In nearly every industry, companies are at the mercy of their customers and must accommodate their needs to the best of their ability with quality service. Unfortunately, many businesses fall short in this crucial area.

Professional customer service training courses are well worth it for most organizations, as they can help representatives learn some of the most effective methods of dealing with inevitable difficult situations and maintain your company’s reputation.

Below are five practical techniques to improve customer service and build relationships for future growth and development.

1.) Utilize Active Listening

Active listening is a technique that incorporates a reiterating of what a customer just said so they know they were heard. Further, sharing similar interests and adding in casual asides can help humanize the staff members as actual people and not solely representatives.

These techniques can enhance customer communication without falling into inauthentic sales strategies that often make representatives seem robotic.

2.) Expand Availability

Customers want the companies they do business with to be reasonably available, which may require some outside-the-box thinking if a company is hoping to avoid mounting employment costs.

3.) Focus on Engagement Over Performance Metrics 

Performance metrics and benchmarking can be a vital part of strengthening customer service in your organization, but it can easily become burdensome and lose sight of the original purpose – to provide the best overall customer experience possible.

Some company leaders integrate unnecessarily aggressive benchmarking and goal setting strategies to propel team members towards higher productivity while overlooking their role in providing training and development.

For example, when representatives are falling short in terms of their customer service feedback scores, managers may assume it’s because of a flaw in the representative’s approach rather than a training related issue.

Strategies that are too focused on performance metrics can constrict staff members or create goals that are too lofty to be realistically achievable.

Performance metrics and goal setting certainly have a role in improving the customer experience. However, focusing more on collaboration, training and engagement can prove to be more efficient.

4.) Know Your Most Valuable Customers

Influential or long-established customers can be invaluable assets for a business or the source of their downfall.

It’s crucial for organizations to know their most valuable customers, and there is nothing wrong with prioritizing them to ensure that they have a successful experience.

They have higher expectations than most other customers. Focus on engaging their needs, without pandering, to support stronger customer interaction.

5.) Ongoing Customer Service Training

It’s important for managers to guard against that natural inclination to rely on just one round of initial training and neglecting ongoing development for their representatives.

Customer service training courses  through firms such as Stitt Feld Handy Group, can change the dynamics of your business communication significantly for the better.

Through these courses, there is an experienced outside entity providing your team with new tools and ideas and pushing for better results.

Customers are the lifeblood of any company, and in an increasingly competitive world your customer service program needs to be outstanding.

Therefore, it’s wise to invest in the latest customer service training courses to build your representatives’ skills so that they consistently exceed your customers’ expectations.

To learn more about this type of training to benefit your organization, please contact us at contact@adr.ca.

To learn conflict resolution skills that you can use at work and in your personal life, please visit our Alternative Dispute Resolution Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To improve your negotiation skills and get the results you want while negotiating, please visit our Become a Powerful Negotiator Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.

To gain skills to handle difficult conversations and difficult people with confidence, please visit our Dealing With Difficult People Workshop page to learn more about upcoming in-person and instructor-led online sessions.