Customer Service Training

with leader-led lessons from VitalSmart

A series of eleven 45 minute to one hour lessons that your teams go through together...led by your supervisors, managers, or even your leads.

SERVICE VITALITY - LESSON #1

Creating a Healthy Partnership

How to Swap Buttons and Banners for Something of real Substance

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: Who's always right--us or the customer?

In today's business world, organizations often fall into polar thinking patterns when it comes to providing customer service. That is, they either place too much emphasis on the needs and wants of the customer or they pay too much homage to the desires of the service provider. True world-class customer service results from creating and nurturing a vital partnership with customers--a relationship where both parties respectfully work together to achieve shared objectives.

In order to know where to focus our attention. we took at several skills essential to forming healthy customer service relationships. In order to help us chart an effective course of learning, we also analyze the customer service challenges and scenarios our team most commonly faces.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your work group or team will be able to:

• Recognize the two equally fanatical approaches to customer service.
• Define the nature of a healthy customer partnership.
• Identify the heart of every healthy service relationship.
• Understand the skills associated with partnering.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (five clips).BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants understand the critical need for creating a vital partnership with their customers. It helps teams assess what their strengths and opportunities for improvement are. Each team or group can then chart their course of learning--decide which of the other Service Vitality Single Point Lessons they would like to engage in.

The content of this lesson sets the stage and lays the foundation for the other Service Vitality Single Point Lessons, and the questionnaire at the end of the lesson provides guidelines for determining which areas of customer service to focus on.

SERVICE VITALITY--LESSON #2

Clarifying Our Customer Vision

What is Our Customer Service Mission?

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: What are our "Moments of Truth"?

In order to create vital partnerships with our customers, we need to determine what our business is and who our customers are. Examining "who we want to be" gives us a starting point for knowing what our customers can rightly expect of us. To help us clarify our customer service vision, we determine our Value Proposition. Stated simply, our Value Proposition is what our customers feel they get in return for what they pay.

Moments of Truth are times when a customer interacts with a company and draws conclusions about the nature of the provider. Pinpointing these moments helps us assess our strengths and weaknesses and determine specifically how we can improve.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Explain who our customers are (both external and internal), and clarify our business.
• Identify our Value Proposition-what customers get in return for what they pay.
• Pinpoint our organization's "Moments of Truth."
• Determine at-risk areas of our Value Proposition.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (one clip), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps organizations define their Value Proposition: Are customers getting the "bang for the buck" they want? Participants learn to clarify their vision of what business they're in, and how they can identify and serve both internal and external customers. Evaluating Moments of Truth helps individuals and teams understand and improve critical interactions when customers make judgments about whether their organization meets their needs and expectations.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY --LESSON #3

Examining Best Practices

How to Expand Our Customer Service Vision

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: What does it take to maintain a competitive edge?

In a turbulent and competitive marketplace, a company that doesn't continually make improvements will lose its competitive edge. One of the best ways to stay ahead of the game is to study other successful companies and learn their best practices. This is often difficult to do because most of us don't like to admit that we're lagging behind in a few areas. Smart leaders admit their vulnerability and look for ways to improve.

Perhaps the best way to improve is to select an area that needs improvement in our organization, and then learn best practices by visiting and studying a company that has achieved excellence in that area. Studying, improving, and implementing best practices helps us maintain a more comprehensive view of how to best serve our customers.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Explain why it's important to learn from others and why people often resist doing so.
• Prepare for a best-practice visit.
• Conduct a best-practice visit.
• Turn the learning into action.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (five clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants understand why they're often resistant to learning from others. The Learning Quotient exercise turns the focus inward and allows participants to see where they might be falling short, as teams and individuals. Teams learn the important skill of conducting a best-practice visit, focusing on three phases: (1) Before the Visit, (2) The Visit, and (3) After the Visit.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY -- LESSON #4

Gathering Data

How to Learn What Our Customers Really Want

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: Are we in touch with our customers' needs?

One of the greatest dangers to the success of any company is the fantasy that "we know our customers." Even though we may think we understand what our customers need and want, traditional means of collecting feedback often leave a large gap between our perceptions of our customers' needs and their actual needs. In order to avoid this pitfall, we have to learn to give customers a real voice in how things are done in our organization.

