FEATURE
A re you training your frontline employees in customer service?
Probably – most people are.
Let’s take a typical scenario. Customers’ complaints are rising, the senior management team is worried about the impact on the reputation of the company, customer service training for frontline employees becomes a key priority.
But will frontline training make a difference and be effective? From our experience, the answer is probably ‘not on a longterm basis’. Yet effective training and development is an essential aspect of promoting a true customer service philosophy.
What is the cause of this lack of edge to customer service training? What are the remedies? We explore the need go beyond the quality of the content of frontline service training, or even the inspirational qualities of the trainer, to include a whole set of supporting buttresses.
Our experience over 20 years suggests that, no matter how much organisations invest in frontline training in customer service, they will not see long-term www.trainingjournal.com
May 2008
TJ
37

FEATURE improvement unless every aspect of the customer’s contact with them is focused on their needs.
This means digging deeper and wider, and moves attention away from simply getting right the content and style of delivery.
When customer service training was in its infancy, the focus tended to be on ‘catch all’ training for frontline employees, which took place in isolation from the organisation in an almost evangelical style. Times change, but has your training kept pace? The emphasis on customer service training needs to substantially shift: training and development must have wide-ranging support to overcome heavy-duty blocks and barriers.
38
TJ
May 2008 www.trainingjournal.com
In reviewing how service training has delivered in client organisations we have worked with, we regularly notice these deficiencies that erode the impact of the training:
• the organisation turns a deaf ear to customer needs;
• managers set a bad example;
• service standards are ill-defined, outdated or ignored;
• there is poor internal support;
• processes are unfriendly and unwieldy for the customer;
• frontline employees are treated like robots;
• complaints are dismissed as a nuisance;
• there is a ‘praise and recognition desert’;
• service is an add-on; and
• customer service training is seen as a ‘one off ’.
In case you think none of these could be a problem in your organisation, survey after survey points to ingrained shortcomings across the board. At some time, as customers, most of us have been left frustrated by our contact with an organisation.
To hit the training target, best-practice customer service organisations pay attention to eight identifiable characteristics which make all the difference

FEATURE to frontline training and service results:
1. Start at the beginning: Listen to customers
Listening to customers helps prioritise the areas most in need of development. Customer service needs to be addressed from the perceptions of the customer, not the service provider. Best-practice organisations recognise the need to listen to their customers and then act on what they hear. Only by asking customers for their views will you see what is important from their perspective and identify what needs to improve.
Online retailer Amazon decided to ask its agents “what have our customers been saying to you this past week?” This has led to the company developing new products and services to better meet customers’ needs.
The first step in achieving customer satisfaction is to canvass regularly their views on how the business is performing and what needs to change. This should be done via both quantitative and qualitative feedback. In addition, businesses need to be aware of trends in the marketplace – for example, the increasing influence the internet has on customers’ decision-making and the need for value for time as well as value for money.
2. Be an example
A customer service ethic must start from the top and be visible to all. Many senior managers make the mistake of exhorting employees to focus on the customer, yet fail to demonstrate through their actions that they, too, are committed. Employees can soon become cynical if they see their leaders’ words as empty.
Royal Mail boss Allan
Leighton learns a lot in his leadership roles by talking day-in, day-out to people on the front line. He is prepared to see firsthand the frustrations customers experience and the problems for service deliverers.
3. Set and maintain standards
Establishing standards of performance to meet customer expectations provides a benchmark for all employees to reach on a consistent basis. The standards of service must be based on customer requirements – too many are about speed and turnaround, not quality. It helps if these standards are understood by, and meaningful to, all employees. Many organisations are taking a more thorough approach to standards by integrating customer service into their competency frameworks and induction processes.
Banking group First Direct ensures that all new recruits undertake a six-week customer service-focused induction before they begin customer contact.
Standards are constantly reinforced, based on what customer research tells them – “Make it easy for me, leave me in control, know me as an individual, treat me as an equal, give me confidence.”
Even temporary employees require training in customer service if they are to come into contact with your customers, as they still represent the organisation in customers’ eyes. Customer service training is equally important for part-time employees.
4. Embed training and development, integrate customer service
Successful service organisations ensure that customer service is integrated into all the activities of the business, so that focusing on the customer becomes part of the organisational way of life. This means including customer service as a key component of recruitment, induction, the setting of performance objectives and competencies, appraisals, reward and recognition, employee communications and all management meetings.
The power of commitment and culture has come to be seen as a central foundation of customer service training. Increasingly, it is recognised that a training course is not enough – feedback and coaching on the job are important for training to
‘stick’. Therefore we advocate the importance of managers who know, understand and practise the principles of service leadership, so that frontline training is continuous, with a long-lasting impact.
5. Focus on the customer inside and out
If employees feel they are getting a high level of service and support from other departments, they are much more likely to deliver a good service to the external customer. Unless internal service issues are resolved, time spent focusing on external customer issues is ill-spent. Bestpractice organisations promote the concept of the internal customer. They ensure that people throughout the organisation focus on the needs of the customer.
6. Improving processes
Process analysis is now part of many service-improvement initiawww.trainingjournal.com
May 2008
TJ
39

