Course Outcomes

This customer service refresher course will:

  • Remind people about what they have forgotten they know about great service.
  • Explore customer expectations and how they evolve over time.
  • Address the importance of service standards.
  • Review best practices for communicating via telephone and email.
  • Offer a process for calming upset customers.
  • Provide concrete steps for saying “no” when “yes” is not possible.

Course Overview

Whether it’s called a refresh, a reboot, or a restart, a renewed sense of purpose and focus can reconnect a service team with its purpose and passion for serving people. This half-day workshop is designed to reenergize service providers and send them back to the workplace with a resurrected enthusiasm for doing their best for customers.

Program Objectives

At this program’s conclusion, participants should be able to:

  • Explain how their role as service providers has evolved.
  • Articulate how customers’ expectations have and have not evolved over time.
  • Describe how people form opinions about service providers and their organization.
  • Outline why service standards matter.
  • Demonstrate best practices for communicating via telephone and email.
  • Follow a proven process for calming upset customers.
  • Say “no” to customers when necessary while doing the least damage to their opinion of the organization.

The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).

Workshop Outline

The Current Landscape: Where Service Stands

Time stands still for no one, especially the service provider. This introductory discussion begins with a look at the current service landscape: what’s working well, what’s not, what’s changed, and how, if at all, the customer’s expectations have evolved over time. With the answers to those questions in hand, we will shape the agenda for the remainder of the session.

An Image of Service: Influencing Opinion

Like it or not, customers constantly judge service providers and their institutions based on what they see and how they feel about the various interactions they experience. In this next workshop segment, we will look at the process of opinion forming and identify opportunities where we can affect how people feel and ultimately think about us and the organizations we represent.

Staying Consistent: Why Standards Matter

At some time or another, we’ve all had experiences where we’ve had a great service interaction at a restaurant, hotel, or municipal office, only to have the exact opposite happen the next time we visit the exact same place. Why and how does that occur? While the causes vary, one source of uneven service has to do with standards. If there are no standards, a lack of meaningful standards, no training on standards, or a lack of accountability for standards, service will eventually be uneven and inconsistent. In this part of the program, we will look at the importance of standards and the value of evaluating them on a regular basis.

Ring and Ding: Best Practices for Routine Interactions

This course component explores best practices for providing great service during phone calls and while communicating via email. We will address bad habits and review the importance of good etiquette, no matter who the customer is, what he or she says, and how stressful the situation may be.

Solutions, Solutions: The Problem-Solving Process

In this component, we will look at a six-step plan for solving problems and providing customers with solutions. Next, we will work through a handful of roleplays to practice the process.

This Is What I Can Do: When “No” Is the Answer

A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. This final workshop module addresses situations where providers must say “no.” During this part of the course, we will explore the importance of offering alternatives, explaining processes, and knowing where to go if a higher authority is required or requested. 

At the end of this program, participants should understand what is expected of them and how to deliver great service.