It requires learners to rate how confident they are in their responses, avoiding the ‘quick click’ approach that finishes assessments at a faster rate. In turn, the confidence statistics provide the management team with a true reflection of an individual’s knowledge in a particular area of expertise.”

“It’s also designed to give the individual a greater sense of self-awareness which is directly linked to being a better-quality learner. By encouraging a more thoughtful approach to learning programmes, an accurate picture is painted of a workforce’s skill levels. For customer service professionals, organisations can assign agents to their priority customers based on their skill levels, further supporting brand loyalty and general retention.”

Matt: “In a nutshell, an effective learning programme reduces business risk and improves overall quality and output.”

“Through the partnership with OBRIZUM, Scaling Partner is proud to have presented the business case of non-linear adaptive learning to several large corporate and public sector organisations. As a result, these companies have reaped the benefit from accelerated time-to-competency and reduced the call handling times of their customer service teams.”

“In a time where every penny counts, non-linear adaptive learning holds the key to transforming how customer service is learnt, harnessed, and delivered.”

Chibeza: “We were able to approach larger corporations with our solution with the help of the Scaling Partner team who had the experience and knowledge of working with large customer service teams.

“With so many startups creating solutions to help solve problems in the customer service sector it’s hard for enterprises to know which new AI technology to go with. Through mutual partnerships and a strong focus on data-driven decision making, we’ve been able to ensure our solution is the best market fit so customer service managers know they are getting the best solution out there.”

About the Authors

Matt Bunn is Co-Founder at Scaling Partner and Chibeza Agley is Co-Founder and CEO at OBRIZUM.

Cora AI Coach, powered by Zenarate, helps Genpact accelerate digital transformation.

Zenarate, the leading AI Conversation Simulation solution, today announced that Genpact, a global professional services firm focused on delivering digital transformation, is leveraging its award-winning AI Coach to improve agent performance and customer experiences throughout its global client contact centers. AI Coach enables Genpact to develop confident top-performing contact center agents through voice and chat simulations that provide highly realistic immersive learning experiences. Integrating the AI technology with Genpact’s Cora Banking ecosystem allows Genpact to elevate its performance for more than 700 global clients.

AI Coach is transforming how contact centers develop confident, prepared new hires before their first call and close skill gaps for experienced agents. The simulation training platform creates hyper-realistic simulations of any voice or chat scenario, allowing agents to learn through practicing, solving problems and navigating errors. By providing a platform to build proficiencies, risks and costs are minimized in the short and long term for clients.

“Genpact is helping freshly hired agents improve their confidence before their first call. At the same time, they are driving up the average performance of existing agents by engaging their personal AI Coach from home or the office,” said Brian Tuite, Zenarate CEO and founder. “Helping support Genpact’s purpose – the ‘relentless pursuit of a world that works better for people’ – perfectly aligns with our vision to power human connections moving people, ideas, and businesses forward.”

“Cora AI Coach, powered by Zenarate, is one of the fastest, most effective ways to develop top-performing agents across use cases, from customer service and retention to collections and sales,” said Sachin Pai, Global Leader for Customer Support at Genpact. “The days of passive learning through reviewing content, watching videos and taking tests are over. With Cora AI Coach conversation simulation, our agents can quickly adapt to and better serve clients and their customers with complete confidence.”

Simulation Training will continue to evolve, making experiential learning more efficient, scalable, and realistic to help customer service agents prepare for and adapt to dynamic client needs. To learn how Zenarate is helping contact center and training leaders develop top-performing agents using AI Conversation Simulation, please visit www.Zenarate.com.

About Zenarate             

Zenarate’s AI Coach helps leading brands develop confident top-performing agents through AI Conversation Simulation training. Zenarate’s AI Coach is used worldwide every day in over a dozen countries, including the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Philippines, India, and Europe in 13 languages. Zenarate customers include 8 of the top 10 US financial institutions, and leading companies in the healthcare, telecommunications, technology, and services industries. For more information, visit www.zenarate.com.

