Customer Service Management Training 101

Renee Evenson

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780814417164
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Relations clientèles

Becoming a great customer service manager requires an intentional focus on skills beyond those required for exemplary customer service. Building off the success of her book Customer Service Management Training 101, author Renée Evenson shows readers what it takes to advance to the next stage in their careers--focusing on their development as managers. Filled with the same accessible, step-by-step guidance as its predecessor, this book teaches readers how to identify their personal management style and develop the core leadership qualities needed to communicate with, lead, train, motivate, and manage those employees responsible for customer satisfaction. Designed for new managers and veterans alike, Customer Service Management Training 101 covers essential topics, including: planning and goal setting, time management, team development, conflict resolution, providing feedback, listening to your employees, monitoring performance, conducting meetings, and managing challenges.Packed with checklists, practice lessons inspired by real-world scenarios, and detailed examples and explanations of the right and wrong ways to do things, this handy resource is the start and finish of everything customer service managers need to know to thrive.

PART ONE

MANAGING
YOURSELF

1

Understanding Your
Management Style

Frontline management is not easy. You have employees for whom you are responsible. You have a manager to whom you report. And you are, quite frankly, caught in the middle. The expectation of your employees to get results while responding to your own manager’s needs can leave you feeling overwhelmed. How do you do it all without cracking under the stress?

In addition to having employee and upper management responsibilities, you are also accountable for customer satisfaction, for ensuring that your employees provide exceptional customer service to every customer all the time. How do you accomplish that goal, especially when you are keeping so many balls in the air?

Well-trained frontline employees are your key to customer satisfaction, and knowledgeable and engaged managers are the key to well-trained employees. By effectively training, observing, and motivating, your employees will learn to do their best and that will result in the level of customer service that both your company and customers expect.

Customer Service Is Job #1

Customer service may not be your only job duty, but it is the most important one. As a frontline manager, your success depends not only on how well you perform, but on how well your employees perform. In other words, your success depends on your mastery of leadership and management skills and how well you are able to transfer those skills to your employees.

The first step to becoming a successful manager is to understand and identify your personal management style. Knowing who you are, how you communicate, and why you behave as you do helps you develop the positive skills that result in effective management.

The truth is that not every manager is a good manager. Some lead by controlling others, taking an upper-handed authoritative approach, with little or no trust in their employees. Others lead passively, taking a hands-off approach and wanting more to be liked by their employees than to manage them. The most successful managers take a hands-on, participative approach and find the balance between being controlling and remaining passive depending on the employee and the circumstances.

By learning about different management styles and characteristics, you can assess your personal style and determine your strengths, as well as identify areas needing improvement. When you define those strengths and, more importantly, see where improvement is needed, you can create a developmental action plan and move toward becoming the manager your employees and coworkers appreciate and value.

Remember that your success is directly linked to how well your employees perform. While it is great to be liked by your employees, it is more important to have their respect. When you follow the steps below, you will develop effective management skills that will earn the respect of both your employees and coworkers.

STEP 1: Learn Management Styles and Functions

STEP 2: Analyze Your Personal Style

STEP 3: Define Your Strengths and Areas Needing Improvement

STEP 4: Create Your Developmental Action Plan

SPOTLIGHT ON MANAGEMENT

The Wrong Way to Manage the Frontline

Jack, a frontline manager for a large office supply chain, manages ten sales employees. He is a gregarious man who likes to tell jokes and make others laugh. To be well-liked means a lot to him. He read somewhere that it is important to have fun on the job, so he manages by making sure his employees are having a good time.

Jack does a great job training new employees, but he does little follow-up to make sure they are doing their jobs correctly. He also allows his employees to hang out in his office and does not feel comfortable telling them to get back to work. Consequently, customers are often left to wander around the store when employees are in his office joking and having fun.

One day, before storming out of the store, an irate customer said to one of the employees, “I’ve been walking around this store for ten minutes, and no one has come to help me. I just wanted to let you know I’m going to the store down the street where I know they appreciate my business.”

