A well-structured Digital Customer Service program includes specific steps and activities. Some of them belong to the consulting area – e.g. digital conversations assessments and guidelines set up. Others to the training area – e.g. to get managers and / or front line staff up-skilled. After this step though only part of the job is done, so if you want to consolidate training results you need to close the loop.
Stay away from wrong assumptions
Before letting you reaching the sweet the cake (i.e. what comes after training) I’d like to help you prevent this common mistake that I often observe as consultant: considering training as enough to consolidate up-skilling results. Such an approach inevitably leads to partial results because whenever we introduce culture, habits and behaviors changes we need to time to digest them. Accordingly we also need to:
- Understand them → what exactly are they?
- Remove our resistance → to which extent are they good for me?
- Apply them → how can use them in my daily activities?
- Get confirmations → are they really working for me?
- Consolidate them → how can I take advantage of them with low effort?
As you can guess, training activities can only fulfill part of these phases. In fact even with the best training results you’ll get up the first 3-4 goals. Therefore the last one – consolidating – is still missing.
How to bridge this gap
Question: So now that I’ve just completed an excellent Digital Customer Service training what shall I do more?
My answer: Ok, I’ll go straight to the point. The most effective way to consolidate your training results is closing the loop with ad hoc activities. In my experience coaching and mentoring work really well as final step of a well structured Digital Customer Service program. The reason is simple. As during the training sessions usually emerge topics that need further deepening with customer service managers / supervisors, we close the loop with:
- Coaching sessions where we work on their most urgent priorities. To give you an example (monitoring and nurturing upskilling techniques, KPIs, crisis preventions / response, just to name a few.)
- 1-to-1 mentoring sessions for their personal development. For example how to build and manage a Digital Customer Service team (in-house or remotely, how to select an omni-channel platform, how to smoothly integrate new support channels).
Have a look at my consulting and training customized method.
Now let’s talk about your needs
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