Simulation training is one of the fastest-growing training approaches for customer service agents. The new approach helps prepare customer service agents to deliver superior customer experiences before live customer interactions confidently.

Many of the leading contact centers in the world are leveraging simulation training to provide customer service agents with an automated role-play partner. The approach allows agents to practice and master any real-life customer engagement scenario in private from their home or office.

Astronauts, pilots, and even surgeons utilize simulation training as a safer, low-risk environment to prepare themselves for real-life scenarios. The same simulation learning approach is being enhanced through AI and Natural Language Processing to train customer service agents to solve complex customer problems.

Simulation Training for Better Human Engagement and Performance

Many believe that AI chatbots will replace human agents in contact centers, but that is far from reality. A 2022 research report published by Forrester states, “Service delivered by human agents (not robots) is what drives positive customer outcomes. The pendulum is finally swinging back from hyper-automation to human-led conversation.”

With the pendulum swinging back to the human-led conversation, AI is increasingly top of mind for employees, trainers, and coaches to improve training effectiveness and certify employees to deliver superior customer conversations and experiences.

Training managers and directors have found great success with new and emerging simulation training technology. How? Trainers have deep knowledge of customer engagement scenarios agents face, allowing them to identify simulation scenarios and associated best and required practices, like showing customer empathy. Taking inventory of these high-impact scenarios that customer service agents face during their interactions is the first step. Once training experts have decided on high-impact scenarios, they get to leverage AI to create life-like simulations.

Benefits of Simulation Training

Coaching customer service agents to have meaningful conversations is one thing, but how does Simulation Training improve overall employee training effectiveness?

• Simulation Training is Adaptive: Simulation Training environments have become increasingly agile, and training managers can quickly develop a new simulation for any customer engagement use case. Imagine being able to create dozens of hyper-realistic immersive simulations within days and modify existing simulations within minutes to improve a training organization’s effectiveness.

• Simulation Training is Simple: AI can sound intimidating, but Simulation Training platforms require no personal or account information and no IT integration to pilot or full-scale deployment. The only technical requirements are a browser and a headset. With a light lift and fast standup simulation environment, training leaders quickly deliver ROI.

• Simulation Training Removes Stress: Simulation Training eliminates the pressure and fear of making mistakes and the awkwardness of role-playing with another human being. If an agent makes a mistake, their simulator detects the missed best or required practice, provides real-time unbiased feedback, and asks them to try again until the agent completes the simulation. Once the agent masters the simulation with no best and required practice interruptions, the agent can share their best session with their trainer or coach for human feedback.

• Simulation Training Promotes Customer Empathy: Simulation Training helps customer service agents master soft skills, such as empathy. AI technology can detect empathy use and suggest soft skills and empathetic best practices while interacting with the agent. This active learning process repeats until soft critical skills are used and agents master best practices.

• Simulation Training Builds Confidence: Simulation Training removes customer service agents’ anxieties and empowers them to approach their first customer interaction with higher confidence levels. Leaders report improved performance metrics such as better CSAT and NPS scores and higher employee retention. When agents master the critical skills necessary to succeed and perform better in their roles, they report higher job satisfaction.

Simulation Training is a great way to integrate the practical and scalable benefits of active learning role-play for customer service agents without the awkwardness and inefficiency of role-playing with another human being. It promotes the benefits of active learning and improves both customer and employee experiences.

Simulation Training will continue to evolve, making active learning more efficient, scalable, and realistic—helping customer service agents prepare for and adapt to dynamic customer needs. If you would like to learn how Zenarate is helping customer service managers create top-performing agents using AI Conversation Simulation, please visit www.Zenarate.com

About the Author

Brian Tuite Is CEO and Co-founder of Zenarate. Its AI Coach is the “flight simulator” for customer engagement, where agents learn through life-like conversation simulations. Agents master high-impact call types, soft skills, and best and required practices before their first live customer call. For more information, visit www.zenarate.com.

Customer service managers are responsible for overseeing customer service in an organization. Here, we discuss the skills and qualifications that are needed for the position.

