Benefits achieved
- Customer satisfaction levels consistently high, exceeding 94% satisfaction after training.
- Customer Service Advisors (CSAs) are able to defuse customers’ emotions at the start of calls by immediately building rapport, trust and confidence in the customer. Techniques such as empathy, certainly phrases, verbal signposting, use of customers’ names and ‘closing checklist’ all contribute now to providing a personal service rather than a process.
- A much quieter call centre environment where CSAs have conversations with customers rather than raising their voices in response to emotional customers and battling to be heard over other CSAs dealing with customers.
- Introduction of a Customer Service Recipe, a benchmark for service standards which can be trained, assessed and coached against by team managers.
- Increase in staff motivation and reduction in stress levels as a result of much more pleasant conversations with customers rather than what seemed a constant stream of abuse previously.
Background
Our task was to raise customer service standards across a call centre of approximately 60 customer service advisors (CSAs). Approximately 10 advisors were new to the organization and the remaining 50 were experienced and to some extent set in their ways.
No real attention had previously been given to customer service standards, including no measurement of standards being provided and no consistency of approach to handling customers.
How we did it
We provided a bespoke solution which met the requirements of the Council’s Customer Service Team, the development needs of their staff and the service needs of their customers. We followed four key steps:
Research
First, we got to know the current service offering and standards of service being provided and became familiar with the organisation through its:
- Vision & Values
- Customer Service Charter, Policy Statement
- Job role profiles and person specifications
- Review of website and documentation accessible by the customer base
- Review of the recruitment process and standards sought
- Analysis of current service standards being offered by:
– Live observation in the workplace of staff interacting with customers (internal and external customers).
– Analysis of customer feedback via complaints and compliments.
– Observation and familiarisation of the use of software and technology used by both contact centres in the customer experience process.
– Meetings with the senior management team and key stakeholders to gain their input and build relationships for future commitment to the development programme.
Designed a development solution based on the findings in the Research phase
A Customer Service development programme was designed which supported the skills gap identified during the research phase. This included:
- A 2-day Customer Service development programme for all telephone-based staff
- 1-day Customer Service refresher training course for more experienced staff;
- All learning styles were catered for in the training, with the inclusion of real work-based case scenarios with real workable tools and techniques;
- Obtained stakeholder signoff.
Delivered the bespoke Customer Service development programme
Delivered training to over 70 call handlers in interactive workshops, utilizing practical roleplay sessions with real customer scenarios.
Review and evaluate the development programme
An important step was to review and evaluate the development programme to ensure we’d hit the objectives. This was carried out at certain milestones in the project to check progress and also at the end by:
- Evaluating the training and obtaining feedback from delegates and key stakeholders.
- Reviewing achievements with key stakeholders.
How this was achieved
CFA Training was recommended for this work by Walsall Housing Group (whg) who had used CFA Training for customer service skills training for over ten years. They recommended us due to the very positive experience with Neville and his team at CFA Training.
Neville fitted in quickly with the organisation’s ethos and developed a training course to develop service excellence and consistency. The course was designed to:
- Enhance the customer experience.
- Improve customer satisfaction.
- Empower the staff when dealing with challenging customers.
The training was also arranged to take place on a Saturday to fit around the busy times for the contact centre.
The training was delivered in modules with a two-week gap between each, which allowed the delegates to digest the training and start to implement it before they moved onto the next training module.
The organisation
This West Midlands-based Housing Group provides and builds social housing and affordable new homes across Worcestershire, Midlands and Lincolnshire. The Group was formed from a merger of two housing organisations in 2020 and this lead to the organisation having two contact centres, one based in Worcester and the other in Birmingham.
Having merged two organisations together meant two sets of values and standards of service across the sites. CFA Training was tasked with developing a consistently high standard of customer service across both the Worcester and Birmingham contact centres.
“Neville from CFA Training is an extremely approachable and positive individual, who is flexible in his attitude to working with others, ensuring that his course content is designed to meet the specific needs of the client organisation.
I feel that part of the reason why this training is so successful and different from any other we have had is that Neville spends time with the team and managers so he really understands our focus and commitment to our customers. He also then gains an understanding of our weaknesses so he can devise the training to address specific areas and needs.
We consistently received positive feedback from delegates who attended Neville’s courses, with regards to training style and achieving course learning objectives. Neville’s courses have undoubtedly contributed to an enhanced level of customer service within our customer contact centre.”
Assistant Director Customer Experience