How can you create engaging customer service training with low budget and time?

This first step makes perfect sense. It is always a good idea to start with the end in mind, and the more accurately you assess your needs, the better position you'll be in to craft challenging but achievable goals for your CX program!

Fully agree. Start with what you have. Books, podcasts, audiobooks, webinars, courses etc. can provide a treasure trove of useful information. Our company library has at least 300 books (most of them selected by our team members) that our team members can access, borrow and use to increase their skillsets. We've even had some of our clients ask to borrow some of the books in our library. By accessing existing resources, you can actually get a better handle on what your CX needs are and can, in turn, help you select a professional CX guide/coach/consultant that best suits your needs when you are ready for this step.

Yep. No one wants to sit through long sessions of one-way communication monologues where they are spoken at. It's much better to punctuate your training with interactive activities that keep the audience engaged and facilitate two-way conversations. In the past, I've used videos, games and even group paper plane and balloon-blowing exercises to drive home certain key points and encourage "The F-word" (fun) in group sessions.

This is a must. When presenters customize their presentations for the audience with whom they are speaking, it's much easier for those on the receiving end of the training to extrapolate the principles being taught and apply those principles to their own working experience!

The Ken Blanchard book "The One Minute Manager" at only 115 pages, demonstrates that amazing ideas don't need to be overly cumbersome or expensive. Customer service begins with a mindset and clear vision of the business's core service mission. The majority of customer service is about personal interactions between customers and staff. Focusing on service, compassion and empathy will get you most of the way there. But especially important is finding the right people to begin with. Although training can improve anyone's skills, some people are inherently more service oriented and compassionate than others. Getting those people on your team early will make things much easier. You'll find those people will help spread the right message.

To ensure engagement and retention of "lessons" are high, you might want to approach things with themes in mind. That way things are not generalised and you can take a more specific approach. Shorter sessions but spaced out better.

Over the years, here are the top 7 skills our training needs assessment has highlighted as a need for our team consistently: ➡️ Communication ➡️ Product Knowledge ➡️ Problem-Solving ➡️ Sales ➡️ Time Management ➡️ Adaptability ➡️ Technical Our goal is to make sure these are covered regularly at a minimum across all of our training workshops. Something to consider if you are looking to establish a training baseline, before adding your customer expectations.

Yep. It's best to keep it simple. There is a lot of research that point to humans having shorter attention spans, especially in this modern world of bite-sized tweets, snaps, threads, and 'grams. If there is lots of information to be shared, break it down into smaller modules and take frequent breaks. Also, clarity is super important. Speak the language of your audience. The people in your audience shouldn't need to have a dictionary or thesaurus just to understand the points you're trying to make.