Customer service manager jobs are typically available in large organizations that have a customer service department. Some customer service manager positions may also be available in small businesses. Managers typically work full time, and their work hours may include evenings and weekends. Some international positions may also require travel.

Customer Service Qualifications

Most customer service manager positions require customer service experience. Increasingly, organizations require candidates to have a bachelor’s degree in business administration or a related field. Specialized qualifications are becoming more widely available. For example, Ohio university offers a Bachelor of Applied Science in Customer Service Leadership.

The good news is there are many scholarships available to help students pay for college. Some scholarships are based on financial need, while others are based on academic achievement or merit. Scholarships can come from the federal government, state governments, colleges and universities, private organizations, or businesses.

Applying for scholarships can be time-consuming, but it is worth the effort. Students should try to apply for as many scholarships as possible in order to maximize their chances of receiving financial assistance for college. Going Merry scholarships for college make the process quick and simple. With one application, students can be matched with hundreds of relevant scholarship opportunities.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to paying for college. Scholarships are just one piece of the puzzle. Students and their families should also consider other options like grants, loans, and work-study programs to help make college more Merit-based scholarships are awarded to students based on their academic achievement or other talents. Financial need-based scholarships are awarded to students who demonstrate financial need.

To be eligible for a merit-based scholarship, students should have a strong academic record, participate in extracurricular activities, and have good leadership skills. Some scholarships also require students to submit an essay or other writing sample. To be eligible for a need-based scholarship, students must demonstrate financial need. Students who are eligible for need-based scholarships may also be eligible for grants or loans.

In addition to academic qualifications, there are a number of customer service skills that are essential for success in the field. A good customer service manager should have strong communication and leadership skills, be patient and detail-oriented, and have the ability to stay calm under pressure.

10 Skills for Customer Service Managers

1. Communication: Customer service managers need to be able to communicate effectively with customers, representatives, and other members of the organization. They should have strong writing and verbal communication skills.

2. Customer service orientation: A customer service orientation means that the manager is focused on providing excellent customer service. This involves working to improve the customer experience and ensuring that customer needs are met.

3. Patience: Patience is important for customer service managers, as they may have to deal with difficult customers or handle multiple customer inquiries at the same time.

4. Detail-oriented: Customer service managers need to be detail-oriented in order to properly understand and address customer concerns.

5. Problem-solving: Problem-solving skills are important for customer service managers, as they will often have to troubleshoot customer issues.

6. Decision-making: Customer service managers need to be able to make decisions quickly and efficiently in order to resolve customer issues in a timely manner.

7. Stress management: Customer service managers need to be able to manage stress in order to avoid burnout. They should be able to stay calm under pressure and maintain a positive attitude.

8. Time management: Time management skills are important for customer service managers, as they need to be able to juggle multiple tasks and priorities.

9. Team player: Customer service managers need to be able to work well with others in order to effectively manage a team of customer service representatives.

10. Leadership: Customer service managers need to have strong leadership skills in order to motivate and guide their team. They should be able to set goals and provide direction.

These are just a few of the skills and qualifications that are essential for success in the role of customer service manager. If you possess these skills and have customer service experience, together with a bachelor’s degree you will be well-suited for a career in customer service management.

Managing a customer service team takes dedication, hard work, and the right skill set.

If you want to further develop your customer service management style, there are training solutions out there that can improve your talents and create a better working environment. This article looks at some of the best training solutions in more detail.

Mental Health Training

Mental health is a very crucial topic in the business industry, and the mental health of your staff can make a huge impact on the customer service that they provide to customers. Poor mental health can lead to more sick days, more stress in the office, and general feelings of unhappiness at work. This will cause poor performance and productivity.

When you know how to recognize signs of deteriorating mental health in your employees, you will better understand how to help them, which will cause employees to be more open about their mental health. Sometimes, a discussion is all that is needed to turn someone’s day around and get them back to themselves again.

To best care for the mental health of your customer service team, you must understand mental health yourself. If you are new to this and need a deeper understanding, you may want to take a mental health coach certification. You can receive training and certification from experts such as the iNLP Center. This course can help you develop your skills to become a life coach, enhancing your management style and leading to a happier team. Training like this can be completed online and will assist you in learning valuable things, like how to calm your employees during and after stressful calls.

