Customer Service Skills

1-Day Course Introducing Principles of Outstanding Customer Service 

Includes many Scenarios and Role Plays

Training Course Description

“As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principle, is sure to have trouble.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every time you offer your service or products to another person, you become a customer service representative and that person is now your customer. Anyone involved in business or organisation therefore needs to know the principals of effective customer service skills. Knowing how to deal with customers in difficult situations, how to response to their requests or concerns or simply providing a positive and memorable experience for your clients helps you and your company to rise above the competition. Customer service is a skill which can be learned and mastered through practice and persistence.

This course introduces delegates to the core principles of customer services. By employing these values and adopting the correct attitude, delegates will be able to handle the vast majority of customer interactions with ease no matter how unusual or complicated they are.

The focus of the course is to teach handling customer service scenarios through a variety of examples as this is the quickest way that delegates learn. Examples are provided for many environments such as retail, face-to-face customer service, help-desk, client meetings, call centre support, medical support and so on. Delegates also explore a number of methods to handle customer complaints, learn how to say ‘no’ and discover how to tackle different challenges professionally.

"Contains many case studies and customer facing scenarios addressing common communication problems."

In addition, related communication skills are also covered. Topics such as body language, correctly structuring sentences for maximum effect and communicating on the phone are discussed and best practices are shown. In this highly practical course delegates will learn: Customer Service Principles What are the fundamentals of customer service principles? How to interact with different types of customers and different personalities? What customers want and how to satisfy them? Questioning Techniques How to encourage a customer to give you more information by using correct questioning techniques? How to use leading questions? How to sequence your sentences for maximum effect? Emotional Intelligence How to empathise with customers and maintain rapport? How to show you understand the customer and care about their problems?

Customer Service Scenarios

• What does it mean to handle a customer professionally?
• What are the common challenging customer service scenarios and how to handle them?

• How to handle angry customers?
• How to handle swearing customers?
• How to handle mistrustful customers?
• How to handle demanding customers?
• How to handle a developing long queue?

Handling Complaints

• How to handle complaints?
• What are the principles of handling unhappy customers?
• How to deliver a “Soft No”?

Telephone Skills

• How to handle phone calls?
• How to put a customer on hold?
• How to refer a customer to a colleague?
• How to end a phone call?

Body Language

• What body language signals are most critical for a great first impression?
• What gestures put customers at ease and let you establish rapport with them?
• How to spot the lies through body language?

How to Align HR with Business Strategy

How to Align HR with Business Strategy

By Patricia M. Trainor, J.D. 
Legal Editor

If HR managers learn to speak to upper management in terms of its strategic style, they will be heard and respected in their organizations. 

HR's Role

HR does not set the business strategy. In fact, according to Brady, HR is usually an afterthought when management discusses its business strategy. He finds this ironic since the number one concern of management is getting the right people--an HR function. Nonetheless, it is critical for HR to understand the business strategy and support it with appropriate policies and practices.

Strategic Style

Citing Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter; The Discipline of Market Leaders: Choose Your Customers, Narrow Your Focus, Dominate Your Market by Michael Treacy and Fred Wierseman; and The Talent Solution by Edward Grubman, Brady explained that a company's strategic style generally falls into one of three generic business strategies with implications for many levels of the company:

• Customers --In these organizations, the focus is on relationship building. Leaders are collaborative and emphasize shared values. Employees are hired if they are a good fit with the company's values and have the ability to develop relationships. Compensation is often based on results. Examples of Customer organizations include Nordstroms and IBM.
• Operations --In these organizations, the focus is on consistent application, process control, teamwork, attention to detail, and a drive for results. Leaders of these organizations tend to be charismatic, and employees are results-oriented and team players. Compensation is usually based on formula driven incentives. Examples of Operations organizations include Wal-Mart and Dell.
• Products --The focus in these organizations is on ideas and constant innovation. People in these organizations tend to be curious, creative, life-long learners, artistic, and visionary. Leaders are usually low-key visionaries. Employees are selected based on their intelligence and their commitment to long-term employment at the organization. Compensation tends to have a long-term focus and less emphasis on individual differentiation than other strategic styles. Examples of Products companies include Nike, Apple, and Bloomingdale's.

To figure out an organization's business strategy or style, Brady suggested looking at the organizations history and culture. Consider what “big events” drove growth, what worked and didn't work, what management says about strategy, and what the company culture emphasizes, i.e. , customers, processes, or autonomy.

Why is It Important

Understanding an organization's business strategy is important because people need to fit the strategy; one size does not fit all. Brady explained that an organization needs theright people, not just the best people, and it needs the right policies, not just the best .

Corporate Jungle

Campus to corporate is not a easy journey for most of the students in final years of their degree. 

The most dreamt corporate becomes jungle when you don't fit the right block in the organisations. 

Some of the common problems are preparedness, not being job ready, lack of vision and focus. Inter-personal skills, not only effective but strategic communication become essential tools.

Business etiquette are being observed by HR guys in corporate. The SMS or Chat language is not at all tolerated by professionals or by the customers. 

Conducted a session with students and Lecturers on behalf of Videocon Industries at Government Engineering College, Aurangabad. The session was with the focus on following skills:

• Interpersonal Skills
• Communication Skills
• Team Building
• Goal Setting
• Motivation

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Managerial Effectiveness

  

Managerial Effectiveness

Program Outlines:

·         Recognizing behavioral styles to increase support and communication.

·         Style adaptability to increase managerial effectiveness.

·         Developing, creating and managing a successful team.

·         Moving from a boss to a coach.

·         The competencies and strengths of a transformational coach.

·         Identify self-developmental strategies.

·         Key values in determining various ways to motivate people.

·         The relationship between values and individual expectations.

·         How to select motivators based on individual needs.

·         Assess your preference and approach for dealing with conflicts.

·         Identify the critical modes for reaching successful resolution.

·         Managing conflicts.

·         Barriers and techniques to overcome resistance and minimize risks.

·         Reexamine the effectiveness of your current delegating techniques.

·         Delegation styles and approaches.

·         Apply all concepts learned through simulation actions.

·         How to promote continuous learning among your staff.

Indicative Program Outline – Workshop for Business Managers

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Most exciting experiential learning gaming activities for corporate. Creating most smart strategic leadership and great teams through provoked challenging business simulation games.