Sales and Customer Service
Featured courses
Customer service is key to any business because it affects how your customers interact with and perceive your brand. You may well have an exceptional product and deliver great results, but poor customer service can do irreparable damage to your reputation.
It’s harder and more expensive to find new customers than it is to retain existing ones - which is why customer service is vital. To ensure you do everything to equip your employees with the relevant skills, customer service courses are a convenient and affordable solution.
How important is customer service to your business?
Customer service should be one of the highest priorities for every business because without it you’re going to struggle to retain the customers you worked so hard to find. Exceptional customer service will increase:
- Customer loyalty
- Word-of-mouth
- Reputation
- Revenue
Meanwhile, poor customer service - or even apathy toward the customer experience - will harm your reputation, and therefore decrease the four above advantages.
This is why customer service is vital. By not taking it seriously you risk losing customers who otherwise would be loyal to your brand and your products or services.
To give your business the best opportunity to retain customers and ensure employees have the relevant customer service skills, online training is a cost-effective and convenient option.
Are customer service skills important in non-customer-facing roles?
Customer service skills shouldn’t be limited to employees who work in customer service and other customer-facing roles. Every employee speaks to a “customer” of sorts, even if they’re part of another team within your organization. Therefore, basic customer service training should be undertaken by every employee.
Customer service skills that are imperative for colleagues throughout the business to learn include:
- Problem solving
- Communication
- Patience
- Empathy
- Active listening
- Product knowledge
- Professionalism
- Time management
- How to go above and beyond
- Positivity
When employees take customer service courses online, they’ll learn all the relevant and necessary skills to tackle customer service with enthusiasm and confidence.
Is customer service important in sales?
For many leads and converted customers, their first experience with your business is via your sales team. During that period, sales staff are talking to potential customers as a spokesperson on behalf of your brand. Because of this, you need to be confident that they’re going to portray it - including your core brand values - in a positive light.
Nobody wants their experience with a salesperson to appear commission-focused. This is similar to how a customer wouldn’t want their experience with a customer service representative to be ticking a box.
By training sales staff in customer service skills, it provides customers with a positive experience throughout the entire customer journey. It also ensures that processes, understandings, and language are consistent throughout the business.
What are the basics of customer service?
Introductory customer service training, which would benefit everyone within an organization, will teach employees the fundamentals of customer service.
Basic customer service training will teach employees:
- To listen and show empathy
- That not everyone understands industry terminology, so speaking clearly prevents confusion and misunderstandings
- How to be positive, even when faced with challenging and difficult situations
- That being consistent means every customer receives the same high level of customer service
- How to remain calm and professional when pressed or under pressure, and avoid arguing
- How to be proactive
How do you show good customer service?
Customer service is challenging, and those in customer-facing roles will face new questions and situations every day. However, by demonstrating good customer service, those challenges can be overcome and an unhappy customer can be converted into a happy one.
Customer service training teaches employees everything they need to know to improve the employee experience, including:
- How to solve problems quickly and think creatively
- How not to make promises that can’t be kept
- How to power customers to solve problems themselves
- How to ensure the customer feels valued with a personalized service
- How to understand a product or service, including from the customers perspective
- How to maintain positivity, even when under pressure
Why is customer service training important?
While some employees will have a natural talent for customer service, many will need to be taught.
Most organizations will teach employees customer service skills as part of the onboarding process, but it’s important that refresher training is offered to keep skills up-to-date.
By providing frequent customer service training, you’ll improve the customer experience, ensure you protect your reputation, and give employees the skills they need to do their job well.
How do you train customer service skills?
Customer service skills are commonly taught under these scenarios:
- As part of the onboarding process
- Via workshops and face-to-face training
- Via online training courses
Training during onboarding is the first step in providing a great customer experience. However, it’s also important to make sure employees receive regular training to allow them to develop their skills and prevent bad habits from developing.
While face-to-face training is a great way to learn, it can be expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to organize.
One highly effective alternative to in-person training is e-learning. Online customer service training is completely self-directed, which means employees can learn during quiet periods or other periods of downtime.
By incorporating e-learning into a customer service training plan, it allows your teams to receive the latest training from industry experts while not interrupting wait times and affecting targets.
Types of customer service training
There are several types of customer service training, such as onboarding for new employees which teaches new starters the processes within your business. However, to ensure a consistently high level of customer service, providing employees with frequent upskill and refresher training is imperative. Other types of training include:
- Quarterly training
- Annual training
- Time-sensitive training
- Communications training
- Telephone training
As we’ve already highlighted, while onboarding training is seen as unavoidable, refresher training and upskilling should be treated in the same way. Without frequent training, employees won’t be given the tools, skills, and knowledge they need to deliver the best service. That’s why online customer service training courses are a fantastic resource for your business.
What should be included in customer service training?
As well as all of the above skills and topics we’ve already covered, you should ensure customer service training:
- Shows employees why customer satisfaction is important
- Aligns with your company’s values
- Teaches how to solve problems and be proactive
- Promotes active listening
- Teaches students how to show genuine interest and empathy
- Encourages employees to learn all about your products and services
- Teaches communication skills related to the six types of communication
- Highlights diversity and inclusivity
What are the best beginner customer service courses?
Beginner courses will focus on the fundamentals of customer service and can be a fantastic introduction for both those new to customer service, or those looking for refresher training. Some of the best customer service training for beginners include:
What are the best customer service courses for managers?
For those with prior experience looking to upskill, including managers and complaint handlers, great customer service skills online training courses include:
- Dealing with Customer Service Incidents and Complaints
- Customer Service Leadership
- Customer Service Communication Skills: When Things Go Wrong
Looking for great customer service training courses?
Offering your employees customer service training opportunities is the most cost-effective and convenient way of ensuring your business always provides a fantastic customer experience.
Go1 has a range of sales and customer service courses available. For more information, book a demo with a member of our team today.