3 Call Center Training Ideas for Customer Service

Call centers consistently rank among the most stressful jobs in America, so if you run a call center, it is vital to give your staff regular morale boosters and opportunities to engage with the bigger goals of your company. One great way to do both at the same time is with a staff training session.

These events, often an hour or less, can teach, empower, and assist your staff with their regular job responsibilities, but it can go far beyond that. When you offer training sessions that support your team’s well being outside of work hours, you can improve employee retention and help your workers enhance their overall quality of life.

1. Budgeting 101

The average call center worker may be on a tight budget, which is why it is important for call center employees to understand their finances and the budgeting process. Most public schools don’t teach anything about personal finance, so it may be up to employers to assist workers in learning best practices with their money.

A recent Federal Reserve survey found that 40 percent of Americans cannot come up with $400 in an emergency. If you operate a call center, you may find many of your employees in this dire situation. Teaching them how to budget can help them master saving for emergencies among other important financial topics.

2. Financial services lunch and learn

A “lunch and learn” session is a great way to get employees excited about training. Order some pizzas and bring in an expert presenter to teach employees everything they need to know about banking. A 2015 report from the FDIC found that seven percent of households are unbanked and an additional 19.9 percent are underbanked.

Teaching your staff how bank accounts, credit accounts, retirement accounts, and other financial accounts work can help them avoid expensive, predatory services like payday loans and check cashing. Avoiding these services helps your employees keep as many of their paycheck dollars as possible and makes them more stable at both home and work.

3. Culture and engagement workgroups

Don’t treat your training sessions as exclusively one-way conversations. Bring your employees into the decision-making process for critical issues that affect their work every day. Bring them into the conversation on company culture.

Take it a step further by bringing them into decision making for new tools and process improvements that can ultimately save your company money. No one knows the job better than people doing it every day.

Maximize engagement

Most well-run call centers offer customer service training, but it cannot be stressed enough how crucial other training opportunities can be for a thriving call center. Training should go beyond boring videos and online courses. While they may be cost-effective, this type of training does not always lead to the engagement for which your business hopes.

Bring in outside trainers, supervisors, and company executives to make the training as valuable and fun as possible. Because most incoming calls at call centers occur when a customer has a problem, keeping employee morale up is essential to maintaining the lowest possible employee turnover. If you strive for the best for your employees, they will work even harder for you in return.