Employee Engagement Customer Service: Going Beyond the Script by Bruce Wedderburn Effective customer service training requires more than hiring great people who naturally enjoy helping others The relationship between sales and customer service is critical, but these two divisions are typically trained separately, with different emphases and objectives. While most companies stress the importance in sales training of having a customer-centric focus, they often overlook many of those concepts in customer service training. That lack of a consistent approach and mindset for interacting with customers can cost companies revenue, customer loyalty and even great salespeople who get fed up when the relationships they’ve spent months developing are destroyed in an instant by a fumbled customer service issue. Hiring Great People Isn’t Enough Building a great customer service team requires more than hiring great people who naturally enjoy helping others. As Johnny Walker explains in this podcast, we also need to equip those great people with the soft skills like emotional intelligence so they can interact effectively with the customer. The customer has to feel that the person on the other end of the call is laser focused on understanding their needs and solving their problems. They must truly believe that they are the most important person the contact center rep has talked to all day. They need to feel empathy, passion and commitment on the other end of that call. And that’s why one of the most common customer service tools around is also one of the worst things we can do in customer service training: hand people a script. We all know when someone’s reading a script, especially when you’ve talked to several customer service reps from the same organization and they’re all saying the exact same thing. Try focusing customer service training efforts less on what to say and more on how to interact. We can do that by giving people a process that allows them to be authentic and build genuine relationships rather than a script that takes their personality out of the equation. Listen to our podcast to hear more from Johnny Walker as he discusses: The connection between sales and customer service Pitfalls of typical customer service training approaches A values-based, concrete process that helps customer service reps relate and empathize with customers, even when they’re having a bad day Share This Post: About the Author Bruce Wedderburn Chief Sales Officer Since 2016 Bruce has led the Sales organization with a passion for creating impactful results for clients through the successful... Related Blog Posts Sales Performance Enhancing Banking Sales Strategies For Future Growth Banking sales strategies are being redefined: Here’s how to pivot your customer relationships. While every industry grapples with the volatility… Read More Sales Performance The Importance of Active Listening in Sales So often, we listen to respond. We’re waiting for the other person to finish talking so we can tell them… Read More Sales Performance Why Maintaining Sales Motivation Hinges on Focusing on Progress We often talk about learning as a journey. We talk about success as never-ending. We acknowledge that habits require time… Read More Insightful Perspectives and Tips to Help You Serve Your Customers Better Don't Miss Out
Effective customer service training requires more than hiring great people who naturally enjoy helping others The relationship between sales and customer service is critical, but these two divisions are typically trained separately, with different emphases and objectives. While most companies stress the importance in sales training of having a customer-centric focus, they often overlook many of those concepts in customer service training. That lack of a consistent approach and mindset for interacting with customers can cost companies revenue, customer loyalty and even great salespeople who get fed up when the relationships they’ve spent months developing are destroyed in an instant by a fumbled customer service issue. Hiring Great People Isn’t Enough Building a great customer service team requires more than hiring great people who naturally enjoy helping others. As Johnny Walker explains in this podcast, we also need to equip those great people with the soft skills like emotional intelligence so they can interact effectively with the customer. The customer has to feel that the person on the other end of the call is laser focused on understanding their needs and solving their problems. They must truly believe that they are the most important person the contact center rep has talked to all day. They need to feel empathy, passion and commitment on the other end of that call. And that’s why one of the most common customer service tools around is also one of the worst things we can do in customer service training: hand people a script. We all know when someone’s reading a script, especially when you’ve talked to several customer service reps from the same organization and they’re all saying the exact same thing. Try focusing customer service training efforts less on what to say and more on how to interact. We can do that by giving people a process that allows them to be authentic and build genuine relationships rather than a script that takes their personality out of the equation. Listen to our podcast to hear more from Johnny Walker as he discusses: The connection between sales and customer service Pitfalls of typical customer service training approaches A values-based, concrete process that helps customer service reps relate and empathize with customers, even when they’re having a bad day Share This Post: About the Author Bruce Wedderburn Chief Sales Officer Since 2016 Bruce has led the Sales organization with a passion for creating impactful results for clients through the successful...