No matter how small your business or how tight your budget, it’s possible to find a customer service training solution that meets your needs at an affordable price. “If you’re really on a tight budget, it can be as simple as spending $10 on a book,” says Kate Zabriskie, founder and president of Business Training Words, a soft-skills business consultancy in Port Tobacco, Md. Zabriskie highly recommends Renee Evenson’s Customer Service Training 101 (Amacom) as well as Perfect Phrases for Customer Service (McGraw-Hill), by Robert Bacal.

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Bacal’s book is a how-to manual for employees that includes hundreds of tools, techniques, and scripts for handling various customer interaction scenarios. Along with general tips on good customer service, it provides game plans for coping with specific customer situations — for example, when you are late or know you will be late with a deliverable, when a customer is in a hurry, when a customer is abusive, etc.

Customer Service 101 is a comprehensive but easy-to-read guide that helps business owners prepare front-line employees to deal with any customer-facing situation. Loaded with great customer service tips, it uses a step-by-step format and interactive lessons to help companies develop training solutions that are effective and easy to implement. The book includes practical techniques for training employees in critical customer service behaviors, such as:

• projecting a positive attitude and making a great first impression

• communicating effectively, both verbally and nonverbally

• developing trust, establishing rapport, and making customers feel valued

• confidently handling difficult customers and situations

• interacting effectively face-to-face and via telephone and email

Other low-cost resources (and even some free ones) are available online. For example, E-Learning Center (e-learningcenter.com) offers a series of online customer service training courses that cover such topics as defining service, communicating, fixing problems, and building a customer service department. Unlimited access to all the courses for 12 months costs just $39. Some trade and industry associations offer their members free access to similar courses.

For more free customer service tips, download the free FuelNet Smart Paper Better Than Good: Customer Service Tips That Boost Profits.

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