The Secret to Having a Great Customer Service Team

Customer Service is one of my favorite areas to manage, aside from Operations.

I have an appreciation for it because it heavily relies on interaction and is entirely people focused.

This makes it behavioral and dynamic in nature, but also measurable, tangible, and manageable.

So, what is the secret to having great customer service in your organization?

In my opinion it is training.

What I mean by that is, training ALL your teams to understand customer service through content, performance, and relatability. This is the secret weapon.

In my experience, often times training has not been heavily invested in, however the expectation of what Customer Service should be has been aggressively demanded from team members. It seems like an oxymoron right?

But, it is true.

If the expectation for your teams, is that they perform highly, shouldn’t they be setup to succeed by reinforcing what they do know and adding to the areas they are not well versed in?

The answer is: YES! Proven time and time again from organization to organization.

A great example of maximizing the magic of effective Customer Service training is: Chick-fil-A. This company is currently being recognized for the simple, but genuine way they train their employees to connect with their customer through their classic Customer Service phrases:

“Please”
“Thank you”
“How can I help you today.”

It’s mind blowing, but these phrases open the door to the practice of very necessary soft skills. These words work as cues through training that customers respond positively to. It’s brilliant!

Think about how much time you have spent measuring your teams Please and Thank You’s and you’ll get to where I’m headed.

When was the last time you put together a training about Please and Thank you and the whole cycle of communication that takes place when those cues are used in your environment?

Training is the gift that keeps on giving, it helps create a culture of satisfaction where team members embody great Customer Service and understand it beyond command or instruction. It is a powerful strategy!
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So here are a few tips for you if you're missing the secret sauce to great Customer Service:

• Create training structured around simple cues and interactions.
• Learn how to measure what you’ve trained on.
• Ask your customers how their experience was.
• Training is a continuous process, so you should ALWAYS be training on a consistent basis, whether that’s weekly, monthly, or yearly.  
• Make time for training. No excuses.

In my next online training course I will be training on How to Measure Customer Service. You can click here to check out this and other related courses.