The Customer Service Agent in Action

Overview/Description
 There are now some 7 million customer service agents (CSAs) working in nearly 80,000 call centers in the United States. Call centers are burgeoning in Europe and the Pacific Rim as well, and experts predict that the number of CSAs will grow by 20 percent each year. Worldwide, revenues for the call center industry could soon reach almost $60 billion. The magnitude of these numbers suggests the important role that customer service agents play in today's business world. This course is designed to help CSAs understand their essential functions as well as the context and importance of their work. Increasingly, CSAs are responsible for managing customer relationships. Their jobs have evolved from simple processing of customer service requests to more complex nurturing of the customer, supporting company profitability by building customer loyalty. CSAs collect more detailed data than ever before, assess more varied and more complex problems, and use increasingly sophisticated technology. Working under intense time pressure, they must meet customer needs and exceed customer expectations. Of course, the crux of the CSA job in a call center is handling the service call. This course teaches CSAs how to manage each stage of the call, from introduction through problem resolution. It also covers methods of making call centers effective, by balancing customer needs against limited resources, and ways of measuring that effectiveness.

Target Audience
 Customer service agents who are seeking to acquire new skills or to improve their current skills

Expected Duration
4.5 hours

Lesson Objectives:

Defining the Role of the Customer Service Agent

  • recognize the value of the customer service agent in today's business world.
  • identify examples of the functions of a customer service agent.
  • match customer expectations and needs with examples.
  • match customer-service technologies with examples of their primary functions.

    • Stages of the Customer Service Call

  • recognize the benefits of following a methodical process for handling a service call.
  • employ a personalized introduction in a hypothetical service call.
  • match information-gathering activities with corresponding examples.
  • use appropriate activities to gather information from a customer during a hypothetical call.
  • match stages of resolving the customer's problem with examples.
  • resolve a customer's problem in a hypothetical call scenario.

    • Making Call Centers Effective

  • recognize the benefits of maximizing the effectiveness of customer care efforts.
  • assign ranks to hypothetical customer calls according to priority.
  • match examples of service features with the corresponding methods that measure them.

    • Course Number: CUST0151