Simple Training Plan: Preventing Customer Anger

UPDATED: June 14, 2023

I previously posted a couple of training plans that customer service leaders can use to train their teams.

The idea was to provide a low-cost alternative to hiring an expensive customer service trainer. These plans are designed to be cost-effective and easy to use.

The first was called Serving Upset Customers 101, which focused on helping customer service reps learn the basics of defusing an angry or upset customer.

The second was called Serving Upset Customers: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures. This training plan showed customer service teams how to learn from angry customers to avoid repeated issues.

This training plan is the third in the three-part series. 

It's called Serving Upset Customers: Preventing Customer Anger. The best way to handle an upset customer is to prevent that customer from getting upset in the first place.

Give it a try and send me your feedback to let me know how it goes.

Overview: Preventing Customer Anger

Participants will be able to do the following at the end of this training:

  • Create personal connections to avoid angry customers

  • Alert customers before they encounter unpleasant surprises

  • Avoid specific words that can trigger customer anger

  • Use the pre-emptive acknowledgement technique

This course is the third in a three part series:

  • Part 1: Serving Upset Customers 101

  • Part 2: Serving Upset Customers, Eliminating Repeat Service Failures

  • Part 3: Serving Upset Customers, Preventing Customer Anger

Resources Required:

Time Required: <1 hour per week for 3 weeks.

 

Pre-Work: Do This Before You Begin

You can boost the impact of any training program by properly preparing. Here are two simple assignments you should do before starting the training.

Assignment #1: Create a training plan. Use the Workshop Planning Tool to create a training plan:

  • Identify your goal for the training.

  • Determine what needs to be done to prepare for success.

  • Decide how the training will be run.

  • Create a plan to sustain your progress.

 

Assignment #2: Announce the Training. Tell your team what to expect by announcing the training via a team meeting, one-on-one conversation, email, or some other form of communication. Make sure you address three things:

  • Tell participants what the training is about.

  • Explain why the training is important.

  • Share how you expect participants to use the training in their daily work.

 

Training Plan: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures

This plan is divided into three lessons that each take place one week apart.

Pre-Work:

Ask participants to watch the short training video, Creating personal connections with rapport, before attending the first meeting.

 

Week 1: Kick-off. 

Call a 30 minute team meeting to kick off the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Review the purpose and goals for this course.

  2. Re-cap results from previous training programs (if applicable)

  3. Discuss ways that personal relationships can prevent customer anger.

  4. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

 

Assignments for next week:

  • Exercise: Experiment with rapport-building techniques to create personal connections with customers.

  • Watch video: Avoiding unpleasant surprises

  • Exercise: Download the Expectation Management Worksheet exercise file. Use it to identify situations where you can help customers avoid unpleasant surprises.

 

Week 2: Avoiding Unpleasant Surprises

Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the results of the using rapport-building techniques exercise.

  2. Discuss the results of the avoiding unpleasant surprises exercise.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

 

Assignments for next week:

 

Week 3: Preventing Customer Anger

Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the results of the Pre-Emptive Acknowledgement Technique exercise.

  2. Brainstorm common trigger words and more effective replacements.

  3. Discuss ways to sustain the learning and solutions from this course.

Simple Training Plan: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures

UPDATED: June 14, 2023

I previously posted a simple training plan that customer service leaders can use to train their teams.

It was called Serving Upset Customers 101. The focus was training customer service reps to respond effectively when serving an angry or upset customer.

This training plan is a sequel. It's called Serving Upset Customers: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures. It focuses on actions you can take after serving an upset customer to ensure the same issue doesn't happen again.

There’s one more training plan after this one, called Serving Upset Customers: Preventing Customer Anger. That plan focused on what you can do to prevent customers from getting angry in the first place.

Give it a try and send me your feedback to let me know how it goes.

Overview: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures

Participants will be able to do the following at the end of this training:

  • Preserve long-term customer relationships

  • Identify the root cause of chronic service problems

  • Share customer feedback with appropriate leaders

This course is the second in a three part series:

Resources Required:

Time Required: <1 hour per week for 3 weeks.

 

Pre-Work: Do This Before You Begin

You can boost the impact of any training program by properly preparing. Here are two simple assignments you should do before starting the training.

Assignment #1: Create a training plan. Use the Workshop Planning Tool to create a training plan:

  • Identify your goal for the training.

  • Determine what needs to be done to prepare for success.

  • Decide how the training will be run.

  • Create a plan to sustain your progress.

