FOCUS | CSIA Quarterly | February 2019

February 2019 CSIA Quarterly

JENNIFER TSE The 2018 Customer Service Professional of the Year on her experiences in the industry.

Love your customer

Flex your positivity muscle

Virtual CX's Andrew Carlton on helping organisations respect their customer.

Matthew Prowse on how to build a positive workplace and have more satisfied customers.

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CSIA FOCUS

So 2019 begins!

Welcome back to all our readers.

In this issue of FOCUS we explore the importance of loving our employees just as much as our customers.

We hope you’re enjoying the summer months and are gearing up for a wonderful year. Creating great customer experiences means we have to be ready for change — customerfocused organisations must continue to grow and transform.

In this issue of FOCUS we're looking at that sometimes difficult, but essential, notion of loving your customer.

As I travel around the country, meeting and understanding where hundreds of businesses are in their customer experience journey, one thing consistently stands out.

Those providing their staff with the same level of compassion they provide their customers are enjoying outsized business results, both in people retention and on the bottom line.

In this issue we partner with AcknowledgmentWorks to recognise why understanding your employee experience is just as important as understanding your customer experience.

Matthew Prowse from IAG teaches us how to flex our positivity muscles and we also speak with

Virtual CX, one of CSIA’s Certified Practitioners, about how international best practice standards allow for unprecedented insight into customer experience transformations.

If your business is passionate about creating great customer experiences and would like to join a powerful network, there’s no better way than to become a CSIA member. Ramp up your professional development and celebrate your successes.

In fact, in preparation for this year’s Australian Service Excellence Awards, one of our judges outlines what the most important things to focus on are and we speak with the 2018 Customer Service Professional of the Year who tells us her tips for loving the customer.

It’s a packed issue, and it’s going to be a packed year!

Anouche Newman CEO

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“Loving your customer is about creating an emotional connection with them. It is about investing your energy into getting it right, fixing underlying issues and doing the right thing, all the time."

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Contents

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News in Brief

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Love your customers and they will love you

Virtual CX's Andrew Carlton on helping organisations respect their customer.

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The heart of our customer experience — our employee experience

Create great experiences for your employees and they'll do the same for your customers.

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Jennifer Tse

Hear from the 2018 Customer Service Professional of the Year.

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Flex your positivity muscle

Matthew Prowse shares some practical examples to build a positive workplace and have more satisfied customers.

14 Are you ready for national recognition?

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How to write your way into your customers’ hearts

Peter Vierod explores how the right tone and friendly approach can prompt lasting customer relationships.

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Join our network of customer service professionals today

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CSIA FOCUS

News in Brief

CSIA Community Calendar This year is off to a roaring start!

So, to help CSIA's community stay on top of upcoming events, training programs and networking opportunities check out the CSIA Community Calendar on our website.

Chief Customer Officer Melbourne Join other customer service executives as they explore the technology, ideas and leadership skills needed to deliver customer service excellence in 2019 and beyond.

Prepare for tomorrow by registering early for the CCO Melbourne and meet like-minded people and other customer service professionals.

CSIA Members can take advantage of the 20% discount for this event.

The calendar will let you know which events CSIA is hosting and participating in to support customer service professionals and the industry across the first half of 2019.

20 - 21 March 2019 Pullman on the Park, Melbourne

Keep an eye on our website as this calendar will be updated regularly.

Register

View Calendar

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Remember all those grand scale ideas you had last year?

Well, it’s 2019 now! And it’s time to get those changes moving!

CSIA is excited to partner with hundreds of organisations across the country as they begin (and continue!) their journeys towards customer success.

Newly certified companies Congratulations to Uniting for its recent certification to the International Customer Service Standard (ICSS: 2015-2020).

We would also like to congratulate Defence Housing Australia (DHA) and Department of Transport and Main Roads Queensland for maintaining their status as Certified Customer Service Organisations through their recent recertification to the International Customer Service Standard.

2019 ASEAs nominations are now open

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Love your customers and they will love you Understanding the International Customer Service Standard gives Andrew Carlton from Virtual CX a deeper insight into helping organisations respect their customer.

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1. Being a certified practitioner, what are some of the key problems organisations are looking for you to solve?

