Soft Skills for ESS: A Must-Have for School Business Managers
As a School Business Manager, you know that delivering excellent customer service is essential to your school’s success. Your team of Education Support Staff interacts with a diverse range of customers, including teachers, parents, students, stakeholders, and the wider community. To provide top-notch service, your staff need the proper knowledge and skills to interact with customers of all types. That’s where soft skills come in.
Soft Skills for Customer Service Professionals
Since 2012, Just For Schools has been working with schools across Australia to create teams of Education Support Staff who work harmoniously and provide excellent service to every customer. We call these people Customer Service Professionals, and every school wants them, and every school needs them. Just For Schools specialise in soft skill development, which simply means, we provide the training that gives education support staff the knowledge and the skills to interact professionally with all types of customers – the chatty, the quiet, the demanding, the delightful, the friendly and everyone in between.
The Importance of a Diverse Customer Service Team
Customer service is not a ‘one size fits all’ process, and staff need a ‘toolbox’ of skills to deliver excellent service to meet the expectations of a diversity of customers. The more diverse your Education Support team is, the better your school will be.
The Power of Positive Experiences
If you’ve built or are trying to build a diverse and service skilled and confident Education Support team, there is one thing staff need to hear and be reminded of regularly (because we humans forget stuff). It can take up to twelve positive experiences for an unhappy customer to ‘forgive’ one negative experience.
In practical terms, this means that staff may interact with ‘unhappy’ customers even though they provide excellent service. For example, a customer who received a less than positive experience with the school in the past may need multiple positive experiences for the ‘damage’ to be forgiven. How long that takes is up to each individual customer.
Empowering Staff to Rebuild Trust with Unhappy Customers
Service excellence should consistently be recognised, especially when the customers make it challenging. Interacting with these customers can make staff feel that their excellent customer service skills and efforts are useless. To prevent this from happening, it’s important to remind Education Support Staff that if they feel a customer is being less than polite or friendly, it may be that the customer is on a journey to rebuild trust with the school. All staff are a vital step in that process. Give them the opportunity to vent their feelings, but also thank them for remaining professional and not dropping their service standards.
By investing in soft skills training for your Education Support Staff, you can create a diverse and service skilled Education Support team to help your school succeed. Empower your staff to provide excellent service and recognise their efforts, even when it’s challenging. Remember, positive experiences are essential in rebuilding trust with unhappy customers.
Ready to take your school’s customer service to the next level? Book training with Just For Schools and invest in the soft skills development of your Education Support Staff. With our training, you can:
- Provide your team with the knowledge and skills to interact professionally with all types of customers.
- Build a diverse customer service team that meets the expectations of various customers.
- Understand the power of positive experiences in rebuilding trust with unhappy customers.
- Empower your staff to rebuild trust with unhappy customers by allowing them to vent their feelings while remaining professional.
- Recognise your staff’s efforts in providing excellent service, even when it’s tough.
Keep your school from falling behind in customer service. Contact Just For Schools today and see the difference soft skills training can make for your Education Support Staff.