 

Assignment #2: Announce the Training. Tell your team what to expect by announcing the training via a team meeting, one-on-one conversation, email, or some other form of communication. Make sure you address three things:

  • Tell participants what the training is about.

  • Explain why the training is important.

  • Share how you expect participants to use the training in their daily work.

 

Training Plan: Eliminating Repeat Service Failures

This plan is divided into three lessons that each take place one week apart.

Pre-Work: Ask participants to watch the short training video, Preserving the relationship, before attending the first meeting.

 

Week 1: Kick-off. 

Call a 30 minute team meeting to kick off the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote. 

  1. Review the purpose and goals for this course.

  2. Re-cap results from Serving Upset Customers 101 (if applicable)

  3. Discuss ways to preserve the relationship with an angry customer.

  4. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

 

Assignments for next week:

  • Exercise: Follow-up with an angry customer to preserve the relationship.

  • Watch video: Conducting an after action review

  • Exercise: Find the After Action Review worksheet. It’s contained in the downloadable exercise file packet that comes with the course. (You’ll first need to access the course the get the exercise files.) Use it to evaluate a recent experience with an upset customer.

 

Week 2: After Action Reviews

Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the results of the following-up with angry customers exercise.

  2. Discuss the results of the after action review exercise.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

 

Assignments for next week:

 

Week 3: Finding Room for Improvement

Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the top customer complaints and identify the most common.

  2. Brainstorm solutions to some of the most common problems.

  3. Discuss ways to sustain the learning and solutions from this course.

Simple Training Plan: Serving Upset Customers 101

UPDATED: June 14, 2023

I often get calls from customer service leaders who want to do some training for their team, but face a few challenges:

  • Budgets are limited.

  • It's an operational nightmare to get everyone scheduled into a class.

  • A single workshop won't produce sustainable results.

That's why I'm experimenting with a series of training plans that take a novel approach. They're inexpensive, easy to implement, and they produce lasting change.

Best of all, you can implement them without hiring an expensive consultant or trainer like me. The first topic is my most requested: Serving Upset Customers 101.

Overview: Serving Upset Customers 101

Participants will be able to do the following at the end of this training:

  • Recognize natural instincts that make it difficult to serve angry customers

  • Listen to upset customers with empathy

  • Retain more customers by neutralizing negative emotions

The course is designed to minimize disruption of normal work schedules:

  • Short weekly team meetings

  • Individual, self-paced assignments between meetings

This course is the first in a three part series:

Resources Required:

  • Worksheet: Workshop Planning Tool, cost: $0

  • Training Video: Working with Upset Customers. You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription for each participant. (You'll get access to the ENTIRE library, which is a huge bonus.)

  • Exercise Files: The Working with Upset Customers training video comes with a set of downloadable exercise files to help implement concepts from the course. You can access the files once you login.

Time Required: <1 hour per week for 4 weeks.

 

Pre-Work: Do This Before You Begin

You can boost the impact of any training program by properly preparing. Here are two simple assignments you should do before starting the training.

Assignment #1: Create a training plan. Use the Workshop Planning Tool to create a training plan:

  • Identify your goal for the training.

  • Determine what needs to be done to prepare for success.

  • Create a plan to sustain your progress.

Assignment #2: Announce the Training. Tell your team what to expect by announcing the training via a team meeting, one-on-one conversation, email, or some other form of communication. Make sure you address three things:

  • Tell participants what the training is about.

  • Explain why the training is important.

  • Share how you expect participants to use the training in their daily work.

 

Training Plan: Serving Upset Customers

This plan is divided into four lessons that each take place one week apart.

Week 1: Kick-off. Call a 30 minute team meeting to kick off the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Review the purpose and goals for this course.

  2. Discuss situations where customers get angry.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

  • Watch video: Helping the customer be right

  • Watch video: Recognizing your natural instincts

  • Exercise: Find the Fight or Flight Symptoms Checklist in the packet of downloadable exercise files (you'll need to be logged in to access this). Use it to identify one situation where you experience the Fight or Flight instinct while serving a customer.

 

Week 2: Recognizing Our Instincts. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss the importance of helping customers be right.

  2. Discuss situations where we experienced the Fight or Flight Instinct.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

  • Watch video: Listening with empathy

  • Watch video: Apologizing effectively

  • Complete the Empathy Worksheet from the Exercise files.

  • Complete the Apology Worksheet from the Exercise files.

  • Apply the LAURA and apology techniques when serving an angry customer.