There are probably three key areas where we help organisations. Often businesses need help when they are starting a customer experience journey. We provide guidance on strategy, building a CX framework, setting priorities, getting organisational buy-in or starting on implementation.

This typically happens after new leaders are appointed or there has been a particular service challenge, which causes a rethink in the customer experience strategy.

Organisations seek some CX thought leadership leveraging our experiences and industry knowledge as well as bringing proven methodology to get started.

We also support organisations that have been on a CX journey for some time, and are doing really well but need a hand in a particular area. We assist with things like digital transformation, rescuing a dipping Net Promoter Score, or helping the organisation regain customer service momentum. As a Certified Practitioner, we bring a fresh set of professional eyes, and some tools and templates, that can create cut through, help refocus on the customer experience and rebuild momentum.

"If you care about your customers, you should not expect them to wait while you make product, digital or service improvements."

Most importantly, Virtual CX has an intimate knowledge of the International Customer Service Standard (ICSS).

As a judge for the Australian Service Excellence Awards program, we bring significant industry knowledge, best practices and benchmarking. Understanding what the best customer service organisations do in Australia gives us incredible insight into the strategies and solutions to help guide and coach CX leaders.

2. Do you have any stories that show the most common misconceptions about delivering customer service excellence?

Of course! And they generally have a common theme.

For example, one client was facing very high call volumes that, unsurprisingly, decreased customer satisfaction levels. They wanted help developing customer journeys and to introduce some digital solutions. A common challenge, but these solutions had longer time horizons and no immediate relief for customers.

We worked with them to make some rapid process and operational changes that improved servicing and efficiency. These changes had immediate benefits for customers and also created resource capacity and funding to work on longer term solutions.

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If you care about your customers, you should not expect them to wait while you make product, digital or service improvements. That is treating customers with great disrespect. We believe that simple solutions can be easily implemented while you work on the more sophisticated and longer term changes.

3. Seeing the world through from the customers perspective, what is it that you think customers really want when they reach out to a business?

It’s pretty straightforward. They want accurate and timely answers to their enquiries, they want to be treated as individuals and they want their loyalty recognised.

They are prepared to pay a premium for a product when they get this kind of service, they are prepared to forgive mistakes and they are prepared to recommend you to friends and family.

4. How does “loving the customer” give clarity to how a business approaches delivering customer service excellence (how is it different from our current view of customer service delivery)?

Loving your customer is about creating an emotional connection with them. It is about investing your energy to getting it right, fixing underlying issues and doing the right thing, all the time. You eliminate the small print and “gotcha” features and recognise the long-term value and loyalty of a customer is more than just one transaction.

We think this emotional level of a relationship with customers goes beyond traditional customer satisfaction thinking, beyond the current customer experience thinking, it is the next level. If you are able to establish this kind of emotional connection with customers, you will get the love back as a business.

5. What are the advantages of working with a certified practitioner?

There are significant advantages of working with a CSIA Certified Practitioner that go beyond traditional consultants. In the case of Virtual CX, we have experience in leading customer experience organisations for over 20 years both in Australia and overseas, winning multiple awards at the ASEAs and working with some of the best practice customer experience organisations in Australia.

We provide practical, workable solutions and have experienced and resolved the problems that our clients are facing.

Andrew Carlton Director and Founder Virtual CX

Andrew is the Director and Founder of Virtual CX, a customer centered consulting firm specializing in Customer Experience (CX) strategy, service transformation and digital transformation.

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CSIA FOCUS

The heart of our customer experience — our employee experience Christopher Littlefield, the founder of AcknowledgmentWorks and CSIA's Amanda Moroney look at why creating great customer experiences starts with a focus on your employees.

If you’ve ever walked into a business only to be greeted by the top of an employee’s head as they ignore you while on their phone, then you know how irritating disengaged employees can be.

As people-focused organisations, we are often aware of how a warm and engaged interaction (“may I help you”, “how was your experience”, “thank you”) can make or break the customer experience. But what we are not always mindful of, is how every interaction with our employees represents an identical experience.

According to Gallup’s 2017 State of the Global Workforce Report, 86% of the Australian and New Zealand workforce is disengaged or actively disengaged.

Your team members might be showing up to work, but are not necessarily working, and some people (you know who they are) might even be encouraging others not to work!

