Here are eight strategies to increase the power and effectiveness of your customer service training. Each is intended to add meaning to the effort for all involved and to provide results that are powerful and lasting.
If these seem idiosyncratic at all, and unlike the generic advice you may find elsewhere, it's because they're the real deal; I've drawn these from my own approach as a customer service trainer and, more broadly, from how I go about things as a customer service consultant when I’m tasked with designing and leading initiatives that include a training component.
1. Your customer service training should be purpose-based: While the nitty gritty, nuts-and-boltsy, best-practicesy parts of training are of course essential, the goal of the training should be to serve an organizational purpose. Once attendees understand that it does, they’ll look for how it ties into that purpose, including figuring out for themselves what to do with customers when best practices fail them (or are not, in fact, the best practice for the particular customer standing in front of them).
For example, the training we’d do for a retail store might be centered on a purpose of “Becoming the most customer-focused operation in retail, and proving this in every interaction.” Customer service/hospitality training for a hotel or resort might be designed to serve a purpose such as (and this is an actual one from Fairmont Hotels), “Turning Moments into Memories.” A patient experience training in healthcare could be informed by something along the lines of the legendary organizational purpose of Mayo Clinic: “[ensuring that] the needs of the patient come first.” Aiming for an ideal, a purpose, such as these is important. To this end, having attendees sign onto a code is a good idea, as is holding the training in conjunction with rolling out a new customer service initiative, for just this reason.
2. Add interactive elements to your customer service training interactive–but in an on-point, non-time-wasting way. Your trainees are adults and deserve to have their time respected, so I’d discourage you from building in generic teambuilding games and “getting to know you” exercises (“let’s pass the red ball…”) just to kill time or because you’ve read somewhere that you should. On the other hand, on point customer service exercises, scenarios, role-plays, and quizzes on the material covered (ideally with meaningful prizes: we often use Starbucks or Amazon gift cards, or a localized equivalent if available) can bring your principles to life.
3. Humor helps. Maybe customer service isn’t your idea of a riveting subject–but it is for me. Part of the reason is that I find immense and endless gentle humor in the interactions of employees and customers: how they can go wrong, how they can be salvaged. And I share that humor with training attendees so they can see it too.
4. Certify attendees at the end. Consider giving attendees something visible at the end of the session to show they came and contributed. (Although certification is, overall, about uniformity, it's also true that in the training context, a simple personalization of the form, if the class isn’t too large, can be a nice touch, something like, “Thanks for the great questions, Jim!” or, “Great hat, Louise!” )
5. Provide collateral for attendees to take back to their desks with key points from the training. (This only makes the most sense if you’ve integrated your company philosophy with the trainer and the training, probably in the course of a larger customer service initiative.) The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, for over 35 years, has kept everyone literally on the same page by proving each employee with a laminated accordion-folded pocket card that they can refer to any time they need a refresher. Consider doing something similar.
6. Build on your training with a sustaining ritual. You can make the lessons of customer service training not only last but grow in power throughout the year by instituting a sustaining ritual. My favorite, which I suggest to clients in many industries (but not all; whether this works depends on context) is what I call a “Customer Service Minute.” Focus on a different customer service principle every day for no more than 5-10 minutes. Hold the “minute” every morning before work starts (or before each shift if you have more than one). Have a different non-managerial employee prepare for it and lead it each day. Over the course of a year’s worth of workdays, you can get a lot of attention applied to every one of your key principles.
7. Don't hide from awkward subjects, such as customer service recovery. One of the most awkward and fear-inducing moments in customer service is customer service recovery: working with and turning around upset customers. There’s no subject that’s more important, and it shouldn’t be glossed over or ignored. (If you’d like a copy of my five-step AWARE method for customer service recovery, let me know and I’ll send you a printable version for your office use.)
8. Have your department head, or even your CEO, attend the training and have them introduce the session. While simply holding the customer service training is meaningful, and shows that your organization cares about the subject and about transforming your performance with customers, you can make this point most powerfully by convincing someone in a high position in your organization to attend the training and to provide an introduction to the event. This introduction gives them the opportunity to explain to attendees in their own words why this investment of their time is of such value.
