Service Staff: Strategists and Trend Scouts
Ideally, they have an XL package of capabilities. And their experience from direct customer contact can be worth a mint for the company.
Think positive! For planned activities, this is easy. It's not as easy when you're often on the road as a ‘troubleshooter’. After all, this is also part of the role of service employees, sometimes even their main job: if something is not working for the customer as it should, the service technician often is directly on site. This also applies to remote telephone support, for example. Hardly anyone is closer to the customer than the service staff. There is enormous potential for the company in both: in direct contact with the customers and the resulting knowledge of customer's needs.
Suitable Offers
For You at a Glance
How to develop, efficiently control service organizations in a future-oriented way: Management knowledge for the service practice as certificate course with Real Life Project.
Raising customer satisfaction and operational efficiency by professional service. Certificate course and module of the Certified Service Business Manager course.
Strategic design of service products, future-oriented steering and marketing. Certificate course and module of the Certified Service Business Manager course.
Quality methods and indexes for continuous improvement and optimal internal collaboration. Certificate course and module of the Certified Service Businesss Manager course.
Understanding and applying mechanisms of change, transformation, co-creation with customers & partners. Certificate course and module of the Certified Service Business Manager course.
Professional implementation of the fruits of the Certified Service Business Manager in an accompanying practical projekt. Graduation module of the Certified Service Business Manager course.
Customer-focused service presentations and professional communication with customers. Certificate course with 5 days of intensive classroom training and supervised pratical transfer taks.
Special requirements for service projects. In this five-day certificate course (incl. final exam and service project), you will work out how they will be successfully completed.
Increasing competition and pressure to innovate: find new business areas and markets for your future business success.
2 days
The pricing policy has a significant effect on profitability – with the right reasoning you ensure higher price acceptance and better profit margins.
2 days
Learning on the Job: how to ensure quality and efficiency by steering internal and external partners.
2 days
How the sales organization, as the customer interface can best implement the company's goals: the important tools.
2 days
Understanding customers is key to market services successfully: concept, development and design of services.
2 days
Emotionalization and measurable increase in customer benefit: how to optimally present the value of a service.
2 days
Intensive practical seminar: which settings do you have to make to be better than others? Effectively evaluate and control service.
2 days
What should be considered if the customer complains about your service? Basic legal knowledge for service managers.
2 days
Recognizing Trends
Service staff can be excellent trend scouts. If they are alert in dealing with the customers, they can derive trends from the customer's needs and situations. This would make these employees ideal conversation partners for the product development and product marketing in their companies. Even corporate strategies can be derived from the experience service professionals have. However, decision-makers should also want to listen to the service staff in order to use this strategic potential.
Recognizing and Using Your Own Potential
The majority of service employees know their potential, use it or have at least used it. But often there is little feedback. The result: employees often do not share their experience and insights from customer contacts within their company.
Acknowledgment of these achievements will be an important motivation to exploit this valuable potential. Companies that recognize this create a service culture with team spirit to benefit all sides.
Customers of the Customer
This way, learnings from the experiences of the service employees can become an essential success factor for the company. Their in-depth experience on site allows the company to account for the needs of the customer's customers as well.
At the ISS, we call this service understanding ‘kangaroo leap': thinking about the customer's business far beyond the obvious needs.
Business Expertise
“That's why we focus on service-business competence in our ISS programs,” explains ISS founder Michael René Weber.
In addition to his technical know-how, the service employee therefore needs business expertise. Because: “The core objective is to create professional added value for everyone involved,” says Weber.
Situations as an Opportunity
So it's not just about making things work for the customer. The customer relationship is at stake as well.
Any service employee who keeps his nerves and knows how to master distressing situations with confidence will, as a representative of his company, strengthen customer loyalty in the long term. The alleged problem situation thus becomes an opportunity to confirm his company as a top service provider.
Scientifically proven (PhD Dr. Horstmann): The solution competence of the service provider increases customer loyalty sustainably. The result will be ‘fan-customers’.
XL-Skills Package
If you want to win fans, you have to offer more than flawless products or services. You will need to understand customer needs – both rational and emotional. Ideally, these needs should be proactively identified, that is, before they are expressed. For example, the customer wants simple solutions to complex tasks or innovations that will help them to do better business in the future.
Someone who understands the business of their customer can develop individually fitting solutions and show their benefits. This includes a lot of what is called ‘change competence': the ability and willingness to adapt to changing and new situations.
Understanding Wishes
Successful communication between service staff and customer requires emotional competence. Because understanding the customer also means seeing wishes for attention, empathy and closeness. If that reminds you of the current buzz word ‘mindfulness’, you are right. Since a stable, sustainable relationship with the customer should be built up and managed in the long term. And for that it needs mindful dealings with each other – by the way also inside your own company.
Getting Back Up
But be honest, if you are in close contact with customers every day, you know that service employees have to be able to endure a lot – especially when it comes to troubleshooting.
There is another word for this ability often used nowadays: resilience. Some just say: “get up and carry on.” Anyone with this skill can celebrate great success with calm breath.