What do you do when a customer confronts you for something that’s no fault of yours?

How can you keep calm and carry on when you are being yelled at?

What service recovery methods can you use to win back upset customers and regain trust?

Turn service challenges into opportunities

Your role as a service professional can be daunting. You are the first line of contact, who can also become the first to be attacked. Many of us have had to deal with angry or upset customers at some point, and they can indeed be difficult. Knowing what to say and how to stay calm and professional will go a long way to protect your business and brand image.

Through this course, learn to identify service challenge triggers and effectively manage your 5 key dimensions of service quality. Tap on negative feedback to initiate processes to safeguard your business. Your greatest service challenges could well become your biggest breakthroughs to impress the customer and foster brand loyalty.

- A difficult customer complaining about the service standards
HANDLING DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS & SERVICE CHALLENGES
COURSE OUTLINE FOR 1-DAY TRAINING PROGRAMME

EXAMINE THE TRIGGERS THAT LEAD TO SERVICE CHALLENGES

1. Identify the triggers that anger or upset customers

  • Recognise what makes customers upset, angry or complain
  • Realise how perceptions become reality

2. Analyse the dimensions of unmet expectations that can lead to different types of service challenges

  • Unpack the 5 dimensions of service quality
  • Review potential gaps in service quality that lead to customer dissatisfaction
  • Brainstorm ways to narrow identified gaps in the 5 dimensions of service quality

RESPOND TO SERVICE CHALLENGES THROUGH EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATION

3. Review the importance of responding promptly to unhappy customers

  • Step into the shoes of the upset customer to sense their frustrations
  • Establish a service-oriented mindset when interacting with customers and problems

4. Keep calm and carry on by managing personal emotions

  • Apply self-awareness and self-management techniques to remain calm and collected when dealing with difficult customers
  • Adopt self-motivation techniques to remain resilient amid service challenges

5. Apply principles of effective communication to project the correct visual, verbal and vocal messages

  • Convey thoughtfulness and empathy with positive body language and appropriate tone of voice
  • Use magic and avoid tragic words
  • Develop empathetic listening and apply reflect feeling responses to connect with the customer
  • Manage customer aggression effectively with assertive communication

ACTIVATE SERVICE RECOVERY AND ESCALATION PROCEDURES

6. Resolve service challenges through service recovery procedures

  • Respond to service challenges through a systematic 5-step process
  • Utilise healing actions in service recovery
  • Diffuse tense situations before they escalate into a nasty conflict

7. Escalate unresolved service challenges through proper channels and procedures

  • Understand how unresolved service challenges should be treated and escalated
  • Make effort to provide suggestions for improvement and innovation to fail-safe the business operations

TAKE ACTION CHALLENGE – YOUR ACTION PLAN AND INSPIRATION FOR TRANSFORMATION

COURSE FEES

SkillsFuture Accredited – Eligible for Training Grant, Absentee Payroll & Use of SkillsFuture Credit/Enterprise Credit

Funding validity from 10 May 2019 to 29 Apr 2025

Our Handling Difficult Customers & Service Challenges training programme is SkillsFuture-accredited and eligible for various training subsidies. The actual fee payable is dependent on the company’s incorporation type in Singapore (SME/non-SME), GST registration status, and the nationality, age and salary range of training participants.

As this is an SSG-funded programme, Singapore Citizen and Singapore Permanent Resident learners must record their attendance electronically via the SingPass app, meet a minimum attendance of 75% of the training hours, and pass the competency-based assessments to successfully complete the course and qualify for funding. Absentee Payroll is a grant for Singapore-registered companies (excluding government entities) to defray manpower cost, capped at $100,000 p.a. Excluded from our invoice for course fees, employers have to endorse their employees’ details in the Enterprise Portal for Jobs & Skills (EPJS) after their course completion to facilitate funding disbursement.

Please click on one of the 3 tabs below to review the relevant fees.

