Deliver a Customer Service Training Program to Your IT Department
Focus on the missing piece of the puzzle to provide exceptional service delivery.
Contributors
- Varun Sawhney, Director, Learning and Development, Netflix
- Nine anonymous contributors
- The scope of service that the service desk must provide has expanded. With the growing complexity of technologies to support, it becomes easy to forget the customer service side of the equation. Meanwhile, customer expectations for prompt, frictionless, and exceptional service from anywhere have grown.
- IT departments struggle to hire and retain talented service desk agents with the right mix of technical and customer service skills.
- Some service desk agents don’t believe or understand that customer service is an integral part of their role.
- Many IT leaders don’t ask for feedback from users to know if there even is a customer service problem.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- There’s a common misconception that customer service skills can’t be taught, so no effort is made to improve those skills.
- Even when there is a desire to improve customer service, it’s hard for IT teams to make time for training and improvement when they’re too busy trying to keep up with tickets.
- A talented service desk agent with both great technical and customer service skills doesn’t have to be a rare unicorn, and an agent without innate customer service skills isn’t a lost cause. Relevant and impactful customer service habits, techniques, and skills can be taught through practical, role-based training.
- IT leaders can make time for this training through targeted, short modules along with continual on-the-job coaching and development.
Impact and Result
- Good customer service is critical to the success of the service desk. How a service desk treats its customers will determine its customers' satisfaction with not only IT but also the company as a whole.
- Not every technician has innate customer service skills. IT managers need to provide targeted, practical training on what good customer service looks like at the service desk.
- One training session is not enough to make a change. Leaders must embed the habits, create a culture of engagement and positivity, provide continual coaching and development, regularly gather customer feedback, and seek ways to improve.
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out why you should deliver customer service training to your team, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Deliver customer service training to your IT team
Understand the importance of customer service training, then deliver Info-Tech's training program to your IT team.
Guided Implementations
This guided implementation is a five call advisory process.
Guided Implementation #1 - Scoping
Call #1 - Scope requirements, objectives, and your specific challenges to determine if the training is the right fit.
Guided Implementation #2 - Training overview
Call #1 - Review the training audience, learning objectives, and delivery approach.
Guided Implementation #3 - Training preparation
Call #1 - Review the training content to ensure the facilitator is comfortable delivering the material and to answer any questions.
Guided Implementation #4 - Post-training feedback
Call #1 - Discuss how the training went, what feedback was gathered, and the plan to address questions and feedback.
Guided Implementation #5 - Continual learning plan
Call #1 - Discuss strategies to embed the habits learned and continually provide feedback and coaching.
Book Your Workshop
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Customer Service Training Day 1
The Purpose
Review the importance of customer service in our roles, how to show a customer focus, and best practices for verbal communication.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Understanding of the importance of customer service skills
- Target your desired customer focus proficiency levels
- Techniques for active listening
- Best practices to effectively communicate a response
Activities
Outputs
Introductions
Why is customer service important?
Customer service focus
- Customer Focus Competency Worksheet
Verbal communication
- Cheat Sheet: Service Desk Communication
Module 2: Customer Service Training Day 2
The Purpose
Review best practices for written communication, practice techniques to manage difficult customers and situations, and define what it means to "go the extra mile" for your team.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Define a consistent approach to written communication across your team
- Prepare to effectively listen and respond to difficult customers
- Practice responding to difficult situations
- Define what it means to go the extra mile for your customers
Activities
Outputs
Written communication
- Cheat Sheet: Service Desk Written Communication
Managing difficult situations
Going the extra mile
Conclusion and key takeaways
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this Blueprint, and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
VGM Group, Inc.
Guided Implementation
10/10
$7,665
10
