Enhance your customer service capabilities with our half-day online course, Customer Service Training for Frontline Staff, on September 25. Gain insights from industry experts on building strong community relationships through effective customer service. This course will teach you how to handle inquiries, resolve complaints, and manage challenging situations with confidence and professionalism. Elevate your skills and make a lasting impact in your community.
Course Program
Half-Day Online Course | Wednesday, September 25, 2024
Session 1 | 12:00-12:45 pm ET
The Why and How of Customer Service/Responding to Common Issues
How do you initiate a connection or conversation with someone? Why is customer service pivotal for library workers, and how can you improve your service excellence? This introductory session will highlight small, tangible ways you can enhance your customer service skills and build relationships with library users.
Session 2 | 12:45-1:30 pm ET
Customer Service and Relationships: Building Emotional Intelligence
What is emotional intelligence and how can it help you improve your customer service? How do you work toward growing emotional intelligence when it's such an amorphous concept? This session will explore practical ways to grow your self-awareness, interpersonal skills, and emotional intelligence to create and build trust with colleagues and library users.
Session 3 | 1:45-2:30 pm ET
Leading with Kindness: Communication and Customer Service in Difficult Situations
What is the role of communication in customer service, and what kind of communication is best to facilitate connection? What is nonviolent communication, and how can it help diffuse difficult patron interactions? This session will discuss tangible ways to navigate customer service during conflict and tension.
Session 4 | 2:30-3:00 pm ET
Phone and Email Etiquette
How do you conduct yourself professionally on the phone and over email? The answer might seem obvious to some, but these are learned skills that shouldn't be taken for granted. This session will cover practical tips for maintaining excellent phone and email communication and customer service.
Session 5 | 3:15-4:00 pm ET
The Customer Isn't Always Right: Self-Care and Boundaries
How do you determine when the customer isn't right, and then what do you do to move forward? How do you maintain your personal boundaries and self-care all while in a customer service role? This session will give you practical tips for identifying if and when a library user is worth keeping and how to focus on employee needs alongside customer service. We will also discuss ways to articulate your boundaries and identify ways to care for yourself while at work.
Safety and De-Escalation Foundations for Frontline Staff
Tuesday, Oct. 29
Interested in more courses for frontline staff? Check out Safety and De-Escalation Foundations for Frontline Staff on Oct. 29.
Why take this course: This course will teach you how to manage conflict and safety concerns proactively by learning strategies and tactics for conflict resolution, de-escalation, and long-term safety in your library. We’ll discuss trauma-informed practices for engaging with safety concerns, and give you tools to help you respond to security issues, file incident reports, and more in order to promote safety in your library and classroom.
Who should take this course: This course is geared toward frontline and other public-facing staff.