A customer focus-group meeting is a very powerful tool for getting specific feedback from our customers about how we're doing. Conducted properly, a customer meeting provides a forum where customers can communicate their wants and concerns. Gathering this kind of firsthand data helps organizations stay in touch with what their customers really need.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Recognize new methods to facilitate improved customer feedback in your organization.
• Troubleshoot barriers and gaps in communication loops with customers.
• Create a setting that makes it easy for customers to be heard and to advance information to the right people.
• Explain the do's and don'ts of productive customer focus-group meetings.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (eight clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants prepare for, conduct, and debrief a customer meeting. This lesson highlights essential skills for giving customers a real voice in the way a business operates. It raises issues that help organizations tailor the customer focus-group meeting to address their specific situations.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY -- LESSON #5

Managing Expectations

How to Jointly Create Clear and Reasonable Expectations

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: What can we do to lessen customer anxiety?

Clients request our services, and then-for various reasons--can feel anxiety. Customer anxiety is a result of a combination of high stakes and high risks. The formula looks like this: Anxiety = Stakes x Risk

There are two critical steps to helping customers avoid anxiety: first, understanding the stakes, and second, reducing the risk. To understand the stakes, first find out the consequences of not delivering. Then allocate resources accordingly. To reduce the risk, apply the seven guidelines for managing expectations. These guidelines specifically address how to reduce vulnerability, ambiguity, uncertainty, and turbulence-the elements of risk.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Identify the conditions that cause customers to feel vulnerable left in the dark, and out of control.
• Explain the relationship between anxiety, stakes, and risk.
• Decrease the risks associated with vulnerability, ambiguity, uncertainty, and turbulence.
• Apply the guidelines for managing expectations to particular tasks.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (nine clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants understand how to manage customer expectations by identifying and minimizing the elements that cause anxiety. Participants practice applying the guidelines for managing expectations to real situations that they commonly encounter with complex tasks they perform for customers.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they've learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY -- LESSON #6

Identifying and Removing Barriers

How to Get to the Root of Our Customer Service Problems I

NTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: I'd love to do what you want, but my hands are tied!

The most common response from a customer who has a negative experience with a service provider is to conclude that the provider doesn't really care about meeting the need. When we automatically assume that problems stem from the fact that people don't care about what we need, we're caught in a restrictive, inaccurate model. We refer to this model as the Fundamental Attribution Error.

In reality, sometimes a service provider can't do what's asked. Not all problems are based on motivation. Most of the time, even problems that do have motivational causes can't be reduced to someone else wanting to cause difficulty for us. There are other people and organizational factors that exert influence. The distinction between motivation and ability, coupled with external sources, results in a more comprehensive model (called the Six-Cell Model) that provides a basis for understanding the causes of customer service barriers.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to ...

• Recognize when people use the Fundamental Attribution Error to explain why people behave the way they do.
• Apply a comprehensive Six-Cell Model to diagnose any barriers to satisfying customers.
• Take a Barrier Walk to diagnose your own customer service barriers.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (thirteen clips), Contract Card for each participant .

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants by constructing a comprehensive model for diagnosing the causes behind customer service barriers. Participants learn the skill of taking a Barrier Walk-an inspection of their organization to identify barriers and their causes.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY -- LESSON #7

Solving Problems Proactively

How to Find a Solution to the Toughest of problems

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: When the going gets tough, the tough get creative.

Sometimes we're unable to deliver services that clients request. Not being able to meet customer needs is harmful to our organization. Often, attitude is the only difference between a barrier that seems insurmountable and a customer proposition that's merely challenging.

Attitude is pivotal, but overcoming tough customer service problems also entails leaning identifiable and transferable skills: Ask questions to find out what customers really want. The need might not be the same thing they ask for. If you can't solve a problem, connect customers with someone who can. Never use policy to kill a relationship; find out if the rule is hard or soft, and if necessary, enlist someone with more authority than you have to make an exception. Use the Six-Cell Model to find the causes of problems and to come up with creative solutions.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Explain the role of attitude in solving customer problems.
• Distinguish a request from a need.
• Deal with restrictive policies.
• Embrace proactivity.

MATERALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (seven clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants see the role of attitude in providing excellent service. It also outlines skill-based approaches to dealing with common customer service barriers. Participants practice applying the skills to real-life problems they encounter with customers.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY -- LESSON #8

Improving Communications

How to Explain Complex Procedures, Clarify Complicated Processes, and Give Clear Directions

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: What do you do when the customer doesn't get it?