 

Week 3: Empathizing With Customers. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss situations where participants used the LAURA technique to express empathy.

  2. Revisit list of situations where customers get angry (from Week 1). Discuss the root cause of each one.

  3. Assign training videos and activities for the next meeting.

Participant assignments for next week:

 

Week 4: Conclusion. Call a 30 minute team meeting to check-in on the training program. Hold it in-person or via Zoom, Teams, or another web conference platform if your team is remote.

  1. Discuss situations where participants helped a customer become right. 

  2. Discuss situations where participants used the acknowledge and refocus technique.

  3. Discuss appropriate actions if a customer becomes abusive.

  4. Discuss ways to sustain the learning.

Why Your Team Needs Customer Service Refresher Training

Quite frankly, I used to think annual refresher training was worthless.

Conducting these workshops was part of my job years ago when I was the Director of Training for Ace Parking, a parking management company. The training was a requirement written into the management contract for many of our locations.

My first impression was the training was done just to make our clients feel good. (In parking, the clients are the companies that actually own the parking facilities such as hotels, office buildings, stadiums, airports, and stand-alone parking garages and hire a management company like Ace.)

After all, what good could a once annual training do?

I quickly noticed something important. The parking managers who readily scheduled the training with me had higher customer service levels than the few managers who didn't do the annual refresher.

Was it because of the training? 

The real answer was it was because of the training and everything else those managers did throughout the year to elevate service at their locations. The annual refresher was part of a larger system.

Here's why you really need annual refresher training for your team, when you should do it, and how you can get it done.

Why You Need Refresher Training

Let's start with a quick definition. Annual refresher training typically has these qualities:

  • Short duration (my typical program is two hours)

  • Focus on fundamental customer service skills

  • May introduce a new concept or two

So why should your employees attend? Three reasons:

First, it helps your team re-focus on the basics. It's easy to get caught up in day-to-day work. People might even develop some bad habits. Refresher training gets everyone back on the same page.

Second, it sets the stage for the year or season ahead. This is a perfect time to introduce a new customer service initiative. You can also help employees make a connection between customer service and your strategic plan.

Third, it's fun. Good refresher training should be something employees look forward to. I've had many managers position this training as recognition for employees. (It should never be seen as a punishment for poor service.)

Back to my experience at Ace Parking. I quickly learned that managers whose employees were great at service were eager to schedule refresher training for all of these reasons. 

They also saw the training as an integral part of everything they did to support a service culture on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. That was the real secret -- the refresher training was just one piece of the whole puzzle.

 

When To Conduct Refresher Training

There are a few considerations for scheduling annual refresher training.

  • Event-based: Schedule it right before a busy season or a major new initiatives.

  • Volume-based: Schedule the training for a slow period in your normal business cycle.

  • Plan-based: Scheduled at the start of your fiscal year to coincide with a new annual plan.

From a practical standpoint, you may need to juggle some schedules to make sure that work gets done while employees are attending training. Many of my clients schedule multiple sessions so they can maintain operational coverage.

 

How to Conduct Refresher Training

Start with a theme. What is the one thing you want the team to focus on for the next year? Whatever it is, make sure it's connected to your customer service vision.

Next, identify a source for the training. There are options available for all budgets.

If your company has the resources, consider bringing in a professional speaker. This can really charge up the team and show everyone you care deeply about service.

For more limited budgets, you can use training videos like my courses on lynda.com. You may have a lynda.com account already, which means there's no cost to use these videos. If you don't have an account, you can get a 10-day trial just in time for your training.

There are even good options for teams with no training budget at all.

You can also get more low and no-cost training ideas from Halelly Azulay's fabulous book, Employee Development on a Shoestring.

Finally, don't forget to prepare your team for training. Here's a handy planner to help make sure everything is ready to go.

How to Train 35,000 People Before Lunch

Training large numbers of employees is a big challenge.

Organizations have several factors working against them. There's geography, where employees are spread out over multiple locations. You need to keep people running the operation while employees are getting trained. And, the sheer number of participants involved can be daunting.

Some people thought e-learning could solve this problem. There's just one issue - it's boring. A lot of e-learning is nothing more than an amateurish voice over PowerPoint.

The future is in video. Short, engaging, and beautifully produced video. 

More than 35,000 customer service professionals have now taken my Customer Service Fundamentals video-based course on lynda.com. It's rapidly approaching 1,000,000 individual views. That many people have got to be on to something.

