4 Responses

1. IT Training
   I recently ran such a course.After genric overview on customer care/service definitions etc, IT lends itself to various modules:-

   1. Systems and Procedures-conveying this technical “rocket science”(at least to customer!)in laypersons terms

   2. Image – using techniques to promote a positive user friendly image based on benefits to customer

   3. Communication-oral/written and allied to 1 above

   4. Management failures-training on product

   5. Access – some key equality and diversity issues.

   A course like this needs plenty of visuals drawn from marketing/advertising material

   A fascinating and fast developing subject Good luck

   Bill

   chadwick@bill81.fsnet.co.uk

2. CS Training for IT People
   I recently ran a course on Customer service which included IT support staff and worked on the following principles.

   1.Don’t single IT staff out as a seperate grouping but include them in a Customer course with representation from other parts of the Business they work with.

   2.In addition include the topic of’Customer Relationship Management’ as part of the day,presented in an imaginative way.CRM in my view links into good Customer Service.

   The success of CRM to some degree is influenced by IT and IT staff know and understand the importance of their contribution.

   Its inclusion helped me win their interest and the respect for IT by other depts.

   It also allowed me to then turn the basic CRM philosophy on its head and apply it as a strategy to improve internal customer service.

   The result was a set of agreed actions to improve communication and service between IT and the teams they service.

   I hope this helps add value to other comments already contributed.I’m happy to help further if you need any ideas on how equate CRM to Customer service.

3. Customer service training for IT personnel
   Hi Richard,

   I am doing this now as part of a larger project to improve internal service in the organisation (in order to deliver superior service to external customers).

   I wouldn’t even start until I had got the senior person in IT on board and clear about why this is being done and why.

   Essential starting point in a course is understanding the nature of the customer relationship both internally and externally. Everyone in the organisatiuon is there to deliver service to external customers or to support those who do.

   I would recommend some strategic work to see what the org, wants to achieve, what its core service values are (if it has any)and what IT’s contribution to this needs to be.

   Next is undertstanding what internal customers need, what they want, how they want it, when they want it and so on.

   It’s extremely useful to do some critical incident analysis to see the impact of IT service (good and bad)on service to external customers.

   Next is looking carefully at the core services offered by IT – breaking it down and seeing how IT can proactively lead on service development and improvements.

   Measuring service is essential so any good course needs to include ways of gathering and measuring service information (qualitative and well as quantitative)

   I would also include information from the excellent research now available on the impact of IT on customer service with some challenging case work for the group to complete.

   Apart from that, there is likely to be a real need for solid skills training in communication, help-line skills (call handling and so on), problem solving, identifying and using key customer service information and planning to anticipate and avoid disruptions that impact on external service.

   Hope this helps.

4. I was that “external vendor”
   Richard I can give you a lot of feedback about this whole issue having done this type of thing with several large companies. Please feel free to give me a call if you want
   07812 170391