Customer service has been a popular topic for me in the last few months – I have been running customer service training for a few of my clients, writing a whitepaper on the subject (soon to be released) and also developing my next online training course focused on customer service (watch this space!).
Of course we all want to provide great customer service because we know it’s a sure fire way of retaining our clients (and we also know that it’s way more cost effective to retain existing clients than it is to acquire new ones). But another significant benefit of great customer service is staff retention. Why? Quite simply because happy clients result in less stressed out staff.
So why should your staff care about great customer service? Here is 3 compelling reasons for them (and for you as their employer):
- Less Job related stress – When you have great customer service skills you can easily deal with most issues and types of customers so you get less unpleasant interactions and can handle more difficult customers easier which ultimately leads to less job related stress (and higher staff retention).
- Career Advancement – If you enjoy helping others and can draw satisfaction from helping customers in a professional manner (backed up by a sound practice of customer service techniques) it will help advance your career. And customers giving you great feedback provides unquestionable evidence of your service delivery in appraisals.
- Your Job becomes a source of satisfaction – When you provide great customer service to a customer who needs help or has a complaint that you resolved, you feel that you are making a difference and take pride in your work. This is a great source of job satisfaction.
Well trained staff result in happy clients and that creates a lower level of stress in the work place. Yet how much time do businesses invest in training excellent customer service as opposed to assuming ‘everyone can handle that challenging client because I know I can!‘? Instead we sit there and cringe when hearing colleagues on the phone either handling the client badly or promising the earth (which then sets us a huge task to deliver and that usually results in over servicing and unprofitable work). Sound familar? If so, let’s have a chat.