Improving Customer Service through Staff Training
It is said that good customer service comes from the heart. It can’t be taught. But even the best employees, with the greatest customer service skills, can learn a thing or two. Many employers forget that staff training goes beyond how to effectively use equipment and how to do the job as quickly as possible. Be the employer that remembers, and make a real difference to your customers. Here are a few courses that you could make use of in the workplace, to improve the customer service experience:
Sign Language According to Action for Hearing Loss, it’s estimated that 24,000 people in the UK use BSL as their main language. In many of the places these individuals go to shop, eat and relax, they’ll find nobody speaking their language. Encouraging your employees to take a British Sign Language (BSL) course will prepare them for everyday conversation with any deaf customers. Even a few words can make a big difference to
people that usually struggle through conversations in somebody else’s language, or are forced to write things down in order to be understood.
Emotional Intelligence and Resilience Your employees can become more aware of customer needs, and more effective in their communication, by taking a course in emotional intelligence. Often, people empathise with others but are clueless about the next move. How do you deal with someone that’s angry, upset or scared? Your customers live full lives, and may not always be feeling perfectly happy when they enter your place of work. With appropriate training, your employees can tune in to a customer’s emotion and approach them on their level. They have the power to turn a negative situation into a positive and earn lifelong customer loyalty.
Learn How to Be Liked Winning people over is a skill. If your employees are likeable people, your customers will return to interact with them. Often, people are loyal to a business because of the people, not the product or the service. Your employees can learn how to be liked, using a variety of different techniques to earn good reviews from your customers.
Training your employees should be an ongoing endeavour. Think about their personalities as much as their practical skills, to create well-rounded individuals that work well as a team and make each and every customer happy.