Course description

It does little good to make a sale if your company or organization cannot service your current customers. Increasingly, many companies have found that outstanding customer service is the key to customer retention, growth, and profitability. This program teaches the skills needed to wow! your customers and surpass their expectations, beginning with some foundation skills but then progressing to advanced concepts such as a team approach to customer service.

Who should attend

Customer service representatives whether experienced or new to their position will benefit by upgrading their skills. This program also helps anyone else who is involved in servicing and supporting customers. With new teaming environments, entire customer service teams would benefit from participating in this workshop.

What you will achieve

• Increase ability to wow your customers by exceeding their expectations.
• Learn to use various methods to communicate with customers, with emphasis on telephone and email.
• Become more versatile and comfortable in handling service disruptions and difficult customers.
• Gain the skills to ask effective questions and listen better for the customer‘s needs and concerns.
• Know when and how to use a team approach to customer service.
• Increase your comfort in identifying and developing sales opportunities.

What you will learn

• How to Wow! Your Customers — highlights what the best companies and individuals do to surpass the service expectations of their customers; including a discussion on the indicators of great customer service
• Telephone and Email Communication Skills — guidelines for communicating with customers over the telephone and with email
• Service Recovery Model — describes a 6-step model for dealing effectively with service disruptions, with emphasis on dealing with difficult situations such as the angry customer
• Questioning and Listening Skills — one characteristic of outstanding service providers is the ability to understand the customer‘s needs and concerns
• Managing Customer Expectations — teaches how to be assertive and persuasive when a customer is making an unreasonable request
• Team-Based Customer Service — shows how the entire organization, not just the customer service department, should and can interact with customers
• Sales Opportunity Analysis — quite often the customer service person can identify opportunities for additional sales; you will learn some fundamental selling skills to develop these opportunities further

Course Outline

Day One

Module 1: How to Wow Your Customers

• Three Zones of Customer Satisfaction
• Developing a Customer Satisfaction and Service Strategy
• Three General Tips for Wowing Customers
• 3 Rs: Respect, Responsiveness, Reliability
• Be Accountable
• Follow the Golden Rule

Module 2: Customer Service Skills and Competencies

• Questioning and Listening for Needs and Expectations
• Managing Expectations and Responding to Demanding Customers

Module 3: Communicating via Email and Telephone

• Different Modes of Communication
• Exercise: Brainstorm for Using Email and Telephone with Customers
• Body Language and Nonverbals
• Guidelines on Communicating over Telephone
• Exercise: Telephone Practice Activity
• Using Email Effectively

Day Two

Module 4: Managing Difficult Customers

• Service Recovery Model
• Offering Options and Alternatives

Module 5: Sales Opportunity Analysis

• How to Identify Sales Opportunities
• IDEAL^® Questioning

Module 6: Customer Service as a Team

• When and How to Use Teams in Customer Service
• Attributes of Successful Teams