Training is one of the essential investments you can make for your contact center. Every dollar you spend on training earns back $30 in productivity. On top of that, companies that invest in training earn 24% higher profit margins.
But if you genuinely want to get the most bang for your buck, then the priority for your contact center training has to be developing a customer service learning module.
Customers are selective. They want to work with companies that put them first. That’s why 47% of customers say they’ll stop buying from a company after a single subpar experience. On top of that, 91% of those customers will leave without complaining, so you’ll never know what adversely affected your brand. Every year in the U.S. alone, $62 billion is lost due to poor customer service.
To continually delight your customers and build loyalty, you have to offer the best customer experience possible. That’s where contact center training comes into play. You must teach your agents how to create and deliver exceptional service—over and over again.
Your agents must learn everything from why your customers contact your call center to how to develop a relationship with new and existing customers. And it’s not just a one-time process. Proper customer service training is never-ending. It’s constantly updated as trends change, products are released, and greater customer understanding is gained.
So, how can your contact center create and deploy a customer service learning module that produces measurable results?
Start by conducting real-time research into the current customer experience. You'll want to answer at least a few of the following questions:
You'll need some tools to get all this insight and answer these questions.
Once you understand your current customer experience, you can start designing a customer service learning module that fits your needs. The key is not to waste time and money developing a module on what you think is essential. Instead, it needs to be tailor-made for what’s needed, based on identified knowledge gaps.
To start, explore the root cause of each problem identified in Step 1. For example, if you discover that your customers regularly call with questions about shipping and those conversations tend to run long, you may implement additional training on shipping. Or if you find out that angry customers tend to hang up angry, maybe emotional intelligence needs to be a central focus of your workout.
Call center agents to need a mix of hard and soft skills to provide exceptional customer experiences. And they need a certain level of proficiency in each of these skills to get results. Unfortunately, only 38% of managers believe that skill training is done well.
Establish which skills are most important for customer service success at your contact center, and then develop your program around those areas. For example, your contact center services learning module should include training on correct processes, compliance, and customer outcomes. It should also cover customer service soft skills, including:
Once you’ve identified your current customer experience, identified knowledge gaps, and established the necessary skills for success, it’s time to put it all together. A comprehensive customer service training plan should include specialized learning modules for various groups and individual agents based on their unique needs.
This training plan should center your organization’s goals, contact center objectives, resources, and individual needs. And it should be designed to evolve as needed based on performance reviews, new products, and agent hiring.
Finally, if you want your customer service learning module to be practical, you need to explain its value clearly. Promote the benefits of training to your agents, explaining how it can make their frontline interactions with customers easier. Explain how training will give them greater confidence, lead to more promotions, increase salaries, and open new work opportunities.
The key is to communicate how necessary training is and incentivize them to keep going. This is a better option than just mandating training as it delivers mutually beneficial results for you and your call center agents.
Customer service training can easily become overwhelming. There’s much information to cover, and agents learn best with one-on-one help and management. That’s where a learning management system (LMS) can help.
An LMS makes it easier to manage, track, and achieve your customer experience—anywhere and at any time. You can use it to:
Engaged agents are not only happier and more productive; they achieve better results. Agents actively engaged throughout the training process will learn better, put in more training time, and feel more satisfied with the learning process.
To engage your agents:
Treat your agents like individuals, considering their unique professional backgrounds and needs. Regular one-on-one meetings can help them feel appreciated, connected, and cared for. It’s also a way for you to personally check in on each agent and develop more personal, practical, and effective learning modules. And it is critical for fostering better relationships!
Here are a few more best practices for customer service training in a rapid-fire format.
Today’s customers have greater expectations than ever before. They’re also more innovative and skeptical, so your call center has to offer something exceptional to satisfy them. A contact center services learning module is a great place to start when meeting customer expectations and providing better experiences.
The result?
Call center training is critical to a high-quality customer experience. It’s among the most valuable strategies you can employ to ensure excellent customer service, gain customer trust, and increase brand loyalty.
Ready to implement a customer service training plan at your call center?
Check out The Ultimate Call Center Training Guide for more strategies and training recommendations.
