As a training company one of the most common requests we get is to help organisations to improve their customer service. Sometimes they mean external customers, sometimes internal customers but in the end the focus is on the way the client delivers their service and how they can improve that service.

It doesn’t matter if that client is highly commercial, not-for-profit or public sector they will have identified that they can do better. For some it is about moving from offering good service to offering great service. For others, it’s a miracle they are still operating given the way they do business.

For the purposes of this short blog let’s assume that we (the responsible training company) have evaluated the clients request and, yes indeed, we agree that this is a service issue and so the discussion is moved quickly on with the client to address the central question:

How are you going to help us to improve the customer service we offer?

This is the point in the discussion where we get to test the client’s commitment. Do they just want to do a few ‘courses’ and demonstrate some investment (with no probable gain) or are they looking at addressing culturally embedded practises? If they are serious they will need to address both attitudes and skills. Neither one alone is enough.

However, the running order is vital – the right attitude provides a platform on which willing individuals and groups can build their skills, where required, to deliver improvements in service. Conversely, clients tell us of previous iterations of customer service training that has failed. Invariably they have been skills based programmes that ignore the fact that the prevailing culture is opposed, or at best luke-warm, to the idea that ‘we can do better around here’.

The two aspects of the development process are vital for success but this is not a chicken-and-egg scenario. In this case the attitude development has to come before skills development.

Attitude development is a universal, organisation-wide, activity. Trying to shift cultural norms, embedded practises, influence vested interests and so on needs critical mass, momentum and a single-organisation mentality. In this instance we design events for larger than normal groups and try to gain momentum by getting everyone through them quickly.

Once this platform is established we can turn to skills development which is not universal at all. Instead, it is informed by job function - because the way we provide customer service varies massively from role to role. Some engage customers face-to-face, others on the phone and some of us never speak to any ‘real’ customers but deal all day with internal requests and tasks. This element of the programme can be about coaching, group training or business improvement workshops – whatever is suitable in that moment for that organisation.

So, both attitude and skill are equally important in delivering the overall strategy but attitude must be addressed first – and universally – and skills must then be developed in ways specific to individuals, teams or departments based on the way they work.

David Rickersey

Commercial Director

Maguire Training, October 2011

For further information or to speak to David Rickersey at Maguire Training, please call 06123 810505 or visit http://www.maguiretraining.co.uk