The Actual Reason Your Client Service Training Fails to Deliver: A Honest Assessment
Forget everything you’ve been told about customer care training. After eighteen years in this industry, I can tell you that 90% of what passes for employee education in this space is absolute garbage.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: your employees already know they should be friendly to customers. They know they should smile, say please and thank you, and fix complaints quickly. What they don’t know is how to manage the psychological demands that comes with interacting with challenging customers constantly.
Recently, I was consulting with a major phone company here in Sydney. Their customer satisfaction scores were awful, and executives kept pumping money at traditional training programs. You know the type – practice scenarios about saying hello, memorising company procedures, and repetitive sessions about “putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.”
Total rubbish.
The actual problem wasn’t that team members didn’t know how to be courteous. The problem was that they were emotionally drained from dealing with everyone else’s negativity without any methods to guard their own wellbeing. Think about it: when someone calls to complain about their internet being down for the fourth time this month, they’re not just upset about the service problem. They’re furious because they feel ignored, and your team member becomes the focus of all that built-up feeling.
Most training programs completely ignore this psychological reality. Instead, they focus on basic skills that sound good in theory but fall apart the moment someone starts shouting at your staff.
The solution is this: teaching your staff stress management strategies before you even discuss client relations techniques. I’m talking about relaxation techniques, emotional barriers, and most importantly, permission to take breaks when things get heated.
With that telecommunications company, we started what I call “Emotional Armour” training. Instead of concentrating on scripts, we taught employees how to recognise when they were taking on a customer’s emotional state and how to psychologically step back without coming across as disconnected.
The results were dramatic. Client feedback scores improved by 40% in three months, but more importantly, employee retention decreased by 50%. Apparently when your people feel equipped to handle difficult situations, they really appreciate helping customers resolve their concerns.
Here’s another thing that frustrates me: the obsession with artificial enthusiasm. You know what I’m talking about – those programs where they tell staff to “constantly keep a upbeat tone” regardless of the circumstances.
Total garbage.
People can detect artificial positivity from a distance. What they actually want is genuine care for their problem. Sometimes that means admitting that yes, their problem actually suck, and you’re going to do your absolute best to assist them fix it.
I recall working with a big store in Melbourne where leadership had mandated that all customer interactions had to begin with “Hi, thank you for choosing [Company Name], how can I make your day wonderful?”
Seriously.
Can you imagine: you call because your pricey device failed a week after the coverage expired, and some unfortunate customer service rep has to pretend they can make your day “absolutely fantastic.” That’s offensive.
We eliminated that script and substituted it with simple genuineness training. Train your team to really pay attention to what the person is explaining, acknowledge their frustration, and then concentrate on real fixes.
Customer satisfaction increased right away.
After years in the industry of training in this space, I’m sure that the most significant problem with customer service training isn’t the learning itself – it’s the unattainable expectations we set on service teams and the absolute shortage of systemic support to handle the root causes of bad customer experiences.
Address those issues first, and your support training will actually have a opportunity to be effective.
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