Customer Service

Introduction

What is Customer Service?

• Importance of customer service
• Understanding customer satisfaction
• Excellent customer service
• Five needs of every customer
• Internal and external customers
• Customer attributes
• Cost of losing a customer

Challenges and Solutions

Challenges of Customer Service

• Elements of success
• Barriers to excellent customer service
• Power of perceptions
• Understanding expectations
• Levels of expectations
• Scope of influence
• Reputation management
• Techniques for exceeding customer expectations
• Keys to credibility
• Importance of values
• Ethics in customer service
• Current status of customer service
• New trends in customer service

Problem Solving

• Role of problem solving in customer service
• Creativity and problem solving
• Problems as opportunities
• Confronting conflict
• Problem solving process
• Problem solving strategies
• Development of negotiation skills
• Professional approaches to apologising and conveying bad news
• Barriers to problem solving and decision making
• Importance of follow up

Management and Strategy

Strategy and Formulating a Plan for Success

• Why a strategy?
• Planning
• Importance of infrastructure
• Culture
• High touch and low touch customers
• Consumption behaviour
• Segmenting the market
• Developing a strategy

Empowerment

• What is empowerment?
• Importance of mission and purpose statement
• Empowerment = opportunity
• Steps to empowering customer service providers
• Co-production of customer service
• Why co-production works
• Design of systems

Communications

Communications in Customer Service

• Building customer intelligence
• Methods of communication
• Listening
• Voice inflection as a customer service tool
• Telephones and customer service
• Words to use/avoid
• Power phrases
• Power of eye contact
• Appeal to the senses
• Communication and technology

Managing Difficult Customers

Coping with Challenging Customers

• Who are challenging customers?
• Why they are challenging
• Creating challenging customers
• Characteristics of challenging customers
• Respect
• Empathy
• Responsibility check
• What to do when you are wrong
• Benefits from dealing with challenging customers

Motivation and Leadership

Motivation

• What is motivation?
• Needs and wants
• Motivating factors
• Understanding morale
• Self-concept and motivation
• Improving self-concept
• Power of self motivation
• Teamwork
• Motivating others

Leadership in Customer Service

• Leadership defined
• Knowing yourself
• Formal and informal leaders
• Coach or counsellor
• Characteristics of excellent leaders
• Leadership and goals
• Creating a customer service culture
• Benefit of job aids
• Leadership without position
• The boss as a customer

Customer Retention and Measurement of Satisfaction

• What is customer retention?
• Value of existing customers
• Churn
• Developing and improving the customer retention programme
• Measurement of satisfaction
• Sources of information
• Benefits of measuring your effectiveness
• Determining your effectiveness
• Surveys and reality
• Evaluating your own performance
• Business benefits from measuring satisfaction

Technology and Customer Service

• Today’s changing marketplace
• The customer of the twenty-first century
• Embracing new technologies
• Call centres
• The internet
• Enhancing service experiences and building customer loyalty

Excellence in Customer Service

• Excellence as the goal
• Getting started
• Rewards of excellent customer service