One promising feature is employees can complete the training much faster than a traditional class. The entire program takes less than two hours, far less than the eight hours the live version requires. There's no set-up, scheduling, or logistics to handle either. It's ready to go right now - your employees could easily start the training in the morning and finish before lunch.

Here's why this and other courses like it are the wave of the future.

The Power of Video

Video offers a number of distinct advantages over other forms of training.

It's engaging. People enjoy watching video. According to eMarketer, adults in the U.S. spend 5.5 hours per day watching video.

You want training to be engaging enough so employees enjoy the process. Here are just a few comments from people who have watched the Customer Service Fundamentals training video:

"This course has really been an eye opening in all aspects of customer service.. I enjoyed every bit of it."

"He did a great job keeping the material interesting."

"The author's positive attitude is contagious."

And, it's always good when a participant feels the training made a difference:

"I am about to start my first working day as a customer service representative and thanks to this course I feel myself more confident and equipped with essential knowledge on making my customers feel satisfied."

It's easy to access. Employees can watch the videos from their computer, their tablet, or even their smart phone. 

Lynda.com now offers a download feature where you can watch the videos offline. I'll often load a few courses on my iPad when I know I'm going to be spending a lot of time in an airplane. There's no reason for the learning to stop at 35,000 feet!

It's inexpensive. Here's a cost comparison between live training and using video. Video can cut your costs in three ways:

  • Delivery is less expensive per person.

  • Development is less expensive (if you buy pre-packaged courses).

  • You spend 50 - 75 percent less on employee wages since video-based training goes faster than a live course.

Lynda.com has also introduced an impressive array of features to improve how companies can manage video-based training.

  • Quizzes to test participants' knowledge.

  • Certificates of completion (they can be added to your LinkedIn profile!).

  • Management features like customer playlists and LMS integration.

 

Don't Forget the Special Sauce

There's one danger of using video. It's a problem called Popcorn Learning where participants just consume the training and then do nothing. (This problem exists for classroom-based and e-learning programs too.) 

You can avoid this problem by adding this secret sauce to the mix:

You can access a wide range of customer service training courses on lynda.com or explore many of their other topics such as content marketing or becoming a manager.

You'll need a lynda.com subscription to view full courses, but you can check everything out with a ten day trial.

Learn How to be a Great Customer Service Manager

There's a cool feature on Lynda.com that let's any user curate a playlist of training videos.

I've used it to create a playlist that's specifically geared for service leaders. My Customer Service Leadership playlist contains six courses that you can use to become a great customer service manager.

This post provides an overview of the training and tips on how to maximize your learning. Best of all, I'll show you how to access this training for free!

Playlist Overview

Here's a description of the six courses on the playlist, along with my rational for including them.

 

Managing a Customer Service Team, by Jeff Toister

Learn the basics of managing a customer service team. I included this course because it was designed to provide a thorough introduction to customer service management.

 

Coaching and Developing Employees, by Lisa Gates

Learn how to coach, transform, and empower employees and teams in ways that increase retention and improve the bottom line. This course will help you develop one of the most important skills a leader can have.

 

Getting Things Done, by David Allen

Learn the art of getting things done with world-renowned productivity expert David Allen. Managers are always pressed for time, but this course can really help. I've been using David Allen's principles myself since 2001 with great success.

 

Using Customer Surveys to Improve Service, by Jeff Toister

Learn how to design and implement customer service surveys, and turn the data into actions that can improve service quality. This will help you obtain essential data to make your team, and your organization, even stronger.

 

The Manager's Guide to Managing Expectations, by Jeff Toister

Learn to identify what a typical customer expects, where those expectations come from, and where your organization might be vulnerable. You can use this course to help prevent service failures from happening.

 

Quick Fixes for Poor Customer Service, by Jeff Toister

Discover simple solutions to instantly improve customer service. Things occasionally go wrong, but this course can help you quickly identify straightforward solutions.

 

Maximize Your Learning

Start by establishing a few learning goals for yourself. 

Think about the specific skills would you like to learn. Determine how will you apply this skills in your role as a leader. Most important, consider how these skills can help you improve you and your team's performance

Next, decide what content best matches your needs. If you're new to leadership, you might take the courses from start to finish. Or, if you are an experienced customer service manager, you might browse through the content to pick and choose topics that best fit your needs.

Finally, be prepared to practice new skills as you learn them. You don't have to watch the videos all the way through! They're designed to allow you to watch a short segment, try out what you learned, and then continue watching.

Perfecting the art of practice is a major way to improve the value of training.