Giving complicated instructions and complex directions isn't easy. Most of us aren't born with the skill, nor are we exposed to very many effective role models. In order to provide clear explanations to customers, we have to understand where they're initially coming from, what they're understanding as we explain, and what they eventually comprehend.

To improve communications, follow the QUAD Model:

• Question: What does the customer want?
• Uncover: What does the customer know?
• Attend: What is the customer understanding?
• Determine: What else is needed?

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to ...

• Explain the most common barriers to giving clear instructions.
• Get inside customers' minds in order to see where they're initially coming from, what they're understanding as the explanation is being made, and what they eventually comprehend after the explanation.
• Follow the QUAD Model for giving clear, concise directions.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (six clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants develop skills for communicating clearly with their customers. Participants practice the QUAD skills in several situations where clear communication is at risk.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY --LESSON #9

Sharpening Our Listening Skills

How to Understand Our Customers' Points of View

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: Make it safe for customers to open up.

Various barriers keep us from hearing what our customers are trying to communicate-hidden issues, misinterpreted messages, physical noise, etc. Active listening is a tool we can use to help customers share what's on their minds. Paradoxically, we have to open our mouths in order to hear. We have to initiate a dialogue by saying something that makes customers feel safe to share what's on their minds.

To make it safe for customers to share, use IRP.

• Invite customers to share what's on their minds.
• Reflect what you hear and see back to customers.
• Prime the pump if customers are reluctant to share.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Identify personal barriers and challenges to listening.
• Recognize different types of active listening, and know under which conditions to use the skills.
• Use IRP skills to make it safe for customers to share what's really on their minds.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (nine clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants identify and overcome listening barriers in their own organizations. This lesson also helps participants to communicate in ways that help others feel comfortable expressing their feelings and opinions without fear of conflict.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY - LESSON #10

Establishing Common Courtesy

How to Create a User-Friendly Environment

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: How can we create a proactive, tactful approach to courtesy?

As we continue to move toward a more casual, less rule-bound society, manners are at risk. In some organizations, it seems common courtesy has completely vanished. New technology and the proliferation of convenient electronic gadgets like voice mail, e-mail and intranets tends to make matters worse.

Within a business context, we can't afford to take a casual approach to courtesy. When customers are offended, they often take their business elsewhere. To thrive where rudeness seems to rule requires adopting a proactive, tactful approach to common courtesy.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to ...

• Describe the changes that have taken place in the code of interpersonal conduct over the past three to five decades.
• Explain why it's important to take a proactive, tactful approach to common courtesy.
• Explain the dos and don'ts of common courtesy--ending with the Ten Tactful Tips.
• Apply these tips to our own work.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (twenty-two clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants learn how to implement a proactive, tactful approach to common courtesy with customers. Participants learn Ten Tactful Tips to avoid falling into customer service pitfalls.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

SERVICE VITALITY - LESSON #11

Handling Emotionally Charged Situations

How to Maintain Respect--Even When a Customer Gets Angry

INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY: A customer loses his temper. You stay calm, but the customer's still angry. Now what?

Becoming defensive or angry pits us against the customer and creates a standoff. Showing the wrong kind of emotion, or not enough of the right kind of emotion, tells the customer we don't really care. In this lesson, we look at the common mistakes we make that can create more problems in emotionally intense situations. Studying some common knee-jerk reactions helps us evaluate where our dangerous "land mines" lay. We discuss the need to "reprogram our circuits" to avoid acting only on instinct or habit.

To set the stage for dignified and respectful communication, CUT the anger. Demonstrate that you (1) Care, (2) that you Understand, and (3) that you're going to Take action, or the customer is likely to remain angry.

OBJECTIVES: At the end of this session, your workgroup or team will be able to...

• Identify and avoid common negative reactions when dealing with an angry customer.
• Explain the three things needed to communicate to any angry customer--CUT the anger.
• Incorporate Caring, Understanding, and Taking Action in encounters with angry customers.

MATERIALS: Single Point Lesson booklet for each participant, Leader's Guide, Video (nine clips), Contract Card for each participant.

BENEFITS: This Single Point Lesson helps participants learn how to manage potentially disastrous, emotionally charged encounters with customers. Participants learn and practice skills to redirect angry encounters so that effective problem solving can occur.

At the end of the lesson, participants make individual and group commitments to use the skills they learned. These commitments are reviewed during a later session.

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