How To Train Your Customer Support Staff
So you reach the point where you have hired customer staff. Excellent, now what is the next step?
It takes more resources in the form of time, effort, and money to attract new customers than it does to simply keep your existing customers happy.
So while spending the time and money to train your customer service staff may seem like a large chunk of cash that can be well spent elsewhere, the reality of it is that it can pay off two fold or more over time in the form of customer retention later.
Successfully training your customer service staff to solve problems for your customers will depend on the set up work that you do in choosing the right people for the job and making sure that they have resources available to help them handle difficult customer situations.
What are some things to consider when training your staff?
Here are just a few:
- It’s all about the personality: It takes a special type of person to be able to properly support your customers. You need someone that is even keel and very professional. Remember, clients don’t usually open a support ticket or pick up the phone to tell you that their transaction was flawless and keep up the great work.
You need someone that can handle your clients issues day in and day out without burning out. Trust me; you do not want to spend the time and money training someone only to have them leave once they hit the front lines.
- Train not only your customer support staff but all of your staff on the proper way to deal with your clientele: Your clients should experience the same professionalism from any member of your staff.
- Customer service is not a single faceted area; there are many different prongs: Make sure your staff is trained on all.
- Keep them informed: You spend all of your time coming up with a great promotion and then something happens that causes a glitch. If your support staff is not prepared the consequences can be disastrous.
- Do not use training as a punishment: Training should never be seen as a “fix” for an employee. This tactic can create a difficult situation for the trainer. The only effective context for sending an employee to training is a positive one of skills improvement and job enhancement.
- Emphasize the importance of communication: Be sure that there is always someone that your staff can go to when they have questions. Ideally there will be a support leader, but in some cases that may be you or someone on your staff. Be sure that they feel they can ask you, or you may not like the results when they try to handle items they are unsure of on their own.
Your customer service staff represents not only the front line within your company but in many cases they are the only people within your company that your customers will actually have interaction with. It is worth your time and money to make sure that you are well represented.
- Meredith
P.S. - Did you know that 68% of people quit doing business with companies that have poor customer service? Learn exactly what to say to customers – and double your sales. Go to: http://www.surefirecustomerservicetechniques.com
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