Industry Training

Another way to improve your customer service management style is to get industry-specific training. No matter what field of business you are in, there is a training solution out there that can keep you up-to-date with changing events and develop your business acumen. This will also provide you with the credentials and certification to train other employees and managers, which will benefit everyone within the business and is a great way to reach that promotion or pay rise.

Recruitment Training

As a manager, you are responsible for hiring new customer service employees to work for the business, so you should understand how to do this effectively. Recruitment is a difficult process and one that takes years to master. To improve your recruitment skills and find the best employees, you should consider recruitment training. This can guide you through creating an interview process that works, refining your interview skills, and choosing the right employees for your team.

Your recruitment strategy should be as streamlined as possible to attract more potential employees and create a stress-free environment for yourself and the interviewees. A good customer service manager knows how to find the best talent in a pool of CVs and cover letters. Employee retention is a vital part of any business, so refining this process will eliminate the need to get rid of new starters who are not performing. There is also less chance of people leaving the business if you hire the right candidates to begin with.

Customer Service Training

This may sound like an obvious one, but many managers forget about the importance of customer service training. As they are no longer dealing with customers on a daily basis, it can be easy to leave customer service training to the customer service employees. As a manager, you need to understand the basics of customer service, as well as the skills required, and any current changes.

You cannot help and train your employees when you are still focused on the outdated training and experience you had years ago. In the business industry, things are constantly evolving, so ensure that you keep your customer service skills up to scratch.

Conflict Resolution Training

Anyone that has worked within the customer service industry understands how vital conflict resolution strategies are. No matter where you work or how good your employees are, there are going to be times when a customer asks to speak to a manager. To set the best example for your employees and to resolve the conflict on the first phone call, it is important that you keep your conflict resolution training up-to-date.

Leadership Training

A great manager can do more than just manage their team; they can lead their customer service team to success and create a thriving workplace where targets are met, and productivity is at an all-time high. Many leadership and management training courses online can give you the experience and skills to become more confident in your role, manage your team more effectively, and increase your numbers. To enhance your customer service management style, consider how you can become a better leader.

Communication Training

Communication is one of the most important topics in business, whether you work in retail, customer service, or healthcare. As customer service representatives work to develop their communication to offer the best customer service possible, it is only fitting that a great manager understands effective communication and can practice this themselves. Regardless of how well you think you can communicate, there are always ways to improve this skill, which can benefit both employees and customers.

A great manager is able to listen to the needs of their employees through both speech and body language. They are able to get their point across in a way that is authoritative but not undermining. When you can communicate better with your employees, they will be able to communicate better with you. This approach can improve the working relationship between management and employees and fosters a positive and open work environment, where employees feel cared for and listened to.

Training solutions such as mental health, customer service, industry-specific, communication, leadership, and conflict resolution will enable you to unlock your full potential. If you want to improve your customer service management style, get back to basics and educate yourself in your skills to be a great manager and leader.

We’ve all experienced it. A disgruntled customer with no good words to say, only negativity and a damning address.

One of the most frustrating things about the customer service industry, no matter if you’re customer facing, or in office-based position, is rude customers. Their words can seriously affect performance and cause you to question your own abilities.

So how do you handle it?

Human relationships are subject to conflict somewhere down the line. It’s natural. Some people can handle disappointment better than others whilst there are those that need to express their emotions and release their anger immediately without thinking about the consequences. But at what cost should it be?

A typical, and often standard, interview question is: “How do you manage rude, aggressive, or difficult customers?” But should there even be a need for this question at all? It’s a hard one to answer because you can never know the severity of the situation that you might face. You’d like to think that you’d stay calm and allow your customer to vent before providing a resolution. The reality is often far from this.

Should you really have to worry that one day you might take a customer call in which you are subjected to such behaviour?

