If you are not sure that your team is able to give an unbeatable experience to your customers, then you probably need to think about high-quality training for your customer service team.
The six customer service training software we will be discussing in this post could be a great place to begin.
Although advances in chatbots and live chat technology have greatly helped companies improve their customer service game, there is still a need for more!
In this article, we’ll cover characteristics of good customer service, how should customer service representatives solve a problem, and also essential customer service skills. We will also share the six best customer service training software programs to streamline the training process.
This article contains:
(click on the links below to go to a specific section)
- What Does a Good Customer Service Look Like?
- Stages of Problem-solving in Customer Service
- Skills That are Crucial for Effective Customer Service
- The Best Customer Support Training Software
What does a good customer service look like?
Business is not solely about the product or service they offer. Of course, having great quality products and superior services is the core component of any business’ existence.
However, what follows next is just as important. People will have queries, complaints, or issues with the services they have hired or products they have purchased. And that is perfectly fine! After all, 100% perfection is a goal, not an actual scenario.
When you think about your customer service, ask yourself these questions:
- How sure are you that your customer service team is trained enough to offer the best possible customer experience?
- Did you leave them just as pissed off, if not more?
- Were you able to convince them that you are on their side and are doing the best you can to make sure they are happy?
In 2019, Microsoft reported that 59% of customers have higher expectations from customer service than the previous year. We can only conclude that this number would have tremendously increased by 2021.
Customer service is not simply about someone being present to address customers. Customer service is about positively impactful, efficient problem-solving.
Characteristics of a good customer service
Before delving deeper into the topic, let’s take a look at three key characteristics of good customer service.
1. Positively impactful
Every conversation with customers should be driven towards resulting in a positive impact. These impacts can be felt in outcomes such as better customer retention, better brand image, better relations with customers, few escalations, and so on.
Simply put, the conversation should make the customer feel “wow, I will keep coming back to these guys.”
2. Efficient
Solving customer issues without spending too much to do so is an art. Anyone can say “Oh, I am sorry to hear that. Here is a complete refund.”
Only a really good customer service representative will be able to resolve the issue without refunding the whole amount, or by refunding the amount partially, or by offering a discount for the next purchase.
The focus should be on solving the problem at a minimum cost.
3. Problem-solving
Here lies the crux of what customer service should be – problem-solving.
Customer service is not about listening, arguing, blame-games or denial. Whatever the issue is, however best it can be, the problem must be solved.
This can be difficult, no doubt. But if your team is trained enough to focus on solving your customers’ problems, you can be sure that your company is going to enjoy recurring business.
Stages of customer-service problem-solving
Now, let’s take the Problem-Solving facet and examine this point closely by looking at the stages a customer service representative will go through while trying to solve a problem.
1. Facing the heat
Your customer has just made contact with your customer service – and is very pissed off. How is your customer going to respond?
Ideally, the customer – service representative has to have excellent listening skills to apprehend the problem. It is crucial here to first:
- Diffuse the volatile situation.
- Understand exactly what the problem is.
- Think of the next set of actions to take.
2. Responding
Your customer service representative’s response can make it or break it. No matter how rude the customer is, or however wrong s/he may be, responding with dignity and respect is very important for your brand. The client may cool down the next day and possibly even feel guilty about the way he interacted with your customer service representative. At this point, the way you responded will make all the difference.
If your customer service had gotten worked up and reacted in a hostile manner, your business would definitely lose a customer. Your customer service representative must be trained to be patient enough to respond in a dignified manner.
3. Offering a solution
Perhaps by now, the client has gotten the opportunity to vent out completely. Now, it is on your customer service to offer a solution that will:
- Make your customer want to stay
- Avoid extra costs to the business
Let’s face it – you are doing business, and your goal is profit. Maximum business from customer at minimum cost to business is your ideal dream.
Obviously, this is not easy. It takes an extremely amazing, trained customer service representative with a knack for business to achieve this balance, even in the face of crisis
4. Following through
Now, you have listened to the customer, responded, and offered a great solution.
Does it end there? No!
