Can customer service really be broken down in to a one-third solution? Let’s look at it this way, the majority of customers have the same basic needs for the most part. They want to see friendliness, responsiveness, accuracy, and diligent follow through. With these fundamental needs in mind, BCG has developed a concise, proprietary one-third customer service solution because, after all, customer service should be easy to follow.

Be Your Customer's Solution
Customers primarily want you to solve a problem for them. Provide your customers with solutions. When that is not possible, provide options. When a customer contacts you to make a request, let him/her know the steps that will be taken to fulfill his/her request, or rather, the solution that can fulfill their request. By providing your customer with a solution when you have identified it, it allows your customer to agree to the solution and ensures that the customer’s expectations will be met.

Be Your Customer’s Manager
View each customer contact as an opportunity to provide an education. If you handle their situation and educate them as to what the process is, you will manage their expectations, make them happy and save time for yourself in the future. Use the ACT approach to manage customer expectations:

Act

Promptly acknowledge that you have received the customer’s request. This acknowledgement lets your customers know that their request is being acted upon and is not sitting in a “black hole” or being ignored.

Calculate

Review the nature of the request, determine an estimate for how long the request could potentially take to fulfill, and map out the steps to achieve fulfillment.

Tell Them

Tell your customers about the action plan and the length of time for the service. BE HONEST! Continue to keep them informed of any time changes to the original anticipated completion date. Once you have told your customer about the plan of action and the timeline, keep them informed of the progress. In the end, YOU are also in control of your customer’s satisfaction by managing their expectations .

Be Your Customer's Friend
This may seem like a stretch at first; however, treat your customers as you would treat your friends - be reliable, empathetic, friendly, and communicative. It is as simple as that!

The one-third customer service solution is designed to keep the art of servicing your customers easy. At BCG, we can design a customer service course around these basic concepts to deliver a customized customer service training solution.

During training, the average adult learner is more likely to be an eager participant when the training is interactive and the content is presented in an interesting manner. Even the most skilled trainer can easily lose his/her audience to boredom when they are subjected to lengthy periods of being “talked to.” So, what is a trainer to do to maintain a stimulating training? Below are five techniques that can help trainers boost training participation while ensuring that the learning objectives are met:

1. Use icebreakers (such as warm up exercises, or “getting to know you” games) to relax participants and get them excited about learning in what is usually a structured, formal environment.

2. Promote learning by using relevant exercises and activities intermittently throughout the training.

3. Arrange participants into groups for problem/resolution activities and teambuilding exercises.

4. Utilize case studies to introduce “real world” examples of the content being presented.

5. Ask questions for the audience so that they feel open to expressing their expectations, views and concerns.

There are several alternate tips that can be employed, but the above techniques offer simple ways to help trainers boost participant levels. Facilitating an interactive training generates a positive atmosphere and fosters retention of the training material. Learners also feel that they have contributed to the session and that their input was welcomed and worthwhile.