Six Tips to Train Your Customer Service Team Your customers keep your business going. As such, your customer service team is critical to the success, failure, and profitability of your organisation. By Irina Wiese • 5 December, 2016 • 5 min read • Training Materials These employees are responsible for day-to-day interactions and should be notably skilled in keeping customers happy and invested in your services. On this page 1. Define Your Goals 2. Act It Out 3. Showcase Your Brand 4. Utilise Game-based Learning 5. Create A Test 6. Keep It Fresh Frequently Asked Questions Such an important role requires ongoing and efficient training methods. But what should a training program for customer service staffers look like, and what are some best practices to abide by? For a broader guide to designing and delivering effective training programmes, see our overview of corporate training materials. Let’s take a look at some expert tips for developing the best customer service skills: 1. Define Your Goals As with any good training program, the best practices in customer service learning and development centre largely on strategy. Organisational leaders must sit down and decide on the goals and outcomes of training practices. What are you trying to accomplish with these sessions? What is the overarching expectation for customer service in your sector? These answers will vary across different industries, but they will largely dictate the structure and approach you will take in your training initiatives. Before you begin drafting your materials, nail down organisational goals and drivers, along with expectations, outcomes, and your definition of a successful training push. 2. Act It Out Customer service employees are constantly interacting with clientele. Specifically in retail, this one-on-one interaction is a huge driver of sales, explained eLearning Industry contributor Erin Krebs. In training, it is extremely useful to imitate real-life customer service scenarios. For example, training leaders can take on the role of a disgruntled customer and have their new staff members utilise freshly learned skills to diffuse the situation. This can help to adequately prepare your team for those instances when they actually happen on the sales floor. This may function as a great supplement to traditional learning methods, as it provides a glimpse into how new staffers would react to tricky situations. 3. Showcase Your Brand Everyone within a given organisation should have a firm understanding of the business’ brand and brand values. Krebs noted that excellent customer service training incorporates brand awareness and subsequent advocacy throughout the entire process, the importance of which increases tenfold in the retail sector. Training curators should make sure to reinforce brand values at every step in order to effectively demonstrate how these values should be embodied in customer interactions. 4. Utilise Game-based Learning Game-based learning has been a buzz term in the learning and development sphere for the past few years – and for good reason. According to a study in The Journal of Personnel Psychology, simulation games used in training increase post-training self-efficacy by 20 percent and declarative knowledge by 11 percent. When creating training materials, leaders should consider including some game-based activities in conjunction with traditional methods. This will not only improve the effectiveness of your training, but will encourage your audience to stay interested and engaged. 5. Create A Test If you knew you were going to be tested on something, wouldn’t you pay better attention? This logic can be applied directly to training sessions. Issue a mini-test or quiz for your employees after every leg of training. This will spur increased focus and potentially better retention of key practices. Additionally, this can help you gauge the effectiveness of every given training component. 6. Keep It Fresh The business world is constantly changing, and, as a result, your training should too. In order to ensure top-notch customer service, employees, new and old, require periodic training. Your training team should hold regular meetings to review emerging best practices, study training outcomes and revise instructional methods accordingly. An investment in customer service training is an investment in the future of your business – one of the only sure-fire investments in this world. Mimeo’s training materials printing service helps training teams keep materials up to date and deliver them to staff on demand — no matter how often your content changes. Request a quote to get started today. Frequently Asked Questions What should customer service training cover? Effective customer service training should cover organisational goals and brand values, communication and empathy skills, how to handle difficult or escalating situations, product and service knowledge, and how performance will be measured after training. How often should customer service training be updated? Customer service training should be reviewed regularly — at least annually — and updated whenever products, processes, or customer expectations change. Periodic refresher sessions help ensure both new and experienced staff stay aligned with current standards. What is game-based learning in customer service training? Game-based learning uses simulations, quizzes, and competitive activities to make training more engaging. Research suggests it can increase post-training knowledge retention and self-efficacy compared to traditional passive learning methods. Why is role-play useful in customer service training? Role-play allows staff to practise handling real-world scenarios — such as a dissatisfied customer — in a safe environment before they encounter them on the job. It builds confidence, tests newly learned skills, and highlights gaps that theory-based training might miss. How do you measure the effectiveness of customer service training? Use a combination of knowledge checks during training, post-training assessments, manager observations, and customer satisfaction metrics after the programme. Comparing performance data before and after training helps demonstrate its business impact. What you should read next This Outline for Measuring Training Will Save Your Life Corporate Training Materials: Strategies, Formats and Best Practices How On Demand Learning Fits the Budget Irina Wiese Content Marketing Manager Irina is a Growth Marketing Specialist at Mimeo, focused on the UK and German markets. She specialises in print solutions — from sales collateral and training materials to large-scale document production — translating real customer experiences into case studies and content that shows how professional print works in practice. Passionate about connecting sales and marketing, she creates content that reflects what businesses actually need when it comes to print. Previous Post Next Post
