Customer service matters more than ever. With a rapidly changing industry and ever-increasing customer expectations, it’s time to rethink customer service training.
That’s why we built The Better Work Guide to Customer Service Training. The guide includes best practices, training ideas, and resources to help every team learn, practice, and Do Better Work.
Meet the experts
Don’t just take our word for it. We worked with customer service experts, thought-leaders, and practitioners to help us explain why training is the foundation of good customer service.
- Adam Toporek, Customer Service Keynote Speaker, Customers that Stick
- Alex Mislan, Services Delivery Manager, Lessonly Services
- Amber Aslanian, Head of Customer Experience Operations, Earnin
- Bob Davis, Founder, and CEO of Robert C. Davis and Associates
- Brad Baumunk, President and COO at Robert C. Davis and Associates
- Fred Stacey, GM, Cloud Contact Center Search, Outsource Consultants
- Jason Pearson, Head of Product Support, Figma
- Jeff Toister, Founder of Toister Performance Solutions and Author of Getting Service Right
- Justin Robbins, Founder, JM Robbins & Associates
- Katrina Lallo, Senior Training Coordinator, Customer Service, Moen
- Lisa Diehl, Manager, Consumer Advocacy—Global Retails Division, North American Consumer, Blue Diamond Growers
- Mike Aoki, President, Reflective Keynotes
- Nate Brown, Co-founder, CX Accelerator
- Neal Topf, President, Callzilla
- Patrick Hawkins, Senior Manager of Customer Support, Virtru
- Sheri Kendall-duPont, Learning and Development Manager, FCR
- Thomas Siebert, Consulting Director, TBS Inc. Consulting
Each of these practitioners, thought leaders, and experts shared critical advice and ideas that service leaders can use to improve their training program.
Read on for a teaser of The Better Work Guide to Customer Service Training, or read the full guide now!
Assess: Talk to reps and look at data
Creating the best customer service training starts with an evaluation of your current training efforts. The first step of Better Work helps leaders identify success and challenges, uncover important customer service skills needed for success, and get ideas for a blended approach to training.
“Training is the cornerstone of every customer service program.”
— Thomas Siebert tweet
Plan: Determine what service success looks like
Planning any training program is no small task. Efficient teams follow a thoughtful and deliberate process to identify training objectives, outcomes, and goals from the start. The Better Work Guide provides helpful resources, like our Learning Action Plan, and tips on how leaders can provide training across every stage of the customer service employee lifecycle.
“As a trainer, the starting point is always objectives. If I’m committed to training, what is the objective of the training?”
— Jeff Toister tweet
Build: Work with reps to develop content
The content of your customer service training program is everything. That’s why the next stage of our guide focuses on building engaging, helpful, and modern training. This section features tips that any customer service team can use build training content that their team will love.
“The training reps receive helps prevent bottlenecking throughout the organization by making them more confident and knowledgable.”
—Katrina Lallo tweet
Learn: Push training to reps where they are
Planning and preparing customer service training is only half of the equation. Our Better Work Guide also highlights how leaders and trainers can maximize the impact of training and reach learners where they are.
“A lot of information needs to be available to the agent. So, having a library, or another place where they can easily access knowledge, is very important. They don’t know what their next call is going to be or what the consumer is going to throw at them—so it keeps them prepared.”
—Lisa Diehl tweet
Practice: Reinforce Service Skills and Deliver Feedback
Training never ends. For customer service training to be successful, teams need to incorporate practice and coaching. The guide’s Practice section breaks down how teams can deliver ongoing training and improve performance with effective feedback.
“If you really want to improve customer service, you need to spend quality time with your team and continue to coach. Just like an athletic team needs continuous coaching, a first-line care team needs constant coaching as well.”
—Bob Davis tweet
Perform: Empower reps to Do Better Work
In the end, customer service training is about results. That’s why The Better Work Guide also focuses on improving customer service performance. We break down a better way to define, measure, and track success.
“If you want your customer service representatives to be consulted, helpful, and really take their time to maximize the quality of the support, you can’t do that while rushing people off the phone. It’s impossible. But, if you take the time to focus on quality, the quantity and efficiency metrics take care of themselves.”
— Nate Brown tweet
The Better Work Guide to Customer Service Training applies to every team. We also recognize that large organizations have to overcome unique training challenges. That’s why our guide offers training and enablement tips for the enterprise.
Go from good to great with Lessonly’s Better Work Guide
With this guide, your customer service team will be better prepared to deliver amazing customer experiences. Don’t miss your chance to get insights, best practices, and tangible steps to Do Better Work. Read The Better Work Guide to Customer Service Training and get started today.