When I think back to the difficult interactions I’ve had with customers, they have either come through frustration regarding business policies or delays in the receipt of goods. I have often wondered what the customer believes they can ascertain through their abusive stance as often a customer service advisor, and even the department manager, cannot change what a company has in place. Delays are natural and usually outside of the customer service department’s control. You are both a messenger and a sounding board for any issues that arise.

The title of this article is inspired by an interaction I recently had with a disgruntled caller. They were upset that the business couldn’t accommodate their order due to minimum order values. They questioned my ability because I could not give them the answer they wanted to hear and advised that they would seek an audience with one of the directors of the company, but not before completely belittling me in the process.

I am a supervisor with a few years behind me in experience, but this never gets any easier. I pride myself on being firm and fair in all areas of interaction but sometimes this is not enough to appease a customer. The uncomfortable fact is that you can be as customer focused as you wish, but you will not always be able to help.

But, in answer to my disgruntled caller’s question, yes, I have had customer service training and I am forever learning and evolving to provide the best customer service that I can as well as encouraging those around me to be the same.

Rudeness has no place in any situation but especially in our day-to-day livelihoods. Customer service professionals deserve better, and customers need to realise they’re speaking to another human who also has feelings.

About the Author

Tabitha Langley is a technical customer service specialist working in the security industry. She has a background in manufacturing environments within supply chain, operations and technical support. Tabitha can be found on LinkedIn.

To deliver the best Face-to-Face service you must think like a customer. Put yourself in their shoes and consider how you would feel being served by you.

You need to be aware of your body language and your tone of voice and how both are affecting the perception customers have of you and your company.

“Using professional actors to deliver immersive and interactive training makes perfect sense because they are the experts in voice, body language and how to calm nerves if someone lacks the confidence to approach customers or interact with them,” says Lucy Morgans, creative director at soft skills training experts Hendrix Training.

She adds: “Actors spend years understanding their body and characteristics. They are also aware of how their mood changes their body language and how energy levels can fall during a busy shift as tiredness kicks in and what to do.”

Hendrix Training runs an innovative, fun but also technical customer service workshop for a range of clients, including in retail, hospitality and the public sector, to boost employee confidence and lift the spirits of staff and customers.

The importance of body language

• Do you come across as bored and disinterested?
• Be aware of your facial expressions and/or any physical habits (we all have them)
• Does the customer look unhappy or confused? Or angry?
• Are you making eye contact with the people you are talking to?
• Are you coming across as friendly? Think about the power of a smile
• Think about how you perceive people in different situations based on how they appear and act
• You also need to be able to read other people’s body language so you can react accordingly.

It isn’t just what you say, it’s how you say it

Remember to be articulate. The words and phrases that are crucial to the information you need to convey must be spoken clearly

• You need to add light and shade to your voice to sound interested and engaged
• Think about accentuating key words to help you communicate more effectively
• Use an upward inflection at the end of a sentence from time to time
• Actors talk about he 5 ‘p’s’. These are Projection (can people hear you if you are talking to a table of people in a noisy restaurant, for example), Pace (how fast are you talking? If you are reading a list, give people time to take in the information), Pause (you pause for effect if you are talking about something important? Perhaps a special offer or meal), Pitch (how does your voice sound? Is it monotone, too high or too low, and is this affecting how people react to you?), and Power (do your words have the right impact? You may have certain words or phrases that have to resonate with the customer).

“It is also important to be a good listener so you take on board what the customer is saying and can offer the correct service. Sometimes we can be so focused on what we have to say that we do not actively listen,” says Morgans.

Dealing with complaints

 If you are asked difficult questions or someone is complaining remember to remain calm and truthful. Authenticity, empathy and a willingness to help will go a long way.

• By sympathetic that a problem has occurred. This is not admitting fault (unless this is obviously the case) but accepting that there has been some inconvenience for the customer
• Explain why something went wrong. Why was the food cold/late? Why was their room not ready? Why are you out of stock? Why was there a delay in the service being offered? Basically, what happened?
• Inform them of how you have responded. What changes have you implemented. What has happened to solve the problem and (hopefully) ensure it won’t happen again

There are times when you will feel stressed or lack confidence. This is where breathing techniques can help. Try to avoid shallow breathing from the chest and breathe instead from your diaphragm, which is located just below your ribs.

