Customer Service Training Modules
The following are example modules for Achieving Excellence in Customer Service training for front-line workers and first-line supervisors.
Module 1 – Compassion for the Customer
As a result of this training module, participants will be better able to:
- Identify customers and what they value.
- Identify and distinguish Moments of Truth, Moments of Misery, and Moments of Magic for the customers.
- Describe the most difficult customer ever encountered and provide a theory as to why the customer behaved as s/he did.
- Explain why the customer is the job, rather than an interruption of it.
- Describe the 6 basic customer needs, knowing that customers ask for what they want, but what they need is a whole lot more.
- Explain ways in which co-workers are internal customers and why they should be treated with the same respect as external customers.
- Describe 4 basic customer working styles and how to get in step with these working styles.
- Identify 10 personal skills that influence other people’s behavior positively.
Module 2 – Listening and Problem-Solving Skills
As a result of this training module, participants will be better able to:
- Demonstrate successful attending skills for listening, namely:
- Presence
- Attention
- Authentic Interest
- Suspension of Judgment
- Patience
- Commitment to Work
- Self-identify tendencies that block attending, namely:
- Ruling out the speaker
- Reaching a premature conclusion
- Reading in expectations
- Reading out threats
- Rehearsing a response
- Reacting to trigger words
- Responding with evaluation
- Differentiate between open and closed questions and use them appropriately to serve your customers better.
- Explain and demonstrate how asking the right questions can help identify the three different kinds of customer-based opportunities
- Service Opportunities
- Persuasion Opportunities
- Tension Opportunities
- Identify and demonstrate the steps in solving a problem for a customer, including the questioning technique and the bridging technique.
Module 3 – Communication and Telephone Skills
- As a result of this training module, participants will be better able to:
- Use inflection, pacing, and volume to achieve a great telephone voice.
- Demonstrate proper telephone etiquette for how to answer the phone and for putting callers on hold.
- Use behavioral flexibility in communicating successfully with people who have different working styles.
- Check the bonds of trust and communications accuracy regularly in a two-way conversation.
Module 4 – Handling Tense, Stressful and Multi-Tasking Situations
As a result of this training module, participants will be better able to:
- Explain the concept of Tension Management
- Practice application of Tension Management to common situations that you experience.
- Describe and demonstrate the best approach for handling disgruntled, unhappy, or irate customers.
- Let customers vent their feelings without taking personal offense.
- Avoid negative filters about the customer which ignite additional tension.
- Reach mutual agreement on the solution with the customer so that you under-promise and over-deliver.