 

Accessing the Playlist

You'll need a Lynda.com account to access the playlist.

Remember when I mentioned I'd show you how to take these courses for free? You can get a 10-day Lynda.com trial that will give you access to the entire library!

Once you're logged in, visit my Customer Service Leadership playlist and start learning!

How to Improve Customer Service Training by 900%

Imagine your employees need customer service training.

You want to hire a professional. Someone who can share cutting-edge concepts and really fire up the team. 

The standard approach is to look for someone like me. The trainer flies in, conducts the training, gets great reviews, and then leaves. 

Has that ever really worked out well? Motivation usually jumps for a few days and then employees gradually settle back into their old habits.

There's another approach. One that's 900% better and costs less. 

The 70-20-10 Rule

Research conducted by the Center For Creative Leadership is credited with developing the 70-20-10 Rule. It suggests that leaders learn their skills from three sources:

  • 70% from challenging assignments

  • 20% from developmental relationships

  • 10% from formal training

In truth, it's not really a rule. The 70-20-10 ratio is more of a guide. And, it can be applied to all sorts of training.

Let's look at what happens when we apply the 70-20-10 rule to a typical customer service training program:

 

The typical program focuses on formal training, which accounts for roughly 10 percent of learning. But, what about the other 90 percent?

That's usually not part of the plan.

Developmental relationships account for 20 percent of learning - twice as much as formal training. These usually come from a boss or mentor. Unfortunately, typical training programs often fail because the boss doesn't do much coaching to help employees develop their new skills.

The typical training also lacks a clearly defined initiative where employees' new skills can make a measurable difference. That's another 70 percent of learning they miss out on.

 

A New Approach

The good news is we can make a few tweaks to capture the missing 90 percent. And, we can reduce our costs at the same time, but more about that in a moment.

First, we need to identify a challenge for everyone to work on. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras coined the term Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal in their classic book, Built to Last.

The idea is you can rally the team (or an organization) behind an important goal that focuses everyone's efforts.

My clients often identify a specific challenge through a customer service assessment. I offer a comprehensive version, but you can download this mini-version and try it on your own.

That challenge represents 70 percent of learning. We can capture the other 20 percent if the employees' supervisors are prepared to coach their teams.

There are often two big issues for supervisors:

  • They don't think they have time to coach

  • They don't know how to coach

You can solve both issues by enrolling supervisors in a one-on-one coaching program. They'll learn how to carve out the necessary time and how they develop their employees.

Add in the challenge and coaching and your training model now looks like this:

Reduce Your Costs

Remember that bit about adding in a challenge plus coaching while reducing your costs? Here's how you do that:

You do the training via video. 

Will a training video be as good as live training? The short answer is no. But, video can be extremely effective. And, remember that formal training is only 10 percent of the pie. Better to focus your resources on the other 90 percent.

Let's look at an example of the costs associated with training 30 employees using the typical approach versus the new approach.

I've made a few assumptions here, so your math might work out a little differently:

  • The average hourly wage is $15 per hour.

  • There are three supervisors who oversee the 30 employees.

  • The one-on-one coaching program for the supervisors costs $4,500.

The $900 cost of training for the new approach is based on a one month premium Lynda.com subscription for 30 employees at $29.99 per person. The actual cost can be lower than that with a volume discount. 

 

Bonus Benefit

Many of my clients have reminded me of a bonus benefit gained by the new approach.

Think about what happens when you bring in a professional trainer. That person does their training and then goes home. But, what do you do when you hire a new employee? Or, what happens when it's been six months and your team needs a refresher?

With the new approach, you have an easy source of ongoing development if you keep your access to the training videos!

Why Your Customer Service Training Should Be Out of Sync

Carpool Karaoke is an amazing thing.

It's a popular segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden, but that's not what I mean. What I mean is it's amazing how we can watch it.

My wife mentioned a recent episode that featured Gwen Stefani, George Clooney, and Julia Roberts. We were enjoying a lazy Sunday morning with my parents who were visiting for Mothers Day, so we decided to watch it.

That's the amazing part. 

The Late Late Show with James Corden airs weeknights at 12:37am. We didn't have to stay up that late. We didn't have to wait for a weeknight. We didn't even have to watch the rest of the show that led up to that segment. 

All we had to do was find it on YouTube.

That may not seem amazing at first, but think of all the other content we can consume the same way. For example, why can't we do the same thing for customer service training?