Confidence also comes from reminding yourself that you are the expert and to tap into your product knowledge and experience in difficult or day to day customer service situation.

Actors bring customer service training to life with practical exercises and also what is known as Forum Theatre where they act our scenarios for the learners to direct to ensure more positive outcomes.

For more information on the actor-led customer service workshop please visit here or email training@hendrixthedog.org tel: + 44 (0) 1892 519504.  

Delivering a great customer experience is of utmost importance to any business, small or large, as it affects the profit margins and the company’s goodwill significantly.

A study published by Harvard Business Review found that customers who have a positive experience with a company are likely to spend as much as 140% more than average. Also, these customers tend to stick with a business six times longer than those who have had a negative experience from the same business.

Any business that wants to grow and succeed should always be working towards perfecting their customer experience and focusing on creating effective customer service training programs that provide the right incentives and motivation to their customer service team.

Customer Service Training

The quality of customer service training often ends up dictating the quality of the customer experience the business delivers. Without proper training, customer service reps lack the ability to provide an excellent customer experience.

It can be argued that customer service training these days suffer from a phenomena called the “Forgetting Curve” which causes retention of knowledge to steadily decline in the absence of continued exposure. In fact, as much as 50 to 80 percent of the material can be lost as soon as the day after the initial training and up to 90 percent is lost within 30 days.

How to Improve Customer Service Training

Customer care largely depends on the training the custom care team receives. More often than not, this training is insufficient leading to the team members not being competent enough to deal with real-life agitated customers and the problems they want resolved.

Good customer service starts with the foundation of the company vision which dictates the brand image and messaging. The customer service reps should have a clear idea of what the company vision is and how to embody it in the customer experience that they offer.

However, they should also be wary of balancing professionalism with personality and offer an experience which is devoid of any unprofessional behavior and follows some standard of decorum that is to be expected by the disgruntled customers. It is also a good idea to focus on constructive and active listening to provide a better customer experience.

Other factors such as strategic problem solving, proper management of time and effective communication must be worked on too, in order to provide a top tier customer experience.

Best Practices

Some of the best practices in customer service training include putting the customer service reps in a real-world training simulation where they can be accessed on how well they perform in situations that come up in real life situations.

You may also choose to base your training on character-driven real world stories so as to provide better simulation of customers and the problems they face so the customer service reps are more competent dealing with such complexities.

Further aid could be provided to customer service reps by arming them with “Just-in-Time” online resources which can offer them support anywhere at anytime. These include access to bite-sized online training tutorials (also known as content chunking), online presentations, demos and other online tools to enhance their knowledge. Such techniques are especially used for training customer service reps on compliance since learning success rates are critical in these instances.

The customer service team should also be privy to pre-assessments before their training so as to identify the areas in which the training should be focused on.

Other best practices include hosting a live webinar to enhance engagement, creating easily shareable company policy infographics and using customer feedback to improve the customer service provided online.

Badges, levels and leaderboards in customer service training programs gamify the system and provide learners with the right incentives to perform their best and in turn provide better customer service to the end consumer.

Online training certification courses are also offered as part of customer service training program in many organizations to instil a sense of accomplishment in the customer reps. This fuels the motivation and engagement of the customer reps and they perform to their best capacity.

Customer service is one of the main foundations of a good business or company. It is an important force which when harnessed properly, can yield great returns, both tangible and intangible. Every company should focus on creating an excellent customer service training program keeping in mind the best practices and methods available.

About the Author

Anand Srinivasan is a marketing consultant. You may reach him at: anand_srinivasan@writerzone.net.

A phone call from entrepreneur and customer service guru Kym Illman to his airline carrier recently ended in him providing the unwitting call centre staff member with some on-the-spot training in phone skills.

Messages On Hold and Canity Head, Kym Illman

As founder and head of voice branding company Messages On Hold, it’s something the Adelaide-born former disc jockey is well qualified to provide advice on.

