Customer Service Training Effectiveness: How To Have Your Reps Customer-Ready Early

Customer Service Training How To Have Your Reps Customer Ready Early
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Summary: Are your reps really ready once their training is complete?

What? It’s Only My Second Week At This Job

The effectiveness of customer service training is always put to the test. A customer is having trouble with one of your company’s products or services. What’s their first move when they can’t solve a problem on their own? They contact customer service. Whether they’re answering phones, chatting online, or showing up in person to fix problems, your customer service team is the face of your business.

eBook Release: How To Alleviate Your Customer Service Team's Top 5 Complaints About Training
eBook Release
How To Alleviate Your Customer Service Team's Top 5 Complaints About Training
This eBook addresses common complaints heard from customer service professionals, regarding their resistance to training.

Your customer service representatives need to know everything there is to know about your product, they should represent your organization’s values and culture, and they need to be able to calmly and politely handle some of your most stressed out, unhappy customers. It’s a huge responsibility, especially when you consider that poor customer service is likely to send many of your customers packing.

Is The Effectiveness Of Your Customer Service Training Lacking?

When customers contact customer service, they’ve made the effort of calling in, have gone through all the automated self-help options, and have waited through the hold music. They expect that when they finally reach a human being, that person is an expert who can quickly and pleasantly help them with their problem.

This can be a challenge for managers with new hires on the team, which is nearly every manager given the typically rapid turnover in service jobs. So, even though the newbies successfully completed onboarding training, that’s often not enough to prepare them for the real demands of customers. So you have to continue to push additional training from day one. It’s a delicate balance; with new representatives on your hands, you want them to be ready to talk to customers as quickly as possible, but you also don’t want to rush and overwhelm them, throwing them into situations they feel unprepared for and forcing unreasonable training requirements.

What Can You Do About It?

Fortunately, adopting and promoting a continuous, microlearning model can make this situation easier. Reps will quickly understand that even though they did onboarding, the job requires them to “always be learning” and that this doesn’t just apply to new people. Regardless of tenure, people can be prescribed specific learning paths tailored to their needs that can be taken in short bursts throughout the week.

Notably, personalized learning paths work well not just for struggling newbies, but also for more senior new hires who have a good deal of customer service experience already. Those reps might not need the basics or as much soft skills training but may need product information or more advanced modules.

No matter their experience level, you want your reps to feel supported so that they feel confident and able to help their first caller.

Dealing With Customer Service Complaints

No matter your business, customer service is one of your products. Most unhappy customers won’t let you know they’re going to take their business elsewhere. They’ll simply leave, according to research. Only about 1 in 26 complain to the company, but that doesn’t mean disgruntled customers aren’t complaining. They are; 13% of unhappy customers complain to others, both in person and online. That kind of bad publicity is hard to overcome. You have to stop it before it starts by providing exceptional customer service. Do that, and you’re likely to be rewarded; research shows that 95% of consumers will stay with a company because of a positive customer service experience.

While every employee in your organization is tasked with providing an excellent Customer Experience, no workers shoulder that responsibility more than your customer service team. It’s a high-stress job, and just as customer churn can take a toll on your business, so can employee turnover. It’s in your best interest to alleviate complaints about training by making it engaging and valuable, and making sure your reps have the tools and support they need to do their jobs well. The eBook The Top 5 Customer Service Complaints About Training will help you achieve just that! Your customer service team supports your customers. It’s vital to your business that you support them in turn.