The data reflects a powerful picture: organisations with the highest engagement levels have 10% higher customer service metrics, are 17% more productive, have 21% more sales and are 24% more profitable.

Furthermore, these organisations

also see their absenteeism go down by 41% and turnover decrease by as much as 54%.

If you want to take our customer experience to the next level, you must start by taking our employee experience to the next level.

The Paradigm Shift – Employee Experience is Everyone’s Job Outsourcing employee experience to Human Resources is like outsourcing sales to IT; they might get the hardware, software and provide some training, but if people aren’t using the tools, there is little or no impact.

According to Gallup, 70% of the variance in employee disengagement is dependent on the employee’s manager. If we want to transform our employee experience you must start by taking ownership. As leaders, the experience of our people is our responsibility and every action, or inaction, has an impact.

How do you understand your employee experience?

We apply the same lens that we use to understand our customer experience!

Why do people choose to apply?

What do they experience day-to-day working for you? Most importantly, what keeps our best people coming back, and what (or who) is driving our best people to leave, To answer these questions you need to first ask, and then really listen.

“Take care of your employees and they’ll take care of your business,” says Richard Branson.

If we want to wow our customers we need to start by wowing our employees.

It is the little gestures, each and every day that show our people that we value and care for them.

An employee who feels valued, appreciated and can see that they have room to develop and grow will show up for both the organisation and its customers.

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Here are some simple ideas to get your employees glowing:

For Senior Leaders Your actions or inaction's set the examples for how others act.

• Understand your employee experience. Schedule time with your leadership team to reflect on the following questions: Why do people choose to apply? What do they experience day-to-day working for us?

• Start every leadership team meeting by asking one or two people: How have you wowed your employees, since your last meeting?

Tell me about an employee who flies below the reader but constantly does amazing work?

For People Leaders Get to know your people better.

• Pick the person on your team that you know the least and invite them

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for coffee. Be honest and ask how you can better support them.

Remember that ensuring people feel valued is not about having the right thing to say, it is about knowing your people and what matters to them.

For Individual Contributors

Even though people may not report to you, that does not mean they do not look up to you as an example.

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Take five minutes to thank someone from a different department and let them know how their actions had an impact on you.

Support a coworker. Do you see someone struggling, reach out and see if there is a way you can support them. You could cover them so they can take a break, share things that have helped you succeed, or just take a few minutes to listen.

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Christopher Littlefield Founder AcknowledgmentWorks

Christopher is an International and TEDx speaker specializing in employee engagement. From the Lebanese Postal Service to the United Nations, he has trained thousands of leaders around the globe in how to ensure their people feel valued everyday.

Amanda Moroney General Manager – Customer Success CSIA

Amanda is committed to creating positive workplaces through programs and initiatives that focus on employees as people and their experience within the work environment.

PROFILE

Jennifer Tse

2018 Customer Service Professional of the Year

No matter how tough the customer service front line is, true professionals know a positive attitude will generate terrific results.

Jennifer Tse once had such an abrasive interaction with a customer she was reduced to tears. But weeks later she met them at a conference, connected and ended up taking selfies and having a wonderful chat.

“We had a great time!” she says.

“Sometimes customers can be very aggressive, but mostly they are just frustrated.

“At the time it was a tough situation, but it’s important not to take things personally and put yourself in their shoes. We are all people at the end of the day.”

Ms Tse, a customer specialist at Intuit Australia, was recently awarded Customer Service Professional of the Year at the 2018 Australian Service Excellence Awards.

She says she never could have dreamed of such a public accolade.

“Even though nobody means to, customer service professionals are sometimes overlooked in their organisation,” she says.

“But for my business leadership to recognise and acknowledge our work, in such a public way, it is so amazing.

It’s a powerful motivator.”

Ms Tse has been with Intuit Australia for three years and over that time has developed an arsenal of customer service strategies to help clients when they get in touch with issues.

“The first thing to remember is you’re starting a relationship straight away,” she says. “That’s the simplest way to love your customer; know they have their own feelings and are dealing with a problem.”

Then, she explains, authenticity is the simplest way for the customer to find a way to love you back.

“Listen. Let them express themselves and vent,” she says. “Maybe they don’t have anyone else to express themselves to or maybe they’ve just been yelled at by their own boss.”

