This is a training pack full of activities and tools that help you support those working to improve customer service. So it's ideal for your work with managers or supervisors, team leaders, team members and other trainers. Imagine the different ways you could use this pack to get your message across quickly - and make it last. Perhaps there's a specific customer service issue that needs resolving immediately? Maybe you need guidance on best practice for a long-term programme?
Help your team to:
* Gain additional knowledge and skills
* Develop new standards and procedures
* Provide a high quality of service to all customers
* Build a customer-focused culture
List of Activities:
SECTION 1 - INTRODUCING A CUSTOMER SERVICE FOCUS
1. Initial brief:
How to introduce the customer service programme to your team.
A short ice-breaker session designed to introduce the customer service programme and familiarise team members with some of the concepts and processes they will be exploring. Your team will also look at why it is important that they offer good service to their customers.
2 Generating commitment:
How to generate commitment to the introduction of a customer service focus.
Most people think they already offer excellent customer service and see a customer service programme as an unnecessary burden on their already overworked shoulders. This unit is designed to generate enthusiasm for, and commitment to, the need for change and improvement in customer service.
3 Where does customer service fit in?
How to examine the context in which the team operate and pinpoint any organisational issues likely to affect the way in which the team serve their customers.
Your team do not work in a vacuum - they are part of a larger organisation with wider goals and aims. In this unit, the team examine the role of customer service in the organisation and highlight any major organisational issues affecting their ability to provide quality customer service to their customers. The team are asked to rate the organisational environment in which they work on how supportive it is of efforts to provide quality customer service.
4 Who are our customers?
How to define the team's customers and record the relationship between the team and their customers in customer service chains.
People have surprisingly little awareness of the customer service chains of which they are a part. Simply clarifying these chains is often enough to change the attitudes and actions of team members. This unit will form the basis of later work on identifying customer needs and measuring customers' perceptions.
5 Improving the service we receive:
How to identify and improve the products and services the team receive from their providers. This unit looks at the importance of strong links between the team and their providers. In particular, the team work to identify their providers and to work out ways in which the products, services or information they receive from these providers could be improved.
6 What do we offer our customers?
How to define the team's service niches and service characteristics.
You can't manage and improve your customer service unless you understand the nature of what it is you are providing. This unit helps the team to summarise the service niche in which they operate and the service characteristics they provide. This is then used as the basis of comparison with what the customers want.
7 Seeking customer feedback:
How to find out what customers want and how they see you.
You and your team might be offering an excellent service, but is it really the service that your customers want? The team are encouraged to re-examine the needs of their customers through the design and implementation of a customer service audit.
8 Best practice benchmarking:
How to identify excellence in customer service through dynamic benchmarking against other organisations.
Benchmarking is all about comparing yourself to other service providers, identifying differences in performance, and taking steps to meet and surpass the 'best in the class'. In this unit the team will learn how to carry out a benchmarking exercise to compare their customer service levels with those offered by different organisations.
9 Writing customer service standards:
How to define appropriate customer service areas and write clear, concise and realistic customer service standards.
Standards for the basis of the service levels that your customers can expect from you. The team will look at the two main dimensions of quality customer service - people and processes. They will then identify appropriate service standards for their team in each of these two areas.
10 Implementing customer service standards:
How to implement the customer service standards you have identified.
Like any written procedure or process, customer service standards are of little use unless they are used to guide people's actions and behaviour. This unit focuses on how to bring your customer service standards alive through design and implementation of a customer service action plan.
SECTION 2 - DEVELOPING CUSTOMER SERVICE SKILLS
11 Creating a positive image:
How to convince your customers of the strengths of your service through a positive image.
Giving your customer a positive image of your team or organisation is the first step in convincing them that your provide good customer service. Each contact with the customer contains the potential for either a failed relationship or a productive one. The focus here is on ways of helping your customers to see the strengths of your service.
12 Getting the message across:
How to learn how to communicate with your customers.
In this unit, a series of exercises focuses on three basic ways of communicating with customers - in writing, face to face and over the telephone. Team members will be encouraged to evaluate their own skills and make changes to their behaviour where necessary.
13 Problem solving:
How to solve problems that are having an impact on customer service levels.
Your team needs to have the right mind-set for solving problems, particularly the more complicated and unusual ones. This unit aims to set the right climate for problem solving by ensuring that your team have the knowledge, skills and confidence to tackle problems when they arise. A systematic, step-by-step problem-solving process is used as a framework for much of the unit.
14 Negotiation skills:
How to use positive negotiation skills that result in excellent customer service relationships.
Team members are encouraged to look at their own influencing styles, and to identify ways in which they can improve their use of positive persuasion and negotiation to create win-win situations with their customers.
15. Dealing with difficult customers
How to learn how to deal with problem or difficult customers.
Not all customers are easy to please. In fact, there will be some days when it seems that all of our customers are difficult ones! This unit aims to change the way in which team members view such customers, from being negative about the prospect, to thinking 'How can I turn this situation around?'
SECTION 3 - BUILDING A WINNING TEAM
16. Job design for customer service
How to learn how to design quality into people's job descriptions, person specifications, advertising and competencies.
Your customer service programme will have little impact on your organisation and service levels unless your team put the key components into practice. The best way to make this happen is to build customer service into the design of the jobs - to make service a core objective of each and every team member. In this unit the teams redesign their jobs and prepare job specifications written in quality customer service terms.
17. Customer service in organisational development
How to learn how to design quality into training and appraisals.
To provide excellent customer service consistently, service issues need to be taken into account in the way in which people's jobs are designed and the way in which they are trained and managed. In this unit, delegates look at ways of incorporating customer service principles into training design and appraisal processes.
18. Sustaining a customer service focus
How to make customer service a way of life.
All teams beginning customer service initiative come across problems in making it work. These problems normally pop up after the initial launch of the programme, when the first burst of enthusiasm has died down. This unit focuses on helping your team to develop a strategy to maintain a build upon the customer service programme.
