Training program: Creating an Excellent Customer Experience

Customer-centered service as a company’s competitive advantage

• Exercise: Everyone’s a customer.
• 9 basic customer needs.
• 3 categories of needs: functional, procedural and psychological.
• MOT: Moments of Truth in customer service.
• Case study: MOTs – taking ownership of a problem and putting the customer first.
• Exercise: identifying MOTs and best practices in customer service.

Key communication skills for an enjoyable customer experience

Empathy

• What is empathy in customer care?
• Live chat service story: What does empathy look like?
• Exercise: how do you show empathy to customers?

Active listening

• What is active listening and why it’s important?
• 4 levels of listening.
• Active listening pitfalls.
• Key active listening techniques.
• Exercise: Demonstrating active listening skills.

Questioning skills

• Exercise: Can you ask questions?
• 5Ws and H open-ended questions.
• Advantages of open-ended questions.
• Closed questions and when to use them.
• Barriers to effective questioning.
• Variations of open and closed questions: Funnel, TED and Leading Technique.
• Exercise: How to use questions to ensure full clarity on the customer’s requirements?

Building rapport with customers

• Mirroring technique.
• Adapting to customers’ communication styles.
• Personalizing your message.

Influencing skills in customer service

• Selling a customer on an idea – the YOU APPEAL concept.
• Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion.

Golden rules of phone & email etiquette

• How to use the phone effectively.
• Why bother with business email etiquette.
• Email format – how to structure your emails to customers.
• Crafting different types of emails – how to adapt your email to different purposes.
• Exercise: writing different types of emails to customers.
• Tips for writing emails to customers.
• Keeping your emails brief and to the point.
• Exercise: streamlining your customer email.
• Email mistakes you want to avoid.

Handling difficult customer interactions

• 4 behavioral styles.
• Traits of an assertive person.
• How and when to be assertive in customer interactions: verbal and non-verbal communication.
• How to control your emotions in a heated exchange: taking a balcony perspective.
• AIR Model for handling demanding or upset customers.
• Exercise: Handling objections with the AIR Model.
• Feel-Felt-Found Technique to defuse customer emotions.
• Exercise: Applying the Feel-Felt-Found Technique.

Adapting to different customer personality types

• Carl G. Jung’s theory of personality types.
• Insights Discovery 4 color energies Model, based on Jung’s theory.
• Understanding your energy mix.
• Exercises: How to identify your customer’s dominant personality type?
• Exercises: How to connect with your customers for better rapport using this knowledge?
• Controlling your stress levels and reacting to customers’ stress: reasons for stress, symptoms of stress and recommended actions to reduce stress for all four color energies.

Summary of the training and individual action plans: START-STOP-CONTINUE

Training program: Creating an Excellent Customer Experience

Customer-centered service as a company’s competitive advantage

• Exercise: Everyone’s a customer.
• 9 basic customer needs.
• 3 categories of needs: functional, procedural and psychological.
• MOT: Moments of Truth in customer service.
• Case study: MOTs – taking ownership of a problem and putting the customer first.
• Exercise: identifying MOTs and best practices in customer service.

Key communication skills for an enjoyable customer experience

Empathy

• What is empathy in customer care?
• Live chat service story: What does empathy look like?
• Exercise: how do you show empathy to customers?

Active listening

• What is active listening and why it’s important?
• 4 levels of listening.
• Active listening pitfalls.
• Key active listening techniques.
• Exercise: Demonstrating active listening skills.

Questioning skills

• Exercise: Can you ask questions?
• 5Ws and H open-ended questions.
• Advantages of open-ended questions.
• Closed questions and when to use them.
• Barriers to effective questioning.
• Variations of open and closed questions: Funnel, TED and Leading Technique.
• Exercise: How to use questions to ensure full clarity on the customer’s requirements?

Building rapport with customers

• Mirroring technique.
• Adapting to customers’ communication styles.
• Personalizing your message.

Influencing skills in customer service

• Selling a customer on an idea – the YOU APPEAL concept.
• Cialdini’s Principles of Persuasion.

Golden rules of phone & email etiquette

• How to use the phone effectively.
• Why bother with business email etiquette.
• Email format – how to structure your emails to customers.
• Crafting different types of emails – how to adapt your email to different purposes.
• Exercise: writing different types of emails to customers.
• Tips for writing emails to customers.
• Keeping your emails brief and to the point.
• Exercise: streamlining your customer email.
• Email mistakes you want to avoid.

Handling difficult customer interactions

• 4 behavioral styles.
• Traits of an assertive person.
• How and when to be assertive in customer interactions: verbal and non-verbal communication.
• How to control your emotions in a heated exchange: taking a balcony perspective.
• AIR Model for handling demanding or upset customers.
• Exercise: Handling objections with the AIR Model.
• Feel-Felt-Found Technique to defuse customer emotions.
• Exercise: Applying the Feel-Felt-Found Technique.

Adapting to different customer personality types

• Carl G. Jung’s theory of personality types.
• Insights Discovery 4 color energies Model, based on Jung’s theory.
• Understanding your energy mix.
• Exercises: How to identify your customer’s dominant personality type?
• Exercises: How to connect with your customers for better rapport using this knowledge?
• Controlling your stress levels and reacting to customers’ stress: reasons for stress, symptoms of stress and recommended actions to reduce stress for all four color energies.

Summary of the training and individual action plans: START-STOP-CONTINUE