Selling and Customer Relations Training

Introduction

In this increasingly competitive world, customers are in a position to demand ever-increasing levels of service and quality. Rather than simply react to their demands, successful companies are proactive in the way they manage quality and continuously seek to improve levels of customer satisfaction.  In this program, you will:

• Learn about Customer Service and Quality Management Tools
• Learn how to improve Customer Satisfaction
• Improve your people skills
• Learn how to proactively manage and control expectations
• Acquire a six-step process which you can use to plan your negotiations so that you can be sure that you have all the bases covered
• Develop and refine the 5 key skills crucial for expert negotiations: creating rapport, sensory acuity, yes sets, needs definition & sending positive messages
• Gain a structure within which you can effectively apply your new-found skills
• Understand how you can build on your own strengths and overcome your weaknesses in a negotiating situation
• Acquire a blueprint which you can apply for each negotiation you attend
• Know how to avoid common pitfalls and effectively handle "dirty tricks"
• Learn about Customer Service and Quality Management Tools
• Learn how to improve Customer Satisfaction
• Improve your people skills
• Learn how to proactively manage and control expectations

Objectives

• Describe how to use Quality Management tools and methods
• Build strong customer relationships
• Help influence and set customer expectations
• Measure their own degree of customer focus and be able to apply a variety of methods to get closer to the customer
• Implement improved people skills to enhance customer service
• Improve service to internal customers as well as external customers
• Use skills to build effective relationships

Training Methodology

This is an interactive course. There will be open question and answer sessions, regular group exercises and activities, videos, case studies, and presentations on best practice. Participants will have the opportunity to share with the facilitator and other participants on what works well and not so well for them, as well as work on issues from their own organizations. The online course is conducted online using MS-Teams/ClickMeeting.

Who Should Attend?

All sales & marketing professionals in customer-facing positions or with specific responsibilities for Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction. This course focuses on advanced techniques and therefore participants will usually be middle or senior managers who already have some experience of negotiating either individually or as part of a team.

Course Outline

Day 1: Introducing Quality Management and Customer Services

• Introduction to Quality Management
• The history of Quality in business
• Basic Quality concepts
• What is it that Customers want
• How can we calculate the total cost of Quality
• Customer satisfaction is a perception and can be managed
• Setting customer expectations
• Changing internal perceptions
• Getting closer to customers
• Understanding customer needs and expectations
• Commitment starts at the top of the organisation

Day 2: Service Quality - Tools and Techniques

• Five steps to Effective Quality Management
• Beginning with measurement
• Then we need methods of Control
• Continuous Improvement
• Service Quality Tools and Techniques
• Questionnaires
• Pareto Analysis
• Nominal Group Technique
• Cause and Effect Analysis
• Solution Effect Analysis
• Selection Grid

Planning the Negotiation

• working through a 6 step planning process
• specifying outcomes & building a database
• analyzing the database and understanding where the power lies
• building a settlement range
• planning the negotiation
• testing the plan

Day 3: Managing Customer Expectations

• Exceeding customer expectations every time
• Determining how to exceed expectations
• It’s the little things that matter - increased satisfaction at minimal cost
• Asking for feedback on performance
• Ongoing evaluation of effectiveness to ensure satisfaction
• Maximize the value you deliver
• Understanding different customer styles

Conducting the Face to Face Meeting

• working through the 6 step meeting process
• agreeing outcomes and establishing the agenda
• probing in order to develop an understanding
• making proposals and giving and receiving concessions
• applying effective closing techniques
• agreeing on action & recording outcomes
• monitoring the result

Day 4: People Skills to Deliver Excellent Customer Service

• Back to basics - communicating with our customers
• Identify Listening Styles for you and your customer
• Building Rapport
• Influencing skills
• Persuasion techniques
• Dealing with Difficult Customers
• Understanding Customer Behaviours
• Understanding where Anger comes from
• Developing Emotional Intelligence

Conducting the Face to Face Meeting

• working through the 6 step meeting process
• agreeing outcomes and establishing the agenda
• probing in order to develop an understanding
• making proposals and giving and receiving concessions
• applying effective closing techniques
• agreeing on action & recording outcomes
• monitoring the result

Coaching on Key Behaviours

• receiving individual coaching and feedback on current negotiating behaviour
• analyzing strengths and weaknesses using negotiating skills assessment checklists
• developing your key learning points
• Group exercise: Planning & role-playing a series of negotiations

Day 5: Breaking Deadlocks

• overcoming obstacles to agreement
• 'chunk up' and 'chunk down' strategy
• the power of metaphor
• applying the "negative consequences" technique
• diffusing objections and overcoming barriers
• Pairs exercise: Deadlock breaking techniques

Common Tactics

• understanding some of the more common negotiation 'ploys' and how to counter them
• Pairs exercise: Handling "dirty tricks"

Sending Positive Messages

• understanding the power of body language and voice quality
• the three-step assertive method
• the broken record technique
• Pairs exercise: Sending positive messages 

Making it happen

• A look at Quality Management Systems
• ISO, Balanced Scorecard, Six Sigma
• Producing a Plan of Action
• Improving customer Satisfaction in 5 quick steps