The notion that we need to sync up everyone's schedule to attend a training class at the same time seems so out of date. And, it certainly doesn't make sense to sit through a bunch of training you don't want or need just to get to the really juicy stuff.

That's why your training needs to be out of sync. 

The Synchronicity Challenge

Imagine you have 1,000 employees.

They're spread over 13 locations and work 3 different shifts. You can't just shut everything down and get all the shifts to come to one central location. So, how will you get them all together for training?

In the old days, classroom training was the default solution. This was a hassle because you'd spend a great deal of money on four big things:

  • Paying employees to attend training

  • Paying a trainer to facilitate multiple classes at each location

  • Travel costs to get the trainer to all of the locations

  • Covering the employees' shifts while they attended training

Webinars made things slightly better. Employees could tune in from their computers, so you could hold fewer sessions and didn't have to pay for the trainer to travel from location to location. Of course, there was a drop-off in training quality, but the savings was substantial.

This type of training is known as synchronous training.

This is where everyone attends training at the same time. It's great from a learning perspective because people can easily share ideas and contribute to each others' understanding of the topic. It's not so great because of the aforementioned logistics.

 

The Asynchronous Opportunity

E-learning promised to solve the synchronicity problem. 

The beauty of e-learning is it's asynchronous training. This means that people don't attend at the same time. They consume the training when it's convenient for them.

To relate this back to television, e-learning is kind of like your DVR. You don't have to tune in to watch your favorite show at a specific time. You can watch it when (and often where) you please.

This can help you save a lot of training dollars. 

You pay to create the training once, and then re-use it, so you don't have to keep paying the trainer for each class. It's also easier to work asynchronous training into employee schedules, since employees take the training at their own pace. That means you'll spend less on keeping your operation covered while employees attend training.

There are also a few downsides to many e-learning programs.

For one, they're boring. Many e-learning programs are nothing more than a monotone voice droning on over text-laden PowerPoint slides. Even the flashier e-learning programs make you sit through a lot of content you aren't necessarily into before you get to the good stuff.

Another problem is what happens next. How will participants get the support they need? Will they get a chance to share ideas with each other? Many e-learning programs lack this crucial element.

 

The Balanced/Blended Solution

Really good training often blends both asynchronous and synchronous elements.

To help explain this, let me go back to Carpool Karaoke. I viewed the segment asynchronously. But, I also viewed it with my parents and my wife, so we were immediately able to talk about it (which reinforced the memory). 

I've since talked about it with other people who watched the segment. Even though they watched it at a different time than I did, we still consumed the same content. 

Good training is often like this.

Imagine again that you had to train 1,000 employees in 13 locations spread over three shifts on how to better serve upset customers. You wanted to focus on giving them specific skills for diffusing customer anger.

Here's how you could blend both asynchronous and synchronous elements:

Step 1: Everyone watches Chapter 1 from the Working With Upset Customers training video on Lynda.com. This part of the course focuses on diffusing customer anger and finding a way to help them.

Step 2: Supervisors hold team meetings. The purpose is to lead a team-level discussion about the training video. Employees can discuss their key learning moments and make a commitment to apply what they learned. The conversation could take place in a regularly scheduled team meeting to minimize operational disruptions.

Step 3: Supervisors provide feedback. The goal here is to check-in with each individual employee to see how well they're using the new skills, and to provide additional feedback to help them continue their development. Supervisors could do this as part of the regular feedback sessions they're already holding with their teams.

The net result of this plan is effective training that costs less and has far fewer logistical headaches.

The Customer Service Training Your Employees Absolutely Need to Have

Updated: January 20, 2024

Customer service training is often an arbitrary decision.

One customer service manager requested a four-hour onsite training class. How did she arrive at that decision?

She hoped the training would help a group of long-term employees become more customer-focused. The manager had a limited budget and though a four-hour workshop would be less expensive than other options.

There are big questions:

  • Is four hours the right amount of training?

  • What specific skills need to be trained?

  • Will training even solve the problem?

Given the manager's limited budget, perhaps the biggest question is whether or not training is a good investment? 

These questions are difficult to answer. Moving ahead with generic training before you've answered them is an arbitrary decision.

You can do better. 

This post will show you how to determine the customer service training your employees absolutely need to have.

The Cost of Poor Training

Before we explore how to make the right decision, let's look at some of the potential costs of making the wrong decision.

Here are a few hard costs:

  • The cost of the training itself.

  • Wages for employees who attend the training.

  • Wages for employees who cover the employees attending the training.

  • Facilities costs (room rental, etc.)