Participant’s Profile Singapore Citizen
>= 40 years		 Singapore Citizen
21-39 years /
S’pore PR >= 21 years		 Non-Singapore
Citizen/PR
(Foreigner)
Full Course Fee (incl 9% GST) $261.60 $261.60 $261.60
Less: SSG Training Grant – $168.00 – $168.00 N.A.
Amount Payable (incl GST) $93.60 $93.60 $261.60
Less: Absentee Payroll – $33.75 – $33.75 N.A.
Net Training Investment (excl GST) $38.25 $38.25 $240.00
Participant’s Profile Singapore Citizen
>= 40 years		 Singapore Citizen
21-39 years /
S’pore PR >= 21 years		 Non-Singapore
Citizen/PR
(Foreigner)
Full Course Fee (incl 9% GST) $261.60 $261.60 $261.60
Less: SSG Training Grant – $168.00 – $120.00 N.A.
Amount Payable (incl GST) $93.60 $141.60 $261.60
Less: Absentee Payroll – $33.75 – $33.75 N.A.
Net Training Investment (excl GST) $38.25 $86.25 $240.00
Participant’s Profile Singapore Citizen
>= 40 years		 Singapore Citizen
21-39 years /
S’pore PR >= 21 years		 Non-Singapore
Citizen/PR
(Foreigner)
Full Course Fee (incl 9% GST) $261.60 $261.60 $261.60
Less: SSG Training Grant – $168.00 – $120.00 N.A.
Amount Payable (incl GST) $93.60 $141.60 $261.60

IN-HOUSE CORPORATE CLASS

If you are planning to organise one or more corporate training run(s) for your team, you may wish to discuss the following with us:

  • Class Size – Our minimum class size is 12 participants per class. If your group is smaller than this, do consider our open enrolment classes. For optimal learning, we tend to cap our class size at 25 participants. If your team has specific requirements, we’re happy to make special arrangements too. Let us know what you envision your final enrolment numbers to be.

  • Participant Profile – What are the primary job functions and level of customer service experience of the training participants? How involved are they in problem solving? A relatively homogeneous participant profile usually facilitates the discussion of relevant application scenarios and pitching learning at a level that is comfortable for all participants. Yet at times, the benefit of enrolling participants from different backgrounds, e.g. to share best practices across departments or offer team-bonding opportunities, can make learning more purposeful and dynamic.

  • Training Contextualisation – Are there specific concerns that should be emphasised through the training? Are there scenario examples you’d like our trainers to address in class? Let’s discuss contextualisation preferences.

  • Training Venue – Do you plan to hold the training at your organisation’s premises or an external training venue?

  • Proposed Schedule – When are you planning to schedule the training run(s)? Are there specific days of the week or month that works better for your team, or black-out dates we should avoid?

OPEN-ENROLMENT PUBLIC CLASS

If you are thinking of enrolling yourself, colleagues or friends for our public run classes, the following information may come in handy:

  • Company-Sponsored – If you are enrolling yourself or your colleagues as company-sponsored training participants, simply let us know and we will take care of the Training Grant and Absentee Payroll applications under SkillsFuture SG. There is no need to tap on personal SkillsFuture Credit to pay for the course fees.

  • Self-Sponsored – If you are a Singapore Citizen aged 25 years and above, and have not fully utilised your SkillsFuture Credit (SFC), you can apply to pay for the course fees through SFC. If you are a Singapore Citizen between 21 to 30 years old with a Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA), you may also apply to pay for your own or your siblings’ course fees through PSEA. Once your registration is processed, we will send you an invoice for your claim of SFC or PSEA, and guide you through the simple administrative process. You do not need to make any payment if you apply to use your SFC or PSEA before the course start date.

  • Workfare Skills Support (WSS) – If you are a Singapore Citizen aged 35 years and above, and earn an average gross monthly income of not more than S$2,300, you may also qualify for a S$100 Training Commitment Award (TCA) plus additional training allowances upon completion of the training programme.

  • Open Enrolment Dates – We run a limited number of public classes and hope you will find one of the following dates suitable. We look forward to welcoming you at an upcoming class!

DISCUSS YOUR TRAINING NEEDS

OPEN ENROLMENT DATES FOR HANDLING DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS & SERVICE CHALLENGES TRAINING

15 Nov 2024 (Fri) [Class full]3 Dec 2024 (Tue) [Class full]6 Feb 2025 (Thu)
5 Mar 2025 (Wed)

Classes will be held from 9am to 6pm unless otherwise stated.
Kindly note that class commencement is subject to minimum class enrolment numbers.

REGISTER FOR OPEN ENROLMENT

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    HANDLING DIFFICULT CUSTOMERS & SERVICE CHALLENGES

    Facilitated by Imageworks in collaboration with Spectrum Management Consulting Course Code: TGS-2019503312
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    Handling Difficult Customers Training Course