When you think of training, do you only think of it with a capital "T"? You are not alone, many of our customers come to us with the same thoughts, thinking that the only effective training is the formal, longer training class. We like to educate our customers that training can be so effective in small quick hits. For example, we find that our mystery shop's evaluations are perfect to use for swift training, not only for the manager/agent that was mystery shopped, but your entire team can learn from this exercise. For example, managers can take one or two points from a shop evaluation and use those topics to train the team. Managers can generically talk about the points that were made during the shop call and use our suggestions to train the team on how best to handle those points on future customer calls or situations.

I returned recently from a cruise where so many mistakes were made, I decided to revisit this topic. Mistakes are to be expected, I get that, but knowing how to recover an angry or frustrated customer into a loyal customer is a learned art. A Customer Focused Attitude is critical for successful service recovery. Employees need to be trained to anticipate and identify potential problems, as well as have the experience to make decisions and to deliver skillful solutions to customer problems. 

You are in business, which means you have customers that have absolutely made you feel this way.  We have all been put in that tough position of dealing with a very unhappy, angry, and/or irrational customer, and at times, we have a hard time keeping our cool.  Here are some simple quotes (that we are revisiting from before), along with my take on them, which will give you advice and tips for handling these tough customers and situations...

One of the most effective approaches is to take full responsibility for the lack of communication.  After all, it may well be that your question was unclear.  Why not give the other person the benefit of the doubt?  You might confess you don't remember whether she gave you the information you needed...or acknowledge that you may not have grasped her explanation.  Unless the person is being evasive, she'll be glad to comply.

- Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, Ph.D., and Wendy Patrick Mazzarella, Reading People