Thanks to the Internet, people today are more connected than ever before. Social media platforms allow people to broadcast their opinion whenever needed. This robust connectivity has impacted the business landscape, as well. Today, a complaint about bad service or poor-quality work can go viral to devastating effect. And the importance of employee training in customer satisfaction is unparalleled.
But, of course, merely providing an excellent product/service is not enough. The only way to retain customers today is by providing a fantastic customer experience. Happy customers are the best brand ambassadors you can have.
On the flipside, however, the cost of losing a customer due to a bad experience is huge. Not only do you lose that particular revenue stream, but your brand may lose face in a public forum too.
‘’Happy customers spend more money with your business without engaging in a long consideration phase all over again’’
A study by Gartner revealed that “Customer Experience is the new marketing battlefront.” The key findings also reported that 90% of companies expect to compete on customer experience primarily.
So, how can you ensure customer satisfaction? Rather, who is it that must shoulder this critical responsibility? Obviously, it’s your employees. Contrary to popular belief, your success depends less on the product or service you provide, and more on the experience your clients receive during and after they interact with your brand or organization.
“Customers are more upset when the service doesn’t live up to their expectations because products and offerings can be faulty, but bad pre, during, or post customer service is unacceptable”
For example, when a customer reports a problem, what impacts them is questions about the service experience. Was there someone to attend their calls? Was your staff sensitive to their concerns? Did they provide a valid solution? Believe it or not, customers don’t leave due to issues in the product/service; they often leave because they feel that not enough attention was paid to them or not enough will was shown to resolve their issue.
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So, how can you equip your staff better for such situations?
There’s one answer to this—employee training. Let’s take a look at the importance of employee training on customer satisfaction.
Employee Training improves customer satisfaction
Training for Accountability
Training imbibes a sense of accountability in your employees. By equipping them with all the knowledge they could possibly need about your product and service offerings and how customers use them, you can enable them to deliver impact. The urge to perform and make an impact drives most modern employees.
“Employees trained to offer good customer service rarely avoid the chance to help or assist a customer”
Enablement drives ownership. It makes them realize that each of them is their own employer. The moment they know that they work ‘with’ you as opposed to ‘for’ you, you will notice a sharp shift in focus. When employees view themselves as having their own skin in the game, your customer will no longer be your customer but their customer. And, they’ll do whatever it takes to keep them happy.
Business-Related Training
How will your employees solve customer issues and answer their queries if they don’t have adequate knowledge themselves? Your staff must be well-versed with your company’s background, offerings, and even your competitors. They must know all about how the customers consume your offerings They should have access to all the information about the likely use-cases and the possible problems that could arise from each of them.
“Untrained employees are as clueless as their customers; how can they then contribute to customer satisfaction then?”
Consider a scenario where a customer is in two minds whether to pick your product/service or the one offered by your competitor. Wouldn’t it be helpful if your staff could help them make this decision in your favor by providing accurate facts and product information? You can tremendously improve customer satisfaction by educating employees. This is the real importance of employee training.
Training to Handle Difficult Situations
The customer service landscape is full of uncertainties, and while you cannot avoid them, you can train your employees to stay prepared for them. Customer satisfaction largely depends on how issues and complaints are handled when raised. Over time, companies can build a comprehensive data and knowledge base of the various kinds of complaints and how they can best be handled.
Consider this scenario, a customer reports a product issue and is in a heated discussion with your support team. At such a point, what would it take to retain this customer? While yes, the obvious holds true—resolving the issue or providing an alternative would help a great deal. But, pacifying a dissatisfied customer depends as much on the courteousness of your staff. Actual experience is the way your team treats a customer in a problematic situation. Therefore, training your employees to handle difficult situations is absolutely essential.
In conclusion
Engaged employees are far more focused and customer-centric. Studies reveal that companies with a highly engaged workforce report experiencing a 19.2% growth in operating income over a 12-month period. Investing in extensive training programs, mentoring, and encouraging employees to develop skills drive employee engagement. According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), organizations that invest in employee development see a higher income per employee of 218%.
So, it’s clear—there’s a significant effect which visibly shows the importance of employee training on customer satisfaction. Well-trained employees are engaged employees. They are employees who are happy and find joy in their work, and happy employees create happy customers.
The importance of employee training in customer satisfaction is central. We know this! Our learning management system ‘Abara’ is built for the purpose of general employee training and more. In fact, we think the importance of employee training for the overall health of your organization is unparalleled. Hence, get in touch with us at contact@abaralms.com or click here m to fill this quick form, to discuss how we plan on helping organizations such as yours!