Later, when the employee was in Jack’s office relating this conversation, another employee asked, “What high horse did he ride in on?” Everyone laughed, but Jack knew he should have done something to prevent the situation from occurring in the first place.

What Went Wrong?

Jack tends to be a passive manager. Because he wants his employees to like him, he did not take the necessary measures to ensure they were putting customers first. He hoped his employees knew what to do, but when they did not demonstrate that knowledge, Jack did not speak up and change the situation. Rather than being more assertive when he needed to, he sat back. When the employee made a disparaging comment about the customer, Jack laughed along with the employees rather than pointing out their mistake.

What Could Make This Right?

Jack never took the time to assess his management style, define his strengths and areas needing improvement, or create a developmental action plan. Honest self-analysis and skills development could have helped him find the balance he needed to manage effectively—and still create a happy work environment.

STEP 1: Learn Management Styles and Functions

The most important function of frontline management is to lead and develop employees. When you manage people your job is to accomplish tasks and achieve goals through your employees. How you achieve this result depends on the employees and the circumstances.

The methods you most often apply to employee interactions and various situations define your personal management style. Your management style determines how you communicate, make decisions, solve problems, and put your critical thinking skills to use. The most effective managers do not apply the same style all the time. Rather, they are able to adapt their style as needed.

The study of management has been widely researched. Similar managerial styles, ranging from overly controlling to a complete lack of control, emerge. The style now viewed as the most effective is participative. Yet, researchers also conclude that participative management actually incorporates both controlling and passive behavior, depending on the environment.

In this chapter, three distinct styles of management will be discussed. They are shown on the continuum below. A continuum is a plotting tool that uses a continuous line with varying points of reference placed along it. Later in this chapter, you will plot your personal management style. Most likely, after analyzing your behavior, you are going to find that your comfort zone falls somewhere to the left or right of participative, depending on your personality and experience level.

Controlling Management Is Autocratic Management

The controlling manager makes decisions for the team with no input or consultation with employees, preferring to tell them what to do. Communication is generally one-way from top to bottom, and the manager does more talking than listening.

This management style is effective when snap decisions must be made, when immediate action is necessary, when time constraints do not allow for employee input, when employee input is not warranted, or when employees are new to the task and have not been fully trained. It is least effective when used excessively or inappropriately. Employees lose motivation when they are not involved in decision making, and autocratic overuse can even lead to a hostile work environment in which employees feel they have no autonomy or are not empowered to do their jobs.

Autocratic management is no longer a desired approach to managing and most managers have abandoned it; those who still heavily rely on this approach are often labeled “dinosaurs.”

Participative Management Is Shared Management

The participative manager applies a hands-on, involved approach, and both the manager and employees share in making decisions and solving problems. This manager knows his or her employees well, understands their strengths and weaknesses, and knows who functions best under this approach. Employee input is welcome and delegation of work is utilized. Communication is two-way and open.

This management style is effective when the manager takes the time to adequately train, observe, develop, and provide feedback to employees. When these steps are taken, employees feel engaged and empowered to perform at their best. This style is least effective when employee input is continually welcomed but not acted upon, when too much or not enough responsibility is shared with employees, or when work is delegated to employees who do not have the ability to complete the task.

Participative management emerged when team involvement, quality work groups, and self-managed teams became popular. Employee empowerment through the participative approach is now the widely accepted and preferred management style.

Passive Management Is Permissive Management

The passive manager takes a back seat and allows the team to make decisions, set goals, and achieve objectives. Communication is two-way, often adopting a democratic approach in which employees are given equal power with the manager for making decisions.

This management style is effective when employees have been well trained, are high achievers who work as a cohesive unit, and have displayed sound decision-making and problem solving techniques. It is last effective when teams have not reached the cohesive stage of development or when the manager uses it to avoid making decisions or resolving conflict. Overuse of this approach can lead to a lack of focus and direction, or even more serious, a lack of respect by the employees.

Passive management, while not the ideal style of managing when utilized excessively, can be appropriate when employees have proved they deserve em...