By Nancy Friedman, Keynote Speaker; President, Telephone Doctor Customer Service Training

Come on … everyone has one. Whether you’re a business owner, manager or employee.

Here’s mine.

My biggest frustration is having to convince senior management to invest in customer service training. I often hear from customer service reps and many other employees: “They want and seek better training, but it’s too often put aside for other company ‘priorities.’." Seriously? What’s more important than servicing your customers?

The main reason for poor customer service is usually tracked back to lack of proper training. Yet for many companies, customer service is not a priority! Managers are so busy putting out daily fires that they often fail to notice they are losing business by not servicing their customers. Or perhaps worse, they assume their customers are being handled well.

Smart businesses that truly care about dealing with the public and providing quality customer service invest in training programs.

There’s a direct correlation between poor customer service and lack of customer service training.

There’s great frustration knowing you can help a business perform better, but you must convince top management it’s worth the time, money and effort to train their employees in successful customer service techniques.

Please don’t confuse this with being ‘self-serving.’

When we don’t get the business at Telephone Doctor, it’s usually not due to budget or money. It’s the universal and way too often excuse of, “I can’t get management to buy in.” Or the worse reason of all, “We’re going in another direction.” (And it’s usually away from the customer.)

That’s my biggest business frustration. What’s yours?

Bring it on. Maybe someone will be reading it.