TABLE OF CONTENTS What's in This Chapter?
Why customer service matters
Some helpful statistics
How training can help
How to use this book and the CD
Excellent customer service is crucial for good business. This chapter discusses the importance of customer service and shows you how to use this workbook to develop an exciting customer service training programme based on both theory and practice.
Customer service You can't live with it, and you can't live without it. With our rushed lifestyles, overloaded desktops and fast-paced work schedules, we all are looking for a little comfort. Comfort might come in the form of someone waiting on us quickly and enthusiastically at a retail store. It might be found in a kind word when we are trying to get an insurance issue resolved, or a cheerful voice saying, I'd be glad to get that for you, when you call Directory Enquiries. The bottom line is that we want other people to be nice to us. It seems that being nice should not be that difficult. So why is it so rare?
That question baffles most consumers, and we all speculate about the answers. In the Newsweek article Tired of Smile-Free Service? Keith Naughton (2000) reports that employers are having difficulty finding good employees. When they do find them, it's not easy to keep them. In addition, managers feel they have no control over workers who give poor service because they fear that pointing out deficiencies may cause employee turnover,...
