Customer Service Excellence

The short course in Customer Service Excellence is designed for individuals working directly with customers and their supervisors in service organisations. Its primary objective is to offer practical skill training to enhance front-line service delivery and elevate customer satisfaction.

This is accomplished by providing valuable insights into customer expectations and emphasising the pivotal role these expectations play in ensuring service quality and, consequently, customer satisfaction.

The course delves into the improvement of service delivery processes and offers strategies for addressing situations where service delivery falls short of meeting customer expectations.

Additionally, it equips participants with the tools to effectively handle challenging customers and customer complaints, and it provides valuable insights into effective customer communication techniques.

Course Content 

Day 1

Introduction

• Why are service quality and customer satisfaction important?

• Why are service quality and customer satisfaction important?

Understanding customer expectations

• Types of service expectations

• Factors that influence customers’ expectations

• Dealing with unrealistic expectations

• Exceeding customers’ expectations

• Understanding changes in customers’ expectations

Day 2

Understanding customer perceptions

• Service quality vs. customer satisfaction

• The five dimensions of service quality perceptions:

reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles

• Service encounters as the building blocks of customers’ service perceptions

• Surveys, focus groups and mystery shopping:

Easy ways to understand customers’ expectations and perceptions

Improving service delivery

• Mapping and improving service processes

• Developing customer-defined service standards

• Managing physical evidence and the service scape

Day 3

Dealing with difficult customer situations

• Saying no: What to do when you can’t say yes

• Dealing with difficult customers

• Service recovery: Recovering from and preventing service blunders

• Dealing with customer complaints

Communicating with customers

• Phone etiquette and technique

• E-mail etiquette and writing

• Face-to-face verbal and non-verbal communication