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Good customer service can be considered as the big differentiator between firms. While competing products are often similar and can anyway be easily duplicated, good customer service is a holistic system, requiring a sustained organization-wide effort, driven by the top and permeating all aspects of the organization culture. The resulting customer-centric organization becomes a formidable competitor whose model cannot be easily copied. In this course, we look at what it takes to build a customer centric organization.

This course also focuses on the importance of providing exceptional internal and external customer service and the impact of doing this. Moreover, you will thoroughly have the chance to discuss the effects of stress at the workplace and ways to turn stress to an advantage. You will also learn how mastering your effective usage of time will inevitably enhance your productivity and lower your stress level. Finally, you will learn in detail, how you can improve your phone handling capabilities.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course delegates would have mastered:

• Customer orientation
• Conceptual thinking
• Balanced decision making
• Quality orientation
• Understanding of prospects motivation
• Persuading others
• Self development
• Interpersonal communication
• Business writing
• Customer focus
• Self management
• Time management
• Telephone handling
• Engage in a continuing learning process through the interaction with peers in related topics, as individuals and as team members.

Course Outlines

• Teamwork and communication skills developed from, with, and honed through assessment and practice throughout the program of studies encouraged and valued in all aspects of learning
• Intercultural and ethical competency adept at operating in other cultures comfortable with different nationalities and social contexts
• Self-awareness and emotional intelligence
• A capacity for self-reflection and a willingness to engage in self-appraisal
• Open to objective and constructive feedback from supervisors and peers able to negotiate difficult social situations, diffuse conflict and engage positively in purposeful debate
• Defining and appreciating the customer
• Definition of customer
• Definition of customer service
• The internal and external customer
• Importance of the internal customer
• The need for motivated employees
• The need for qualified employees
• Silo mentality
• Destroying the silos
• Customer service as a strategic imperative
• From suspect to partner
• Going up the ladder
• The 'KANO' model
• Basic attributes
• Performance attributes
• Delight attributes
• The customer centric organization
• Customer service as a strategic imperative
• The 7 practices of customer-centric organization
• Customer satisfaction surveys and other vital tools
• Understanding your customers
• Importance of segmentation
• Principles of customer segmentation
• Focus groups
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Key terms
• Major survey methods
• Questionnaire examples
• Customer survey guidelines
• Types of satisfaction surveys
• Basics of sampling
• Attributes to measure
• Customer satisfaction index
• 'RATER' in depth
• Service quality (servqual) gaps model
• Customer complaints and service recovery
• Facts and their implications
• Symptom versus cause
• Root cause analysis
• Failures do happen
• The recovery paradox
• The strategic initiative
• Tactical activities
• The WOW! factor
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• SLA definition
• Characteristics of effective SLAs
• Key elements of SLA
• Steps in SLA development
• Quality versus cost
• SLA metrics
• KPIs for customer service
• Monitoring performance through key performance indicators
• The 4 perspectives of the balanced scorecard
• Impact of the customer perspective
• Characteristics of good KPIs
• Building customer service KPIs
• Effective verbal and written communication skills
• Improving credibility and gaining recognition
• Importance of having positive attitude
• Being assertive
• Selling your ideas to the boss, colleagues, subordinates and clients
• Preparing a professional presentation
• What constitutes professional business writing
• Style and layout
• Obtaining your objective with the reader
• Expectations of readers
• Serving the internal and external customer
• Understanding the needs of internal and external customers
• Removing services barriers
• Providing excellent service
• Breaking down the silo mentality
• Handling complaints
• Stress management techniques
• Causes and symptoms
• Identifying your stressors
• How stress affects performance
• Formulating a comprehensive stress management plan
• Managing time
• Identifying and eliminating time wasters
• Setting goals and priorities
• Using measures to control and improve your effectiveness
• Planning and managing time for self and others
• Preparing time logs and learning from them
• Using the telephone properly
• Professional telephone behavior
• Rules for good listening
• Steps in professional handling of an incoming call
• Dealing with difficult callers
• Identifying common phone problems and formulating solutions

Who should attend?

Customer Service Professional, Customer Service assistants, administrators and supervisors of junior level employees, Executives, managers and decision makers who are keen on improving performance by taking their customers to higher levels of satisfaction, as well as customer service managers and supervisors interested in advanced customer service tools.

Methodology

Case studies, self-evaluation exercises, application of service quality tools, video clips with debriefs, oral and written questions resulting in debates and more are all used in this course in addition to brief consultant and participant presentations.