There's also a soft cost to consider that's harder to measure, but can still have an impact on your team. 

Employees might resent attending training they don't feel is useful. Or worse, they might feel punished if they perceive the training is intended to correct their poor performance.

All of these costs can be hard to justify if you schedule the training and customer service doesn't improve.

 

Solution: Construct a Business Impact Model

Robert Brinkerhoff provides a simple method for narrowing down the training content your employees really need while simultaneously building a case for the expense. 

It's called a Business Impact Model. You can read more about it in one of Brinkerhoff's outstanding books, The Success Case Method.

I've borrowed heavily from this concept to create a four-step process below:

Step 1: Identify Your Business Goals

The whole point of training is to help your team achieve something. That means you have to clearly define what they're supposed to achieve.

Forget training for just a moment. Focus first on your overall customer service goals. Here are just a few areas you can explore for setting your goals:

  • Survey scores

  • Complaint reduction

  • Customer retention

You might even try to reduce costs. I've found at least 13 different ways that poor customer service can cost your company money.

Be sure to set your goal using the SMART model. SMART is an acronym:

  • Specific

  • Measurable

  • Attainable

  • Relevant

  • Time-bound

Once you complete this step, you can eliminate any training that doesn't support the goal.

 

Step 2: Determine Key Actions

It's pretty hard to train employees to do something if you haven't defined what exactly you need them to do.

Let's say you want to give your employees training on handling upset customers. In step one, you decided to set a SMART goal for reducing customer complaints. Now, you need to determine what employees actually need to do to serve an angry customer.

Here are a few things you might look at:

  • Is there a process, procedure, or policy employees should follow?

  • Do employees have the tools, resources, and authority to do the job?

  • Are there factors outside their control that contribute to angry customers?

In most cases, this exercise will quickly reveal that training alone won't fix the problem. There are other factors that need to be addressed first.

It will also reveal the specific topics that may need to be trained.

 

Step 3: Describe KSAs

Before you train, it's important to know what training can and cannot do. Training can only help your employees develop KSAs:

  • Knowledge

  • Skills

  • Abilities

So, training won't solve the problem if your employees know how to do something, but won't do it, forget to do it, or don't do it consistently.

Managers often mistake KSAs for other issues. Here are some examples of items that cause poor customer service, but can't be trained:

  • Lack of clear processes, procedures, or policies.

  • Lack of tools, resources, or authority.

  • Lack of motivation.

That last one is a huge challenge. How do you motivate employees to serve their customers? It turns out you don't.

The real challenge is preventing demotivation.

One way you can do that is by involving employees in this process. Get their input on a team goal. Have them help document what needs to be done to achieve it, and identify what barriers get in the way.

Back to training, only the necessary KSAs should be included.

 

Step 4: Identify Missing KSAs

You don't need to train employees to do things they already know how to do. That would be a waste of time.

The only train they need are KSAs they don't already have that are necessary to perform the key actions that will help achieve the goal.

That's it.

This is usually a small, focused list. Once you've created it, you can go back to decisions such as how much time is needed, when to hold the training, and who needs to attend.

 

Focusing Your Training

The truth is most managers will skip all these steps.

They get impatient, so they jump to conclusions and hope for the best. The paradox is the training they offer typically doesn't work and they've just wasted time, money, and resources by taking shortcuts.

In reality, training is only responsible for one percent of customer service. The remaining 99 percent can be attributed to other factors.

The process of finding that one percent is called a needs analysis. You can learn more about the importance of going through this process by watching this short video.

How To Prepare Your Team For Customer Service Training

So, you're ready to send your team to customer service training. The big question is whether or not your team is ready.

Chance are, they aren't.

A 2010 McKinsey & Company survey revealed that approximately 75 percent of training programs failed to measurably improve business performance. A lack of preparation is one of the biggest culprits.

This post will get to the heart of the problem and explain what you can do about it.

A group of smiling employees are attending a training class and raising their hands to participate.

Why employees are unprepared for training

I frequently volunteer to facilitate an open-enrollment customer service class for nonprofit organizations. Anyone can sign-up and I never know who will be there until the day of the class. As participants arrive, I like to ask them why they signed up for the training. 

Here are the top three reasons:

  1. They were told to be there.

  2. The class looked interesting.

  3. The class gave them credit towards a certificate program.

That's a pretty uninspiring list of reasons to sign up for a class. Unfortunately, most of the employees who come to customer service training aren't really sure why they're there. 

My experience in the corporate world suggests this is pretty much the norm.

