Customer Service Tip of the Week: Creating a culture of customer service

This is the second in my series on how to develop a customer service program for your organization that will be “world class”. Last week we looked at what was involved in determining what our customers wanted. Did you find out an answer? If not, why not? You’ll be amazed at how your organization will thrive once you decide that your customer’s options are important.

Knowing what our customers want helps us focus on the way we provide “world class” service. Your employees should all be aware of the customer’s needs and that’s why training employees is so critical. During the development of the training program, its important to focus on customer service attitudes, behaviors, and skills.

If you’re having trouble getting started with some ideas, you can always look at my “7 Rules for Great Customer Service” as a template. In all of my customer service workshops and keynotes, I use the “7 Rules” as the foundation for awareness.

Here are my “7 Rules for Great Customer Service”:

1. Keep customers the priority.
2. Be access-approachable.
3. Know your customers’ expectations.
4. Exceed their expectations.
5. Interruptions are opportunities to serve.
6. Use logic, not emotion.
7. Say “thank you” … often.

These “7 Rules” enable employees to easily embrace the training program. They are simple, and most importantly - they make sense. By using these “7 Rules” as the core for creating a personalized training program, an organization can focus on their immediate and future needs as determined by your customer satisfaction analysis. Exercises, activities, and training modules can all be developed to get employees actively motivated and involved.

Every employee must be trained. Veteran employees need to realize that customer service is a top priority and that their understanding and acceptance is critical to the success of the program. Classroom style training modules are important at the initiation stage. Follow-up training, e-mails of encouragement, customer service excellence reward programs, and more keep the spirit of the program alive throughout the first year. When do you plan to start? Remember, your customers are waiting.

Originally published by Brad Domitrovich on przealot.com.