Please Hold… We Are Learning to Provide Improved Customer Service

As I was walking home the other day, I thought about stopping by at Starbucks and having a little caffeine fix. I was surprised to see that my neighborhood Starbucks was closed down. They were closed for training! Whoever thought about such a thing? But it turns out that they actually close their centers to provide training to thousands of employees.

And the strange part is- I wasn’t annoyed over this, but rather impressed. It is a good step to train your employees so that they can provide better services to the clients. There are many companies into call center outsourcing, and they should seriously consider customer service training for all their employees.

This one is for all call center companies. If you want to provide the best customer services, but cannot take your employees off the phone, then here are a few tips:

All hands on board
In order to get your entire staff for a training session, you need to pull together. In most companies, new recruits start off with phones. So basically, everyone knows how to handle calls. This would help you, as the phone staff would be on training; the other employees can handle the calls for some time. This really shows the dedication of a company for training its employees.

Please be on the line
Select a date for training, and about two weeks prior to that day, place a declaration on the IVR that you will be short staffed on that particular date. Place this info on your website as well. This way your customers will be prepared for a day of minor inconvenience. They will also welcome this heads up and will appreciate your efforts to serve them better- just like I appreciated the efforts of Starbucks.

Long term gains
Timing is crucial to your success. Make sure that you hold these sessions on those days that are slower than the others. There are some days that are generally slower. Identify those days and hold training sessions then. One such day is Monday. Now I don’t know how it goes in most companies, but I have seen that Mondays are usually slow and boring. It takes a bit of time for a person to come in form.

A one day session can give a lot of long term advantage to your company. Try holding these training sessions for your employees and see the difference in productivity.