This brings us back to problem-solving – the goal of customer service is to solve the problems of your customers and not just talk to them and calm them down. And yet, 53% of customers feel that their feedback will never result in anything useful!
Not following through with the solutions you have offered is a sure ticket to disaster. Your customer may have been super impressed with how nicely s/he was spoken to – but if you fail to provide the solutions that were promised, you show yourself to be untrustworthy, unreliable, and extremely unprofessional.
Skills that are crucial for effective customer service
Now that we have gone through these stages of customer service, let’s review some crucial skills we identified.
1. Excellent listening skills
Do you know what effective communication is? It’s not simply making compelling arguments – it is making useful points – just like putting pieces of a puzzle together.
We often fail here because we don’t always listen, we only hear. Customer service representatives must develop listening skills to understand exactly what is happening. This can get tiring at one point – but there is no way around it.
2. Patience
For great listening skills, one must have a good level of patience – especially in high-tension situations in customer-facing roles. This is what will help in handling the situation with dignity.
Remember, nobody cares about how rudely or nicely a customer speaks to the customer care representative – but everyone will remember the way the customer service person responds.
3. A knack for business
While the above two skills may be fairly obvious, this point surely would have come to you as a surprise.
Think about it this way – if your customer support team has just as much a knack for business as your sales or marketing team, won’t that powerfully help transform your customers’ issues into opportunities for you?
Besides, customer service representatives with an eye for business would be better able to offer solutions that are a win-win for all parties involved – and that is what any company looks for.
4. Providing solutions
There is the ability to provide solutions. No, we do not mean making promises that sound nice to the customers – we mean actual, impactful solutions – even if they are not exactly what the customer wants. It is never a good idea to guarantee anything that cannot be fulfilled.
The customer service representative must be trained enough to know what can and cannot be done. S/he cannot simply say something in the heat of the moment just to satisfy the angry customer.
The best customer support training software
Needless to say, you would have realized how important it is to give your customer service team the right kind of training.
These customer service training software options can prove to be of massive help to transform your customer service team into a powerhouse.
1. Lessonly
Lessonly tackles customer service team training head-on. It believes that great customer care is possible when the customer service team is well aware of the products and services that their company offers. This is exactly what we discussed earlier as well. Not knowing the answers to questions asked is one of the biggest challenges faced today in customer service.
Lessonly hits the nail on the right spot – if your customer service team is well-aware of your products and services, you can be sure that your customers are going to have a great experience.
With this as their main focus, Lessonly then also focuses on auxiliary areas such as tools and software that the customer service team would use as well as some best practices and procedures to handle the particularly tense situations.
They must have gotten the equation right – after all, they are promising about 76% better results!
Pricing structure
Lessonly has different plans at the Team level and at the Enterprise level. They have other bifurcations such as ‘Pro’, ‘Pro + Coaching’ as well as a couple of add ons. The pricing, however, doesn’t have many options. Anyhow, you can book a demo and even try out a free class so you can know exactly what to expect.
2. Articulate Rise 360
Articulate Rise 360 is a product by Articulate 360 that lets you create courses easily using their templates. While not specifically engineered as a customer service team training software specifically, it is still one of the most versatile course-creation platforms that can be easily used for training your customer service team.
Articulate Rise is purely ‘plug n play’ in nature – in that, it has already created everything you need – all you have to do is put up your content and share it with your teammates. This means that if you already have training lessons or videos with you, you can put them onto the templates that Articulate provides. If not, they have a number of lesson-creation features and assets that you can make use of to create your course from scratch.
Rise is easy, quick and super versatile. One of the nicest things about Rise 360 is how neat and clean it looks – it is minimalist and can be made to fit any screen. This makes the courses you create easier to access and easier to digest as well.
Pricing structure
The plans start at about $499 and go up to $1299 depending on the use. They have different plans for freelancers, for teams, and for academic use as well. This may sound as steep, but you must remember that you are paying for Articulate 360 and not just the Rise 360 option.
This is both a pro as well as a con. If the other features are relevant to you, then you have a whole package. If creating a course for customer service team training is your only goal, then this may not really work out for you.
