Customers are the heart of your hospitality business, their satisfaction is what drives your success. And their satisfaction is a direct outcome of their customer experience.
Your employees are the face of your company and their attitudes and actions can be shaped with training. To truly succeed in the business of hospitality anymore, a focus must be made on the customer and, in turn, your employees.
Developing a team of polite, friendly, confident and knowledgeable staff starts with customer service training. Each business is different and will require different things from their employees, but there are four basic touch points that should be included in your customer service training programs.
A smart hiring practice
Customer service training is most effective when you have hired skilled employees in the first place. When interviewing potential employees looks for traits like positivity, patience, empathy and skills like clear communication and persuasion.
Product training
It is essential that your employees are confident and familiar with your product. There are a few ways that you can accomplish this. One, you can provide your employees with a knowledge guide for study to learn about your product. Two, you can assign a mentor or trainer to for your new hire. Your mentor should be a star on your team, with experience and an attitude that you want your employees to emulate. Trainers can test and educate your new hire on the common questions and problems that occur with customers and how they are proprely handled by your business.
Communication skills building
In the hospitality industry your employees are your front line. It is pertinent that their communication skill levels reflect the values of your business. Some common themes that you may want to explore in developing a communication skill building program include tone of voice, social sensitivity, how to communicate with positive language and how to handle customer complaints.
Equipment training
If your employees are working with equipment like computers, they will need to learn how they can deliver excellent customer care using that equipment. Whether it be learning how to navigate social media or how to craft responsive emails or how to answer the phone. Employees should be confident with the equipment that the job requires, throwing an employees on the floor without the necessary skills will be obvious to any customer.
Authority training
The way in which customer complaints are handled speaks volumes about your hospitality business to customers. Employees must understand the authority levels of your business in order to handle customer complaints in the correct manner.
For your team to provide an effective and authentic customer experience, they need to be well trained and confident. Empower your teams with the training and skills they need to succeed and it will directly transform the quality of service you are able to offer.
