Call Center Customer Service Training

Call center Customer service training can be a real challenge, because once someone is on the phones, it is difficult to release them for a training session, as it will affect service levels.

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It is important therefore, that training counts, and that the business feels the benefits of taking people off the phones and the disruption that may cause. To help with this, good practice for customer service call center training will need to

• include attitudinal training, early on in their employment, to help people understand the importance of the customer and what they do for the customer

• include call handling skills training during the induction period, so that people can understand how communication over the telephone works, and the vital skills of questioning, listening and summarising for call control

• include customer service simulation where people concentrate on a variety of situations and learn the best practice for dealing with them. This also enables people to start to understand how they will use your system when they are dealing with customers

• have ( from time to time ) high impact sessions which everyone attends to give a focus to key business or attitudinal issues ( such as customer focus ). This is highly effective when having to implement a new strategy within the business

• have short sharp sessions which can be run in team meetings

• involve floorwalkers - the practice of having experienced members of staff on hand to answer questions about products, services, systems or policies.

• include coaching on live calls ( it is important that the people here understand the difference between problem solving and coaching ) This is different to floorwalking, and concentrates on what the employee can do differently which will improve their skills and confidence when dealing with customers

• help people to understand the behaviours associated with good customer service by having a customer service competency framework.

Of course all good training benefits from being relevant and repeated, so it is important that refresher and review training is carried out.




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To understand more about developing competence in call center customer service training, click this link.

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