Very rarely does someone attend because they're trying to solve a specific problem. It's unusual for someone to read the course description and work out exactly what they hope to learn.

That’s a big miss, because learning is fundamentally about solving problems.

The fault rests not on the employees, but on their manager. Here are some common mistakes managers make when they assign people to take training:

  • The problem is not clearly defined.

  • The training does not clearly address the problem.

  • Employees don’t know what they’re expected to do with the training.

  • Employees aren’t explicitly told what they need to do differently as a result of the training.

  • There are no plans to discuss the training before or after it occurs.

It’s no wonder so many employees are confused when they attend training! Some think of it as an interruption to their “real” work. Others feel they’re being punished for doing something wrong. Still others look at training as fun “recognition” without considering how they should implement what they learn.

If you want employees to do a better job learning, you need an action plan.

 

How to create an action plan for training

A simple action plan can help you maximize learning by ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. My go-to planning tool is the one-page Workshop Planner.

Here's a short video that explains how to use this worksheet. I've also provided more detailed instructions below. The planning process should take no more than one hour.

Step 1: Identify Your Purpose

It's important for employees to know why they're attending training. That's pretty hard to explain if you can't clearly articulate this yourself. So, start by answering these three questions:

  1. What are the Expected Outcomes?

  2. What is the Existing Performance?

  3. What are the Cause(s) for the Gap?

Enter the answers in the boxes at the top of the worksheet:

Use this grid to identify your objectives for a training program.

Now, it's gut check time. Do you really need customer service training? 

Training is typically responsible for just 1 percent of performance. I can think of at least six ways to improve customer service without training. You should only schedule training if you really need it.

Still aren’t sure? This video tutorial can help you decide. The video includes a hands-on exercise with a live training class. You can download this worksheet to follow along.

Let’s say you do the analysis and you definitely need training.

Setting clear and measurable objectives is crucial. Don’t skip this step or do it half-way. A goal such as “improve customer service” is generic and confusing. There’s no way to tell if you’ve accomplished it.

You can use this primer to create solid learning objectives.

 

Step 2: Identify Pre-Training Actions

The bottom two-thirds of the worksheet is laid out in a grid.

You’ll notice there are percentages listed at the top of each column. These were offered by Jack Zenger, Joe Folkman, and Robert Sherman in a 2005 article in TD magazine called “The Promise of Phase 3.” The figures are rough estimates of the learning impact of each phase. While there’s no hard data to support their claim, it anecdotally I’ve seen the results.

Use the grid to create a list of action items for participants, their supervisor(s), and the trainer. Start by thinking about what participants need to do to prepare for the training. 

Workshop planning worksheet. The Before Training column is highlighted.

At a minimum, participants should be able to answer three questions:

  1. What's the training about?

  2. How will this class help me do my job?

  3. How can I apply what I've learned back on the job?

Next, determine what the participants' supervisor(s) needs to do to make sure that happens. Typical actions include announcing the training to employees and coaching them to ensure they can answer the three questions.

Finally, determine what the trainer needs to do to help the supervisor(s) prepare prepare. For example, my clients typically ask me to provide them with a class description and possibly some pre-work they can share.

 

Step 3: Identify Training Actions

Now it's time to set a few expectations for employees while attending the training event. These are typically very few. Examples include:

  • Being fully present

  • Engaging with the content

Workshop planner worksheet. The during training column is highlighted.

Next, move down the column to decide what the employees' supervisor(s) need to do to ensure that happens. For example, supervisors often need to make scheduling adjustments to maintain operational coverage while employees participate in training.

Finally, decide what the trainer needs to do to support this. My clients typically ask me to make the training engaging and ensure it supports the learning objectives we agreed upon.

 

Step 4: Identify Follow-up Actions

Don't wait until the training is over to decide how employees should implement what they've learned. Create a plan now to make sure it happens.

Workshop planning worksheet. The “After Training” column is highlighted.

Start by deciding what participants should specifically do to implement their new skills. Then, decide what the supervisor(s) should do to ensure it happens. Here are a few examples from recent training classes:

  • Call a team meeting to ask employees how they applied what they learned.

  • Coach employees one-on-one to see if they're using their new skills.

  • Survey employees to identify which skills they've tried.

Finally, determine what support the participants' supervisor(s) need from the trainer. With my clients, I typically hold a follow-up meeting 30 days after the training to check-in with leaders and see what help they need to sustain their progress.

Learn More

You can see an example of a workshop planner being completed here.