Ms Tse credits her patience and understanding of customer problems to a long-running program Intuit runs to establish customer behaviours.

It’s called the “Follow Me Home” program, where staff observe customers in their homes, offices and other places to determine exactly how they use the company’s products.

“I’m not a business owner, so I don’t know what our customers do every day, but experiences like that definitely give me an insight,” says Ms Tse. “Looking over someone’s shoulder showed me just how they use our products and now when I’m on the phone, or working on a project with a customer, I now have a much better idea of what questions they might have.”

"The first thing to remember is you’re starting a relationship straight away. That's the simplest way to love your customer."

Ms Tse says the customer service teams provide invaluable information streams for the rest of the business and any company that hopes to expand and grow happily should listen to their feedback.

“We are the people who talk to your customers the most, we have the most genuine feedback,” she says.

“When you release a new product, we know how customers will interact with it, and how they might feel about it.”

When it comes to acknowledging customer service excellence, Ms Tse says the ASEAs program is a powerful motivator to bring together lots of different people doing an often misunderstood job.

“It’s amazing to know there’s such a supportive network out there.”

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CSIA FOCUS

Flex your positivity muscle In a world where fear sells and negativity grabs the headlines, it’s never been more important to flex our collective positivity muscle.

Matthew Prowse, Customer Experience Director at one of Australia’s largest insurance companies, shares some practical examples to build a happier and more positive you, a more engaged team and more satisfied customers who will love your brand even more.

I watch a lot of news. I always have.

However, now that I have two young children, I find I’m much more selective about when, where and how I consume it. The doom, gloom, terrorism and death. It’s everywhere, on every platform…and is it just me, or is it getting worse?

Our brains are acutely primed to scan for potential threats. It’s part of our primal ‘fight or flight’ reflex.

Rick Hanson, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at University of California, Berkeley says: “two-thirds of neurons in the amygdala (part of the human brain) are geared toward bad news, immediately responding and storing it in our long-term memory… Good news, by comparison, takes 12 whole seconds to travel from temporary to long-term memory.”

As international media fight for eyeballs and click-throughs… is it any wonder they are relentlessly focusing on the type of news that gets fast-tracked into our medial temporal lobe?

Good news travels fast… but bad news gets the clicks (and unfortunately stays with us much longer).

Think about how this negativity is affecting us physiologically.

According to Beyond Blue, 45% of Australians will experience a mental health condition in their lifetime and 1 in 6 Aussies will experience depression at some time in their lives.

How to restore balance But there’s some good news!

Positivity, like a muscle in the body, can grow with discipline and becomes stronger through practice.

It’s never been more important to flex our collective positivity muscles and help restore balance in ourselves, our families, our friends and our workplace.

Positively engaged teams consistently outperform the norm; increased first call resolution, lower staff turnover, reduced absenteeism, improved work accuracy and as much as three times more creativity and innovation. Positivity is a genuine

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"Positivity is a genuine source of competitive advantage."

source of competitive advantage (and an emerging job title on LinkedIn: Chief Happiness Officer).

CX program. Remember, the negative ones inherently travel faster around the water cooler.

The stories our customers generate are equally as important. In an age where 86% of consumers read online reviews for local business before making purchase decisions, the stories your brand generates matter.

Vision Critical research from 2015 suggests that it takes up to 10 positive reviews to counteract one negative review.

Positively empowered employees are much more likely to create experiences that customers love.

Look on the bright side

However, all too often, the stories that companies broadcast focuses on the dark side of customer service; service recoveries, detractor call backs, customer pain points, training opportunities and complaint escalations.

Prior to visiting the frontline, make sure you’re open to seeing the entire picture, including any and all positives. Not just things that can be improved on.

To help teams positively thrive (and deliver experiences that customers love), be mindful of the internal stories generated by your

Leadership is paramount to unlocking the positivity potential in teams.

The feedback you give must balance the good with the bad. According to research from Losada & Heaphy; “top performing teams give each other more than five positive comments for every criticism”.

So here's to a happier, more positive you. Flex your positivity muscle every day. Your teams, your customers and most importantly 'you' are relying on it.