3. TalentLMS
TalentLMS is a corporate training platform that you can use for customer service team training too. An effective customer service training is possible when things are neat and organized.
Their primary focus is on training customer service teams to be less chaotic and more organized so that they can deliver an exceptional customer service experience.
Customer service can be chaotic – and chaos can only lead to more chaos. With TalentLMS, your customer service team will be better able to stay organized so that they will not be bogged down by chaotic, disorganized messes. As a result, your team will be better able to handle each query that comes in and solve your customers’ problems more easily.
Pricing structure
The prices at TalentLMS begin at a free tier, and go all the way up to $429 on their Standard options. Their Active plans begin at $129 and go up to $479. You can go for the free plan to get a feel of what their platform is all about.
4. iSpring Suite
iSpring Suite by iSpring is an all-in-one training course development tool that focuses on training based on visual and interactive elements. iSpring Suite easily integrates into Powerpoint, letting you create your course in next to no time if you already have all the material with you.
If you don’t, they have a number of templates, character options, location images and so on that you can make use of to create your customer service team training material. iSpring Suite can help develop your customer service team’s problem-solving skills by providing you the ability to create interactive role-plays that can be of great help – especially to newly hired customer support team members.
Pricing structure
iSpring Suite has a number of pricing options across two tiers – iSpring Suite and iSpring Suite Max.
iSpring Suite begins at $ 770 annually and iSpring Suite Max begins at $970 annually. It is important to note here that this pricing is for the Suite product only and not for other iSpring products.
5. BranchTrack
BranchTrack is a very exciting and unique way to train your customer service team. It focuses on immersive learning through simulated scenarios. For example, your customer service team received an angry complaint which is followed by options. The trainee obviously has to pick the right option. Each option can further be branched to have its own set of options, creating multiple conversation strings, each that the trainee can go through based on what s/he responds.
BranchTrack’s customer service training software enables quick and simple training through such scenario building. Besides, it is also extremely fun and hands-off for the customer service trainees.
Pricing structure
Needless to say, such an interesting and unique customer service training software would not be available for cheap. BranchTrack’s Professional plan costs $999 a year but lets you create only about 10 scenarios. Their Corporate plan lets you create 50 scenarios for $3999 a year. If you just want to try it out, they do have a Free plan however, that lets you create one scenario. They also provide an Enterprise plan at a price that will be given on-demand.
6. Uptale
Now, picture this – you are a customer service representative. It is Friday night, and your shift is about to end. You just received a complaint from a very pissed-off customer. Everything that the product was supposed to do has failed, and you are being yelled at mercilessly.
Only, this is a simulation and not reality. You were just subjected to an immersive experience on your first day of the job as part of your training program.
Uptale does exactly that – it’s a platform that can be used to develop training modules with an immersive experience using VR. Uptale is the future of what training looks like – completely far ahead from the presentations, tutorials, and videos that others offer. With Uptale, your customer service team learns from the best teacher of all – experience – without actually there being a high-pressure situation!
Pricing structure
You will have to get in touch with them to discuss prices. You can request a demo, however.
Customer service in a remote world
It’s only going to get more complicated in a remote setup!
Ever since the world has gone more virtual, the need for digital solutions to maximizing productivity has increased.
While platforms such as Time Doctor offer solutions that can make your customer service team focus better and waste less time, more solutions are needed to amplify their skills and ability to make them impactful people. More and more people are now depending on online services for things they would otherwise have gone to a physical store for. In fact, more people may be dependent on online services even after the Covid-19 pandemic.
This means that companies everywhere will have to radically ramp up their services and amplify the quality of their customer service. There are three aspects to this – having more people on board is one, having the right kind of people is another, and having an effective customer service training process onboard is the third.
In this post, we have shown you six options of customer service training software to handle the third aspect effectively.
If you have any more ideas or solutions, let us know!
Srushti Shah is an ambitious, passionate, and out-of-the-box thinking woman with vast exposure to Digital Marketing. Her key focus is to serve her clients with the latest innovations in her field leading to fast and effective results. Working beyond expectations and delivering the best possible results is her professional motto. Other than work, she loves traveling, exploring new things, and spending quality time with family.