Customer Service Training: A Much-Needed Guide For 2024

What is customer service training?

Customer service training refers to the training and coaching of agents and supervisors, enabling them to deliver high-quality customer support and customer satisfaction (CSAT). It entails educating staff on: 

• Your brand, products and services 

• Qualities like customer empathy, active listening and problem-solving 

• Latest customer service tools and best practices 

Customer service training vs. Customer focus training 

Customer support training is an ongoing, perpetual activity that gives tangible benefits to customers, brands and teams alike. The next section elaborates on these benefits.

Top benefits of customer service training

A strong staff training program equips your agents with all the vital qualities of good customer service, giving them the confidence to handle customer service interactions adeptly. Confident and skilled staff is the foundation of good customer service. Let’s see why.

1. Training improves job satisfaction and agent morale.

Research indicates employees who undergo regular training feel more satisfied and productive at work. They feel valued and empowered to fulfill their service level agreements (SLA), which sets off a virtuous cycle. A trained customer support agent has higher productivity, fewer escalations and less probability of burn-out – leading to overall high morale and job satisfaction.

Trained support staff can help with peer training, building a culture of healthy competition and high-performance teams that every organization craves. Superior customer service training can have a lasting impact on career progression, rewards and merit evaluation as well.

Lastly, effective training is an incentive to stay in an emotionally demanding customer service job and can help organizations curtail the ongoing problem of agent churn and associated costs.

2. Trained reps can control customer churn and dissatisfaction.

While employee training is important in every domain, it’s crucial in customer service. Why so? Because there is direct, conclusive evidence that agent satisfaction and customer satisfaction are entwined and co-dependent.

Trained customer support agents can dispense faster responses, which is the #1 contributor to customer happiness and retention. Happy customers tend to stick with the company, indulging in repeat purchases and positive word of mouth, earning you a vote of confidence from potential leads and customers.

Not only this, but skilled agents also have the expertise to handle angry customers, using the right customer service phrases to convert a churn situation into a memorable, positive experience that fosters trust and long-term loyalty. Customer retention and loyalty are the real wins for any brand, and these are within your reach with effective customer support training.

Suggested Read: Your A to Z Guide to Customer Retention & Its Techniques

3. Brand perception is rooted in customer support and training.

Brand perception is deeply intertwined with the quality of customer support and training offered. A brand's image is often shaped by the way it handles customer queries, resolves issues and imparts knowledge to its users. Exceptional customer support builds trust and loyalty, positively impacting how customers view a brand.

Furthermore, effective training programs not only enhance the skills of customer support teams but also ensure consistent and knowledgeable interactions.

Key components of customer service training

Customer support training is an amalgamation of three components, namely:

I. Skill training

Customer service expertise goes beyond addressing customer complaints; it involves possessing soft skills essential for interpreting emotional cues, managing support influx and maintaining composure in heated situations.

Before introducing new skills and technologies, ensure your team members master three fundamental skill sets:

- Emotional intelligence, the ability to understand and leverage emotions for conflict resolution and exceptional customer care, is vital.

- Active listening, which is crucial for acknowledging customers and diffusing stress, is another key skill. , crucial for acknowledging customers and diffusing stress, is another key skill.

- Problem-solving aptitude, the ability to decode problems and try multiple ways to get around them, even in complex customer service scenarios.

Looking for more? Check 11 Essential Customer Service Skills for 2024

II. Summative assessments

It’s vital to assess the competency level of your learners through objective and subjective assessments. Apart from theoretical tests, hands-on practical knowledge should also be assessed using role play, reflective learning and call reviews.

Agent performance scorecards help weigh in on each agent’s strengths and skill gaps, allowing you to tailor learning paths according to the agents’ unique needs. Moreover, if scorecards are AI-powered like Sprinklr’s, they assign performance scores to agents, identifying top performers and laggards without bias.

