TLC Business Solutions a leading training and development provider is launching a new course aimed at the hospitality and retail sectors. Recognising the essential role of good customer service in boosting visitors to the Isle of Man, as well as offering a good customer experience to those that live here, TLC continues to support Island initiatives.
The training will focus on the often junior staff who deal with customers – both face-to-face and on the phone – and who are the face of the business as far as customers are concerned. TLC Managing Director Sue Gee commented that “while there’s plenty of training available for career development, there isn’t much for staff in hospitality and retail where they tend to have a quite high turnover of staff. In a customer facing role, it’s vital that that staff have the motivation and skills to do a good job, even if the work is short-term or temporary. That’s a need we’ve aimed to fulfil with this course.”
It is understood that small businesses may not have the resources to give people these skills on the job, and may be reluctant to invest time and money in training for staff who themselves do not expect to stay long. This course has been deliberately kept short – just 1? days – and offered at an affordable cost, to give employers a high return for a low investment and minimum time away from the business.
In the hospitality industry, customer service is core to the daily running of the businesses. Without it, hotels and restaurants would be unsustainable. If there was any doubt about the importance of customer service training, Kim Chambers, General Manager of the Claremont Hotel, makes it plain: “To exceed your customers' expectations you need to identify what they really want and be able to offer that to them. Training your team to recognise these needs is key to offering good customer service in any organisation. A trained team provide consistently good customer service because they have the skill to recognise exactly what the customer needs. Customers all have different needs, and it’s customer orientated training that will make the difference and give your team the skills to identify these needs and carry them out efficiently.”
TLC’s new course is based around feedback like this, and recognises that many employees will have had little experience or training in this vital part of service delivery. Sue Gee continues: “using realistic scenarios followed by professional and constructive feedback, people can make any mistakes in a safe environment and learn from them without consequences – you don’t want that learning curve to take place with paying customers!”
The course will help delegates to understand what customers expect and how to give them the service they want. Topics will include telephone skills; the importance of the right attitude, behaviour and appearance; and the role of personal responsibility – why doing a good job matters.
Ends
Tuesday 26th, October 2010 12:46pm.
