Training Resources for Peak Performance

Becoming A Customer Service Star

Objective: To measure and increase customer service awareness
Audience: Customer service employees and managers
Time Required: 1 hour
Format: Instrument
Preview Pack includes facilitator & participant guide $84.00

Click this icon for an instant search of directly related books and other training materials about this topic which you can buy direct from amazon.com!

Getting people to see the multiple opportunities for improving customer service and retention is an important step in any quality-minded organization. Becoming a Customer Service Star has been proven equally effective with people at all levels, executives and employees alike, because each person is able to identify his or her own service action plan. Becoming a Customer Service Star is designed to give individuals a profile of their customer service strengths and weaknesses. It can be used as an individual analysis, a measure for personal development, a picture for building a service team, or an opportunity to identify changes needed in policies or operating procedures.

The newly expanded Facilitator Guide includes suggested training designs, theoretical background, transparency masters, and more in a convenient 3-ring binder format. A CD-ROM containing a Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentations and other reproducible materials is also included. Order one guide per facilitator.

The Five Points of Customer Service

Five categories of excellent customer service have been identified based on current theories of customer service, as well as the author's personal experience in consulting with customer service personnel. These categories comprise the five points on your Customer Service Star.

Feel Positively Toward Customers. Good customer service begins with a positive view of customers. Individuals who enjoy dealing with customers exhibit this attitude in their customer interactions. These individuals provide contact and friendly relationships with customers.
Encourage Customer Feedback. In order to provide excellent service to customers, you must know what your customers need and want. Encouraging customers to provide you with both positive and negative feedback is crucial to fulfilling their needs.
Respond to Customer Problems. Making every effort to respond to customer's problems is an essential part of good customer service. A customer's problems can serve as an opportunity to improve overall customer service.
Develop Repeat Relationships. Long-term customer relationships pay the largest dividends because the value of a customer increases over time. In order to develop repeat relationships, individuals should take positive actions, such as remembering customers' names and keeping records of customers' personal needs.
Seek to Exceed Customer Expectations. The greatest opportunity to satisfy and retain customers is to find ways to exceed their expectations. Doing more than a customer expects makes that customer's experience a memorable one, which can spark future business.

"We use Becoming a Customer Service Star as a front-end assessment for customer service course development because of its excellent documentation and the ease with which our participants can follow it. The instrument also provides our employees with the unique opportunity to develop action plans that are linked to their performance expectations."

Diane D. Rentfrow, NCC, CT
Corporate Dean, Employee Development University
Southern California Water Company

Knock Your Socks Off Service^®
Readiness Assessment Series

Introducing the Knock Your Socks Off Service Readiness Assessment Series. Based on the extraordinarily popular Knock Your Socks Off Service® (KYSOS) book series, this comprehensive tool will provides customer service managers and employees with valuable insight into their organization's ability to deliver world-class service - and helps them create an action plan for improvement.

The Employee Version, intended for customer service employees, focuses on your employees' perceptions of their abilities - and those of the organization - to deliver KYSOS. The seventy-nine item Manager Version, intended for customer service managers and other organizational leaders, pinpoints developmental areas and helps customer service managers plan for improvement. Used together, there isn't a more powerful tool to diagnose your organization's readiness to deliver KYSOS!

Participants will learn:

the 8 critical dimensions of Knock Your Socks Off Service®
how your organization's current service practices, policies, and procedures compare to those of more than 100 other companies
how to take their organization's service from ordinary to "Knock Your Socks Off"

Use the KYSOS Readiness Assessment Series as:

an effective gauge of managers' and employees' perception of organizational readiness
part of a service management/service quality improvement seminar
a stimulus for a discussion and action planning session

The comprehensive Facilitator Guide covers both the Manager Version and the Employee Version. It includes administration guidelines, descriptions of each dimension, a complete technical section including five research studies on the customer service practices measured by the assessment, sample training designs, overhead transparency masters, and more!

The Knock Your Socks Off Service® Readiness Assessment Series will guarantee your organization is ready to deliver superior service to every customer, every day!

Preview Pack includes: manager version, employee version and facilitator guide $74.00

Internal Customer Service Assessment
HRDQ Research & Development Team

Objective - To evaluate and improve internal customer service skills
Intended for - Any employee who serves others within their organization
Time required - 1 hour
Product Format - Assessment
Preview Pack includes facilitator guide & participant guide $62.50

As the focus on excellent customer service continues to be a popular trend, there is a growing expectation that employees should receive the same level of service from internal service providers as they would elsewhere. But internal service providers have a bond with their customers that external vendors simply do not share. Because of the complexity of this relationship, internal service providers need to judge their behavior by a new standard.

