Importance of Customer Service Training

The Fine Balance of Cutting Back: The right training can make a world of a difference and help avoid laying off valuable service employees.

With the economy in turmoil, consumers have less discretionary income and have become more demanding of quality and service from businesses. Simultaneously, many companies struggle to meet these heightening expectations amidst their own financial woes.

The March 2, 2009 issue of Business Week focuses on customer service and its increasingly important role in modern business. The articles emphasize how customer service has become a key point of differentiation in a saturated marketplace, especially during tough economic times.

Although customer service is critical to retaining customers tough times, a common reaction to such times is to reduce staff in an effort to cut costs, staff which all too often includes necessary service providers.

Cutting service employees may bolster the balance sheet in the short-term, but can have severe long-term consequences such as a lower quality customer experience and subsequent loss of customer loyalty.

According to the International Customer Management Institute, a call center consultancy, removing four representatives from a call center with 30 or so tellers in total, can increase the amount of customers on hold from zero up to about 80. That’s 80 potentially irked customers who may decide to spend their money elsewhere due to the loss of just four employees.

Retaining service department employees often requires reevaluating other business practices and policies. Cutting expenses in other areas in order to maintain, a strong front line is what allows companies to successfully weather an economic storm.

Such moves, however, call for a paradigm shift from an obsession with generating new customers to focusing on existing ones and going above and beyond to retain their loyalty.

In JD Power and Associates rankings for the past year on customer service, the top 25 companies increased their scores whereas the scores of the bottom 25 mostly fell. When money troubles came to fruition, best practices determined the fate of many businesses.

It’s Long-term loyalty vs. short –term gain- this economy has drawn a defining line between those approaches.

Getting more from the people you do employ is key. One way to optimize employee ROI is through training. But not all training is created equal. Cross-training has become a way many successful corporations maximize the efforts of their staff.

Usually cross training occurs in related departments, but some top service providers, such as J.W. Marriott is going to the extent of training administrative assistants to be able to step in as banquet servers. While seemingly extreme, the idea behind building a multi-functional staff certainly has its merits.

Even if the particular employee never has to actually perform another function, simply understanding what different roles involve will create a universal awareness of customer service practices. When the organization as a whole has a better conception of customer service, every employ can contribute to building customer loyalty.

Increasing employee effectiveness while reducing cost- not a bad idea? The key to cost cutting, however, is not to let customers notice.