Customer service teams require coaching! Think about it customers rarely call back customer service people just to tell them they did a great job. Typically customer service professionals face angry customers, customers whose products have not been delivered on time, customers who have multiple questions that require in-depth product college, et cetera. Customer service people are in a very reactive business where they are not making outbound calls and typically not knowing what they're going to deal with. Customer service professionals have to have in-depth product and service knowledge as well as in-depth skill sets to handle a multitude of client interactions.

Research has shown 68% to 72% of customers do not leave an organization due to price rather it's a feeling of indifference or poor customer service. The day has come we must look at customer service teams as our second sales teams. If anything customer service teams have a greater impact after the sale on future sales than sales people do. I remember years ago in major client of ours we had a gal who went through extensive product training and had received a call that was of a very basic nature and through some coaching she began to become more confident asking open-ended questions. She uncovered that this customer was not aware of one of the company’s major products. As the interaction progressed she realized this customer was lacking core knowledge of what this product could do for them and 40 minutes later she had literally placed an order for over $600,000 worth of products. The funny part about the story is the sales representative had been in this customers location six times in the last six months and here was a customer service professional who developed a great relationship all be it over the phone and three questions later the customer service rep had brought home one of the biggest deals ever. The funny thing was the sales rep has an in person relationship with this customer; whereas, the customer service reps relationship was 100% over the telephone.

We should never underestimate the power of customer service on the bottom line!