Customers First--Service is Key!

Poster

While offering hospitality training to communities and organizations, a common question asked of Community and Economic Development (CED) educators with University of Illinois Extension was "Do you have anything on general customer service for businesses?" Since such a curriculum did not exist, two CED educators developed and authored a curriculum that was able to meet the need.

The "Customers First--Service is Key!" curriculum consists of eight modules that can each stand alone or be used in any combination to create a single or multiple sessions. Modules included in the curriculum are "Understanding Customers and Their Expectations"; "Losing Customers, Keeping Customers"; "Demonstrating Good Customer Service"; Communication: Verbal Language, Body Language"; "Telephone Skills"; and "Dealing with Unhappy Customers". The training length of the entire curriculum is just over five hours.

Research has shown that service has become so awful that customers expect to be mistreated. This trend has led to a high demand for customer service training. The curriculum has been used to train business employees from restaurants, retail and service establishments, banks, etc., as well as hospital and health department employees. The information in the curriculum is very general and can be used for employees of most any type of business. In addition, the section on understanding customers of different generations has led to a request for additional programming on generations, culture and communication, which is under development.

This presentation will take participants through the entire curriculum with explanations on how to use the included activities.