Customer Service for Front Line Staff

Learn to build strategic relationships both in the organization and with your external customer.

This intensive two-day session will help you develop the skills you need to deliver a high level of customer service. You’ll learn how to use communication skills to improve customer relationships – including how to turn dissatisfied customers into loyal customers. You will focus on how to handle difficult people in servicing the customer. Plus, you’ll discover proven tips on how to minimize stress and keep yourself in a positive frame of mind while on the job.

The program focuses on 5 Techniques of Successful Customer Service:

Know you customer and their needs
Invite customers perception of your service delivery to match or exceed their expectation
Maintain a positive and future focused attitude and approach with customers
Leverage your strengths to increase loyalty and create long term relationships
Handle difficult and out of control customers for win-win outcomes

How you will benefit:

Practice strategic relationship building to build effectiveness, loyalty, team effectiveness and greater satisfaction on the job
Learn to deal with difficult people both inside and outside the organization
Proven strategies for handling difficult people
Identify keys to managing stress in the moment and proactively
Steps in service recovery – resolving today’s issue and increasing loyalty
Understand how attitude affects outcome in moment by moment interactions with customers

What you will learn:

Your own style of interacting with other people
Handling difficult customer interactions successfully
Managing stress in the moment and proactively
Handling out of control customers
Asking questions to discover the real customer issues
Improving communications quality – in person, on the phone, using voicemail or email
Six key steps to rebounding and recovering from customer complaints

Key topics include:

Understanding Customer Service

Changing roles and responsibilities of customer facing roles
Customer service is more than being "nice"
Understanding who the customer is and what the customer wants

Costs of Satisfied vs. Dissatisfied Customers

Percentage of dissatisfied customers who complain….and what about the rest?
Dangers associated with the unhappy customer

Knowing your customer, your team members and yourself

Through a self descriptive diagnostic identify your own interaction style
Identify the interaction styles of your customers and team members

Handling difficult customers

Identify 4 styles of interaction and the most challenging parts of each
Learn key techniques to maximizing interactions with each style
Taming the angry, hostile customer
Inviting the quiet customer to communicate with you
Creating a positive outcome with the emotional customer
Identify the most difficult style for you to handle, and key ways to improve those interactions
Last resort options to handle the out of control customer

The customer interaction

How every customer interaction affect the company's scorecard
What can be done to keep the dissatisfied customer
Creating positive moments of truth
Taking ownership of your customers problem

Needs, expectations and perception

Explore how customers pre-conceived expectations about your product and service delivery affect your scorecard
How to improve customers perception of the product and service delivered
How customer needs differ from their expectation and perception
How the customer service person’s perception affects the interaction

Action Steps to creating excellence in interactions

Making a solid impression both in person and on the phone
Being prepared for customer interactions
Choosing the right approach for each customer
Making the customer feel important – taking ownership of the customer interaction

Optional Modules for Day Three

Communication

Using voice and speech to convey an attitude of customer service excellence
Projecting a professional telephone image
Key tips for effective use of the telephone and voice mail
Creating closure to your phone interactions
Using email effectively
Using body language to support and convey your intent to solve your customers problems and provide excellence in customer service

Stress

Managing stress in the moment while dealing with customers to shift potential lose-lose interactions to win-win
Key tips on decreasing stress in your workplace
Understanding how the service providers’ stress impacts the customer in the moment and in their overall buying decision

Who Should Attend:

Anyone who is a touch point to the customer – directly or indirectly, who wants to improve their working relationship both with external and internal customers. [Customer Service, Finance, Technical Support, Documentation, Credit and Collections, Human Resources, Information Technology, Help Desk, Administrative, Sales Support]

Faculty:

Anne Rose

Duration:

Two Days; optional 3rd day as listed above