III. Monitoring and feedback

Monitoring and feedback should be a foundational pillar of customer service training. Quality analysts, managers and supervisors can use call controls like whisper, snoop, barge in, etc, for real time coaching and feedback.

Types of customer service training

There is no assembly-line approach to customer service training. Pick the type of training that meets the needs and requirements of your agents.

🏡In-house training programs

If budget is a constraint, your best bet is an in-house training program facilitated by customer service managers and experienced agents who are able to shoulder additional training duties with their regular caseload. In-house training can be of many types:  

• New agent training: Acquainting new hires with company policies, values, products, services and basic support etiquette. 

• Regular agent training: Team-building activities, skills check-in and product updates to bring agents up to speed with new industry trends and consumer behaviors. 

• Phone training: Coaching agents in handling inbound and outbound calls, managing conflicts, exuding brand identity and building strong customer relationships. 

• Live chat training: Answering routine queries with scripted responses, thereby saving time and maintaining a consistent voice.

🌏Online learning platforms

Utilizing online training platforms, where agents access and complete video modules, serves as a middle ground between handling everything internally and outsourcing to a professional.

Pro: The primary advantage lies in flexibility. Agents can self-pace their training according to their bandwidth.

Con: High development cost. Plus, maintaining engagement through extended durations is a problem that courseware makers have to solve proactively.

🤵Consultant workshops

Workshops led by consultants are frequently seen as the pinnacle of training initiatives. These programs leverage the expertise of an external specialist and typically involve several days of immersive, in-person training sessions.

Pro: The advantage lies in the team learning from a field expert, ensuring engaging and captivating sessions that leave participants inspired.

Con: Apart from the considerable cost of $1000–$1500 per participant, is their transient nature. While it's straightforward to generate enthusiasm in a short span, sustaining long-term adoption poses challenges for many companies.

How to establish a customer service training program

Step 1: Plot your end-to-end customer service processes

To guide new hires effectively through their roles in customer service, it's crucial to develop training materials that comprehensively outline end-to-end processes. By mapping these processes, new agents can establish direct connections between company policies and their customer service responsibilities.

The training materials should encompass both routine daily tasks and procedures for handling exceptional circumstances or escalations. This ensures the creation of comprehensive training resources that not only instruct customer service representatives on what to do but also emphasize the significance of these steps in upholding the company's values.

Step 2: Interview your current support teams

The most valuable insights into the customer service skills training that would be beneficial for new hires can be obtained from your existing customer service team. Consult with your team to gather information about common customer needs and challenges, as well as the specific skills they find effective in handling difficult customer interactions.

Step 3: Talk to customer service managers and supervisors

Conduct interviews with customer service managers to pinpoint prevalent customer needs that lead to escalations due to the team's unpreparedness. Utilize these findings to develop training materials that empower customer service teams with essential product knowledge and the requisite customer service skills.

Step 4: Analyze your bot interactions

Utilizing a customer service chatbot provides comprehensive insights into your customers' requirements even before engaging with them directly. This data proves invaluable in understanding the reasons customers often seek assistance from a service representative. It allows you to identify top contact drivers and the inquiries the chatbot couldn't address.

This information serves as a guide for creating exceptional training materials and anticipating challenges that may confront new customer service employees.

Further Reading: A Detailed Guide on Chatbot Analytics

Step 5: Seek feedback continuously

Examine customer service reviews of your company gathered through customer surveys or independent platforms. Identifying customer complaints will highlight areas of subpar service within your team. Incorporate this feedback into your training materials to promote a culture of exceptional customer service right from the start.

Train Your Agents into Super-Heroes with Sprinklr

To summarize, training is the cornerstone of effective customer service, not an afterthought. Customer support software like Sprinklr Service keeps training and coaching on the forefront with an AI-powered quality management module that: 

• Live coaching sessions 

• Real-time monitoring 

• AI scoring parameters and scorecards 

• Integrated learning management platform 

Curious to learn more? Hit the button below to register for a 30-day free trial of Sprinklr and watch your agent productivity soar!