Stop Training Your Employees to Give Lousy Customer Service: 14 Mistakes You Could Be Making Now

In the new era of customer relationships, entrepreneurs today realise the importance of delivering good customer experience in business. As crucial as it may seem to the company, however, customer service training requires a continual company-wide dedication as some employers do not realise the connection between what happens on a day-to-day basis that will eventually contribute to their company’s customer experience goals.

Customarily, leaders should always set a good role model for their employees. So, the frontliners will observe, learn, and follow how their leaders behave and what their leaders reward and value. Even though what you do on your routine work basis may not intentionally encouraging your employees to deliver a bad customer service, but your actions, and inactions are in essence to training them to do that. Customers always demand for the best, and it is by all means, our responsibility to ensure that they have a stellar customer experience with the brand or product. Therefore, to truly drive a customer-centric culture among your employees, Micah Solomon, the Contributing Writer for Forbes on customer service, customer experience, and customer trends reveals the 14 missteps and habits that may be sabotaging your best intentions for your company’s customer service.

Telling Employees They’re Empowered: Then shutting them down when they actually show initiative in finding creative ways to help customers. A lot of companies talk about empowerment, but mean it kind of like sprinkles on top of a sundae of daily misery. Empowerment–the freedom to creatively assist customers–needs to be a core part of an employee’s job, and there can’t be blowback when their empowered actions cost money or have other consequences.

Not Walking the Walk: If your employees hear you tell old war stories about how customers are always trying to take advantage of you, and how you “showed them you wouldn’t fall for that,” how do you expect them to react when it’s their turn to take care of (or fail to take care of) the customer in front of them?

Not Establishing Expectations: In the absence of clearly defined high standards to respond to customers, employees will make up their own. “We provide world class customer service” isn’t enough guidance.  A company needs behavioural standards that define, in the majority of situations, how customer service should be provided.  Although (see point #1), employee empowerment needs to take care of the situations that fall outside the norm.

Not Providing Employees with the Tools They Need to Serve your Customers Properly: You can give lip service to the idea that employees “should take care of the customer” all you like, but if you give those same employees out of date, slow, clunky, inadequate tools –whether that means a broken broom or an out of date CRM — who do you think you’re kidding?

Not Providing Adequate Resources: Unreasonable call volumes, unreasonable customer loads…The nicest, best-intentioned employees in the world are going to fail in such circumstances.

Not Showing you Care about your Employees’ Work Environment: Would you want to use your employees’ restroom? What about their break room? If not, what is that saying about how you care about them, and how important they are in your organization? You shouldn’t expect them to care any more about your customers as you do about them.

Not Offering Sufficient, Ongoing Customer Service Training: Customer service training is not simply a Day One and Done kind of thing.  It needs to happen regularly, it needs to have sustainability components; it needs to include role-plays and other practical components, as well as the philosophical basics.

Not Asking For Employee Input Before Announcing a New Customer Service Initiative: If you don’t allow your employees to weigh in, it’s hard to expect them to buy in.

Keeping Employees in the Dark: No employee wants to hear about a new marketing initiative, promotion or product launch from the customer first.

Not Sharing the Big Picture:  Since it is employees who can make the biggest impact on the company’s customer satisfaction goals, shouldn’t you be sharing those goals with them and giving them updates to make sure you are all on track?

Not Listening: If employees don’t think you are interested in their ideas for improving the customer service experience, then they’ll eventually stop trying to improve themselves.

Not Recognizing Individuals for Their Efforts: If the only thing your employees get out of their job is a paycheck, you, as a leader, have failed them.

Not Making Time for Fun at Work: It has to be about the customer, but it can’t be only about the customer.

Not Being a Team Player. If you don’t jump in to help when your employees are in the weeds, you can’t expect them to go above and beyond for your customers, can you?

Inspiration: Stop Training Your Employees to Give Lousy Customer Service: 14 Mistakes You could be Making now

Image Source: 

(1) tolerosolutions.com

(2) radarjatim.com

Chia Yi Jing | Bubbling with enthusiasm, bright ideas, and confidence, Yi Jing set foot in the PR world with Orchan Consulting, where she was offered permanent employment after a successful internship. She is determined to make her mark in the industry, and her bosses know that she will.