Designing Digitally
10/07/2021
Excellent customer service can be hard to come by these days. This is particularly true due to the recent ongoing pandemic and the rise of the gig economy. Companies, executives, and managers are shifting their mentalities, how they do business, and how they hire and retain staff.
Statistics show that more than 4.7 million people work remotely at least half the time in the US. Although only 16% of global companies are fully remote, this number is steadily increasing. The worldwide changes to the traditional workforce blueprint are affecting businesses of all sizes. Along with these changes, the need for better, more efficient, result-oriented customer service training is clear-cut.
This might seem like an obvious question with an obvious answer. But, many companies offer poor customer service because they don't understand the underlying value a quality customer service team adds to an organization’s overall well-being and growth.
To reach a standard of customer service that your company can be proud of, you first need to define what good customer service means for you, your company, employees, and your customers. Some of the skills you might want to train your workforce on, with the purpose of defining what an excellent customer service experience should be, are:
Training employees to engage in active listening
Giving access to online courses and other relevant customer service articles
Encouraging customer service reps (CSRs) to learn through teaching others
Enable cross-functional teamwork
Create a database of tools and knowledge your CSRs can access
Inspire empathy and compassion
Set clear expectations for each employee
Continually help develop employee communication skills
Build a culture that encourages a positive attitude
Support CSRs in providing fast customer replies
With most companies moving their business onto various online platforms, providing employees with online customer service training makes sense. A solid customer service experience can help your company retain customers, increase your bottom line, and ensure you stand out from a crowded marketplace.
There are many different online training delivery methods you could use to help your CSR team reach the next level of excellence. But, the most crucial aspect when it comes to teaching customer service employees is to keep the training flexible and accessible from any device.
With current trends showing that most people check their mobile devices about once every ten minutes, providing full training accessibility through handheld devices is a smart move for any business. Thus, an online learning module, program, or platform that is responsive, engaging, and immersive is necessary for developing an all-star customer service team.
Making a plan implies taking a step back and looking at your organization, customer service team, and overall workforce from a bird's eye view. This will help you identify any skill and knowledge gaps your workforce might have.
You'll also want to assess whether you have the necessary tools, content, and staff to make a training module possible.
Figuring out where your employees’ skills and knowledge levels are is vital in determining their learning needs and your training program’s learning objectives.
Survey your CSRs team to get insights into what they know, what they need, and what type of training they think they might benefit from. The data resulting from these surveys should give you enough information to formulate some solid learning objectives.
Aligning your business needs to learner objectives and desired learning results will also benefit your entire organization. Looking at online training from a holistic perspective should help everyone in your organization, all the way down the chain of command.
You might have an in-house training development team or you might need to hire a vendor to develop your training. Either way, the design you choose will depend on what type of eLearning method your choose.
Customer service training programs could benefit from implementing microlearning, simulation training, serious games, and gamification. These training methods allow learners to assimilate information in their own time, from their devices, from anywhere they choose to access the program.
An instructional designer, subject matter expert (SME), graphic designer, and programmer should be enough for your initial development team. These professionals will help outline each module in your training course and lay out the content and visuals you'll be using.
The development stage is entirely in the hands of your eLearning training development team. If you choose a training development vendor, they will come with ready-made options that you can choose to incorporate into your course.
Ensure you leave communication channels open. Your development team should receive feedback from your employees, and your managers should be able to give employee learners feedback on their progress.
Before fully deploying your customer service training course, you could form a control group and test the training module. This will help weed out any bugs, issues or point to any missing information your training module might require.
Once the training program is finished and has gone through testing, it's time to release it into the wild. Run your program from start to finish and ensure you use a data analysis platform to get valuable insights from your first training iteration.
To guarantee your employees engage with your customer service training program, check out the following tips:
Include a variety of media to keep the training interactive: video content, interactive features, game elements, rewards, and bonuses will ensure your learners stay engaged and interested in your course content.
Relate your training to real-life situations: specifically in the customer service sphere, it's crucial to take trainees through real-life scenarios to see how they would handle a stressful or difficult situation. Role-playing modules and simulations will help learners see an issue from the customer's perspective.
Use microlearning to deliver small chunks of information: giving too much information too fast can overwhelm learners and lead them to give up. Microlearning ensures that learners receive smaller pieces of information that are easy to digest and retain.
Use gamification to make training fun: learning through play is a fundamental human aptitude. Take advantage of this by including gaming elements in your training. Leaderboards, friendly competitions, quizzes, badges, and other rewards will keep learners motivated to succeed.
The way we work, live, and thrive is changing, and most businesses are jumping on the eLearning bandwagon. Companies worldwide are increasingly using different online learning platforms to help their employees thrive and grow their businesses. Customer service is more important than ever since everything seems to be happening remotely and online these days. Delivering effective customer service training for your employees will help you stay ahead of the competition, raise your bottom line, and keep your employees happy and productive.
Designing Digitally crafts custom eLearning solutions based on your company’s unique needs and goals. If you are interested in learning more about the employee training options available and how they could improve your performance, get in touch with our team or book a meeting now using our Online Booking Calendar.
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