From a one-man business started in the spare room of his two-bedroom apartment, MOH has grown into a global success story, servicing more than 13,000 sites in 20 countries.

“The voice people hear down the phone is very often their first point of contact with a business and you get only one chance to make sure that impression a great one,” the multi-millionaire and father-of-two says.

“I’ve always had that personality of wanting to please someone. In business I think you have to think ‘what’s the extra, what can I give people that will really get their attention and make them come back?’ That is surely what customer service is all about.”

Illman’s 30-year-record in customer service and marketing is the genesis for his latest business offering, Canity, an online staff training platform aimed squarely at SMEs. It’s already gaining attention in the lucrative US market.

“Canity is an online training course with modules made up of short animated video lessons. Once a company subscribes, these videos are delivered straight into the email inboxes of staff,” he explains.

At MOH headquarters in East Perth, a team of graphic designers, animators and writers storyboard ideas for the videos before they are approved, drawing on their combined experience in customer service.

The resulting animations pack a powerful punch in their colorful and easy-to-understand simplicity, which Illman says makes them easy to digest and most importantly, to remember.

These 1 to 5-minute videos, cover all the fundamentals of customer interaction, from phone skills, effective use of email, through to face-to-face dealing, presentation tips, using social media and much more.

“We deal with everything from different customer personality types; to how to cope with happy, anxious or disappointed customers; from retail and sales skills; to employing empathy – there’s not much we miss and we are constantly adding to the library.”

At the completion of each module, staff complete an interactive online quiz and can download further training content. Video lessons can be embedded into existing learning management systems and there’s a ‘Masters Series’ module for business owners and managers who want to change the way they work.

“In the same way that I have great confidence in my staff, I have absolute confidence this product is a winner,” Illman says. “What I like about it is it all happens online allowing the content to be viewed when it’s convenient for the viewer, so we’re not impacting on productivity.

“The Canity back end allows managers to see who’s done the training, how they’ve scored and where they’re falling down; the system does all the work for managers, they love it.”

Illman argues with more traditional training, ‘onboarding’ of new employees and retraining of existing ones is often a time consuming and expensive process.

“Offsite training takes people away from their desks. You lose productivity with days out of the office and at the end of the day how much do employees remember?” he says. “Learning online means staff can be trained without taking too big a bite out of the HR budget and with participants working at their own pace.”

A Canity subscription provides access to more than 250 training videos, and covers unlimited access for the number of employees specified. Various pricing options are available.

Illman says he is constantly amazed that in general, customer service is as bad today as it was 30 years ago.

“You walk into a café and no-one wants to serve you or you ring an airline, a phone company, whoever, and you’re not helped in the way that you want or need to be helped. I remain stunned that so many managers just don’t seem to care,” he says.

“For a company to be truly customer-focused, an employee must understand how important customer service is to the company and the role that he or she plays in that. And that’s in everything from the way someone might speak on the phone to the way they talk to the photocopy repair man,” Illman says.

“I’m always looking for that ‘extra’ factor,” he says. “What is it that sets us apart. No-one is doing what we are doing at MOH and now Canity, and we are going to continue developing this product and extending its reach.”

The problem is that these videos are notoriously expensive to obtain. One way to give your team some visual brain food is to utilize the many free customer service videos that can be found online.

Here are 5 of my favorites to get you started. And they won’t cost you a penny!

1. Richard Branson’s Customer Service Secrets

Many people consider the Virgin brand to be the gold standard of customer service. In this video Richard Branson reveals his top 7 customer service secrets.

2. Give em the Pickle!

The one and only Bob Farrell explains why we should always…

“Give em the Pickle!”

3. Amazing Taxi Cab Driver

Professional speaker and bestselling author, Shep Hyken, tells his famous customer service story about the amazing taxi cab driver.

4. The Guest

A short preview of the popular customer service training film The Guest, featuring the crabby gas station lady.

5. Four All-Star Traits

IT customer service expert and author Don R. Crawley explains the four all-star traits of customer service masters.

About the Author

Ian Miller is Editor of Customer Service Manager Magazine – the leading resource and community for customer service professionals.