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Customer Service Training

Unlock the full potential of your team. At the heart of exceptional service lies a customer-centric mindset, and our customer service training emphasizes putting others’ needs ahead of your own. This shift in priorities, though challenging, transforms customer interactions and drives business success. Explore our diverse course offerings designed to elevate your customer service to new heights.

The reward in placing yourself after others is in the value you get – from your own actions – and from the affirmations of those you’ve helped. Practice means improvement, and getting better at focusing on others means that you will develop a more keen emotional sense of what people need, expect, and want.


IMPROVING CUSTOMER SERVICE

an eight-hour training session for up to 20 participants
customer service training programs | Improving Communications

Customer Service is an organization’s ability to supply its customers’ wants and needs. Improved customer service skills are constantly and consistently exceeding the customers’ expectations.

Customer service class for industry professionals who want to maximize their efficiency, develop better customer skills, and increase their value. The focus of Improving Customer Service is to increase repeat business because of customer satisfaction and referral. Participants will find a greater level of productivity, job satisfaction and the potential for advancement. For client-facing service personnel, these areas of development will be very beneficial. Improved customer service skills means increased internal and external customer satisfaction.

Attendees will be able to:

  • Focus on others to project a UB4I, customer-centered attitude;
  • Empower people with respect (acknowledging) and control (offering choices);
  • Understand customers better and develop emotionally-intelligent methods for managing their fears and reactions;
  • Listen more intently to develop the best rapport;
  • Communicate clearly with conviction, projecting greater credibility;
  • Create positive, diplomatic messages even from negative, modeling a problem-solving, can-do attitude; and
  • Create and refine phone-answering and email templates, to appropriately address customer concerns and increase the potential for repeat business.

IMPROVING INTERNAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

an eight-hour training session for up to 20 participants
customer service training programs | Improving Communications

In the Internal Customer Service Course, participants will master the fundamentals of Customer Service with a focus on internal interactions. This training helps employees recognize the critical role they play in serving their coworkers and highlights the value each team member brings to the organization.

By fostering a positive perception of themselves and others, attendees will discover innovative ways to communicate value, creating a praise-based workplace atmosphere that motivates both leaders and staff. The course also includes a collaborative session where participants share best practices to enhance Internal Customer Service at all levels.

A key feature of this course is the Building Excellence (BE) Survey, which reveals the factors influencing individual performance. Through this survey, participants gain insights into their strengths and productivity preferences, enabling them to create personalized solutions and actionable plans for improvement. The BE Survey empowers staff and leaders to better assess productivity needs, advocate for learning preferences, develop self-leadership skills, and enhance accountability and responsibility within the organization.

Attendees will be able to:

  • Discover the BE Assessment as a tool for increasing productivity;
  • Gain awareness of Learning & Productivity Styles to maximize on-the-job performance;
  • Identify, respect, and capitalize on diversity of styles (complementary and opposing);
  • Apply principles of Internal Customer Service, creating a more pleasant and productive environment; and
  • Gain greater awareness of the impact of in-person and remote communication, ensuring respectful treatment for all.

IMPROVING CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR PROFESSIONAL OFFICES

an eight-hour training session for up to 20 participants
customer service training programs | Improving Communications

Professional places of business are service providers for walk-in customers. These are enterprises like doctors’ and lawyers’ offices, stores, and even utilities.

All service providers face important challenges with their front-line staff. How a person is treated from entry to exit and beyond will affect how your business is perceived. It will also have a significant impact on the kind of recommendation that the customer will give to others.

Attendees will be able to:

  • Gather critical data efficiently for accurate and concise service requests, using empathy and professionalism;
  • Express customer concerns and goals clearly to ensure quick and correct changes and solutions;
  • Communicate for success internally and externally by answering questions diplomatically, educating customers, and solving problems;
  • Follow up quickly and positively to gain crucial feedback and earn new business through referrals, cross-selling, and up-selling; and
  • Share best practices (adding value, asking for referrals/testimonials, following up) with others in the organization to help ensure customer satisfaction and retention.

CUSTOMER SERVICE AUDIT

a customized, business-specific evaluation and intervention plan
Customer Service Audit

Make the decision to Improve Customer Service skills. To provide the staff and customers of your organization maximum benefit, Improving Communications will conduct a start-to-finish Customer Service Audit of what it’s like to do business with your company and provide detailed feedback to improve the customer experience. This “mystery shopper approach” will give leadership a true picture of how the customer is treated and provide an appropriate roadmap for change.

The Customer Service Audit is (are) visit(s) and transaction(s) conducted with your enterprise followed with an anecdotal, written description of the experience from start to finish. In consultation with middle- and upper-management, the “as is” and “should be” of customer service is decided. Upon mutual agreement for the optimal customer service experience, Improving Communications tailors and delivers an Improving Customer Service program that builds on existing strengths and addresses deficiencies.

We will gather detailed data and report back on our experiences with:

  • Booking/setting appointments (sometimes through multiple channels);
  • Entering the location(s) and describing what we see and feel, as well as interactions with the staff;
  • Consuming (buying something, having service provided), including customer service problems that may arise;
  • Exiting and related events;
  • Interviewing leadership and staff after the visit(s) to discover their perceptions of what works and what doesn’t; and
  • Interviewing other customers to discover their likes/dislikes of their experiences.

Procedures

For triangulation of information, Improving Communications will send different mystery shoppers on multiple occasions.

Date(s), time(s), and location(s) of the targeted training will be based on results of the audit.


Rich Atkins was a guest speaker for The Austin Human Resource Management Association conference. Dr. Atkins’s presentation was outstanding. Our membership would request him back without a second thought. Rich was personable, fun to work with, flexible, and willing to help make our conference a success. I hope we can have him back soon!

Wendy Chance, CTSAustin Human Resource Management Association