Unlike any other assessment available on the market today, the Internal Customer Service Assessment recognizes the differences between internal and external service. This 30-item assessment is designed to help internal service providers evaluate how well they are practicing the behaviors that constitute excellent internal service - and then assists them through action planning to improve those behaviors.

"This assessment provides a much needed approach for measuring and evaluating the skills of frontline employees in a vital and sometimes overlooked area. The Internal Customer Service Assessment captures perfectly the differences between internal and external customer service."

Pam McCallum
President
Leadership Resources, Inc.

Put Customers First
HRDQ Research & Development Team

Objective - To teach employees how to focus on customers' needs
Intended For - All organizational members
Time Required - 1 hour
Product Format - Business Simulation
Starter Kit includes Facilitator Guide & 5 participant guides $122.00

The customer's place in today's business has never been more secure. They have a virtual seat at every boardroom table and management team retreat. Our "Put Customers First" business simulation is designed to help customer service representatives manage the customer experience. It is about the personal responsibility of customer service representatives and the actions they should take each time they interact with a customer.

Overview

People in organizations from retail to government agencies are all talking about, and trying to consider the customer. Why? According to Whiteley (1991), customer service is often the key competitive difference between the successful organization and the unsuccessful one. In an era of fierce competition, where products and services look increasingly alike, and are copied at a dizzying speed, customer service becomes the distinguishing factor.

The organizations that succeed today are those that have developed the capacity to truly know what customers want. In this demanding environment, the role of the customer service representative takes on increasing significance. It is those employees who interact day after day with customers who are the organization in the customers' eyes. They form the vital link to the customer, becoming a means by which the organization can build lasting customer relationships.

Glick Training Associates Programs to Improve Customer Service Include ...

Customer Service Essentials

Objective: To help participants develop, practice and improve their skills in customer service including communication, listening, conflict resolution and team building.

Glick Training Associates provides a highly interactive training program that utilizes various learning modalities of lecture, assessment, video and skill practice. This program is usually delivered in four half-day training sessions. Each half-day session focuses on one of the following modules: Our Customer Service Environment, Communication Listening Skills & Conflict Resolution, Goal Setting & Team Building, and Using Your Customer’s Style to Better Assist Them. Each participant will receive a personalized customer service style assessment.

Managing A Winning Customer Service Team.

The three workshops in this training resource offer managers a total team approach by developing their abilities to manage the customer service function and motivate their customer service employees. This resource works for maximum results when combined with employee training.
Key Topics include:
- Developing A Service Philosophy and Strategy
- Managing The Customer Service Environment
- Utilizing Service Styles Effectively
- Reinforcing Good Service Skills
- Motivating and Rewarding the Service Team
This program goes beyond the traditional delivery of training skills by utilizing video examples and techniques to build the personal skills necessary to deliver a "customer friendly" service.
Get more information and receive a free report.
Go back to Training Resources.

Building An Effective Customer Service Environment.

In this training resource, employees learn about their own customer service style and how to read the customer's style. Video examples provide information and situations for role playing and there's time set aside for personal planning.
Key Topics include:
- Assessing My Style
- Adapting To A Customer's Style
- Delivering Excellent Service
- Handling Special Problems
- Satisfying Upset Customers
Get more information and receive a free report.
Go back to Training Resources.

SkillBuilders:
50 Customer Service Activities
Lorraine Ukens, MS

Objective - To improve customer-related skills
Intended For - Customer service employees
Time Required - Ranges from 5 to 30 minutes per activity
Product Format - Activity Binder $139.00

Spice up your next customer service training program with SkillBuilders: 50 Customer Service Activities, a creative, engaging, and innovative collection of skill development activities from Lorraine Ukens.

The activities in this collection stimulate discussion and learning by actively involving all participants. Quick and to the point, these activities deliver powerful messages to your participants - helping them to understand customer expectations and develop the skills necessary to providing quality service.

The activities cover 8 critical customer service skill areas:

Change

Communication

Data Usage

Excellence

Negotiation

Perception

Problem Solving

Teamwork

Designed to strengthen the capabilities of your customer service representatives, SkillBuilders: 50 Customer Service Activities will be a valuable addition to your training library.

SkillBuilders: 50 Customer Service Activities includes:

reproducible participant handouts

detailed preparation, administration, and debriefing information

discussion questions and ideas for varying the activities

easy-to-follow facilitator guidelines

handy reference table for pinpointing the best activities for your training needs