FEATURE
Setting an example
Improving processes
Empower employees
Listening to customers
Recognising and reinforcing tives. This means devising new ways of working, or re-working, which are the least bureaucratic and complicated for the customer.
For example, how many times have you had to repeat information to several different contacts in a company?
The result of regular process improvement is often greater flexibility and responsiveness to customer needs. Experience shows that this approach works best when employees are involved in the design of the new processes, and where training and support are provided to help them acquire new skills.
Complaints need to be dealt with in an exemplary manner.
Research shows that organisations
Service target diagram
Clear service standards
Integrate service, embed development
Customer focus
inside and out that adopt a philosophy of ‘Right
First Time’ and effective service recovery ensure greater customer loyalty.
Speedy resolution is vital, and solving customer problems as they occur avoids the need for lengthy and bureaucratic procedures. Bestpractice organisations train their employees in how to effectively deal with the emotion as well as the facts of a complaint.
7. Empower employees
Best-practice organisations engender a sense of responsibility and accountability in their employees to make things right for the customer. This means employees are given a much stronger role in making customer service changes – after all, they deal with customers day-to-day.
At shoe repairer Timpson’s, the people who serve the customers come first. As its managing director says: “The only way to give truly great individual service is to trust the people in our shops with the freedom to serve each customer the way they think best.”
8. Recognising and reinforcing
Recognising and reinforcing good customer service behaviour is a continuous and powerful means of demonstrating its importance.
Many best-practice service organisations develop reward and recognition schemes to encourage excellent service. There are a variety of methods which can be used to do this and the most appropriate route will depend on the culture of the organisation.
In pressured service environments, managers also need to remember the power of a simple
‘thank you’ and ‘well done’, which can often mean a great deal to their employees.
We don’t want to ignore what we see as important elements of the training that will assist success.
Within a supportive framework, here are some tips to help make frontline customer service have impact:
• Greater success will come out of consideration of participants’ learning styles, their past experiences and individual needs.
It is better to adopt a blended
40
TJ
May 2008 www.trainingjournal.com

FEATURE approach to customer service training to appeal to different learning styles and to ensure that key messages are truly embedded.
• Customer service training should not be restricted purely to frontline employees. To create a truly customer-focused organisation, everyone within it should take part in customer service training.
• Managers need to be actively involved in customer service, and much effective training today is delivered with the involvement of managers themselves. Typically managers need help in such areas as leadership, communication, coaching and facilitation, presentation skills and team working. We often design and deliver service-leadership programmes that managers attend prior to frontline interventions, in order to ensure that the right climate is created for the training.
• Customer service training often includes emphasis on developing emotional intelligence. Every frontline service employee knows that handling multiple customer queries each day puts them under pressure. When handling customer transactions, particularly difficult ones, the ability to empathise with the customer is key.
At First Direct, employees are trained to respond individually to the mood and needs of each customer.
• As a quick guide to topic areas, typically, it is best practice for customer service training to include such aspects as:
• Emotional intelligence
• Assertive communication and influencing skills
• Dealing with difficult customers
• Written communication skills
• Service recovery and problem-solving skills
• Effective team working
• Stress management.
0-3
4-7
8-10
The red category indicates areas of concern. Your ability to support training appears to be low and, in attempting to improve training, you may well not succeed unless you tackle your weak areas. The organisation is likely to experience severe difficulties in sustaining service improvement.
The orange category indicates areas to focus on for improvement. The items in this category may jeopardise your overall ability to anticipate customer needs and develop customer service, or to recover when there are service problems. The more crosses you have, the more your organisation’s service excellence can be significantly improved by paying attention to the identified areas.
The green category indicates areas of strength, where your organisation is displaying features of service excellence that support service training.
This area indicates which aspects of your organisation are outstanding in supporting service development. Your strengths in these areas indicate characteristics that will help maintain and develop service skills and approaches throughout the organisation.
Table 1
Insufficient training support.
Your capability for anticipating and detecting service issues is likely to be low. Service training may well be isolated from the rest of the organisation.
Some support, but areas to improve.
You have quite a well-developed capability to respond to customers’ needs: adaptation, innovation and self-improvement are likely to be evident, and will support successful training. Some scope for strengthening.
Training well-supported.
Your training is likely to be successful because it is highly supported by the customer focus of your organisation, culture and processes.
Training can only influence attitudes towards the customer if it is part of an overall approach to developing customer responsiveness.
Increasingly, organisations are recognising that they can train skills and knowledge but that, if the person they are training has the wrong attitude towards the customer in the first place, the development can fall on stony ground. As well as training existing employees, review the process your organisation uses to recruit and select new staff. Make sure that you recruit for attitude.
This article has explored the need to nurture many supporting aspects of your organisation for learning and development to really enhance knowledge, skills and attitudes towards customer service. Use the target diagram on the opposite page to gauge the weak and strong
Table 2 aspects of your organisation and to customise its service training development profile.
Put a cross on the target against each of the eight categories, starting with “Setting an example”, on red (area of concern), amber
(area to focus on) or green (area of strength). (See Table 1 above.)
Concentrate on the stronger aspects, if you have between zero and ten crosses in the green category. (See Table 2 above.) 
Sarah Cook is managing director of service excellence and leadership development specialist The Stairway Consultancy and can be contacted on +44 (0)1628 526535 or at sarah@thestairway.co.uk. Steve Macaulay is a learning development executive at
Cranfield School of Management and can be contacted on +44 (0)1234 741122 or at s.macaulay@cranfield.ac.uk www.trainingjournal.com
May 2008
TJ
41