So even though I can’t stop reading and watching the news, I can be much more conscious about what I retain in my heart, what I take with a grain of salt and what stories I share with my kids.

Matthew Prowse Customer Understanding Director IAG

Matt is a customer evangelist charged with bringing the voices of customers and colleagues into organisations through stories. He helps them to be customerled and data-driven through the creation of customer-centred routines, rhythms and resources.

He's managed Customer programs at FOXTEL, Rolling Stone Magazine and The Sydney Morning Herald.

Inject more positivity in your daily routine So how do we stop work being a ‘four-letter word’ and inject more positivity in our daily routines? Here are three simple starters:

Look for good

Build a gratitude attitude

Do good for goodness sake

Your brand is delivering positive customer outcomes daily. Hunt them down and broadcast them.

Back in 2015 I committed to sharing a positive customer story on our Yammer pages every morning for 100 days (#100happydays).

Recognise those bright spots within your organisation and put them on a pedestal. Celebrate the greatness they do for your customers through recognition programs (i.e. Customer Heroes).

I am a firm believer in random acts of kindness. No payback. No return.

One simple act of good each and every day. Thank your security guard with his favourite coffee on the way into the office. Send a thank you note to the team member who stayed back last night to finish the board report.

It was hard to begin with, but soon I was blown away by the quality (and sources) of these stories across our business. The hashtag is still being used today to share positive customer stories.

One of the most effective sales teams I have ever been a part of held a 15-minute stand-up at the end of each shift to share our highlight of the day… “end on a high, not a sigh” was our team leader’s mantra.

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CSIA FOCUS

Are you ready for national recognition?

CSIA talks to ASEA Lead Judge, Danielle Larkins who tells us “If you’re looking for ASEA success keep your application simple and clear.”

Developing a clear narrative around your customer success journey is just one of the ways your business can prepare to win national recognition for your hard work.

“We understand that many businesses want to give everyone in all the teams an opportunity to contribute and present to the judges,” says Danielle.

Judges for the Australian Service Excellence Awards (ASEAs) know that customer-first transformations are complex and often involve many moving parts, but investing time in a coherent application is critical.

“But there have been times when great people, people who do amazing customer service work, are presenting to us and we can tell they’re not comfortable telling the story.”

“A solid, chronological narrative tells a powerful growth story,” says Danielle Larkins, Managing Director of ServicePeople, a Melbourne-based customer service recruitment agency, and Lead Judge for the ASEAs program.

“It might take some time to assemble the information from various stakeholders, but your application will be very compelling if the judges can see clearly how far you’ve come.”

The success of the awards program has seen an explosion in applicants in recent years, and Danielle says this has resulted in a much higher application quality from all over Australia.

“The level of competition is astounding. All different kinds of businesses are outlining ways they’ve embedded customer experience practices into their cultures and want to show what a difference it has made to their business.”

Pick your captain Another tip Danielle has for future applicants, is to think about which stakeholders are the right ones to present to the ASEA judges, as they do their country-wide trip to visit prospective award-winners.

Danielle uses Stryker South Pacific, a medical technology firm that won the 2018 Best of the Best Award, as a polished example.

“Stryker used their executive team and key personnel who were clear about the growth and change the business had been through. It was succinct and impactful.”

Use the data Another message Danielle has for prospective applicants is to drill down into your figures and lay out exactly how you are measuring your success.

She says too many organisations fail to document their progress, which makes it very difficult to understand whether a strategy has been successful.

“It’s all very well to have installed new tools or developed special customer-success roles,” she says.

“But without iron-clad metrics we can’t see the impact that has had on customers, employees and the organisation.

For example, some businesses implement a CRM, but don’t actually measure the impact of any changes.”

Failure to track the difference of how new technologies and cultural initiatives improve a business is one of the widespread problems in the customer service industry, says Danielle.

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“The level of competition is astounding.

All different kinds of businesses are outlining ways they’ve embedded customer experience practices into their cultures."

“Those kinds of numbers are really invaluable to help you understand the real cost of poor customer service,” she adds.

“They show just how much of an incredible burden poor customer service actually is for your business, as well as showing the positive impact that high quality changes can have.”

People Using case studies to show a customer turnaround journey is also a persuasive method.

Through ServicePeople, Danielle says one of her most satisfying experiences is finding someone the perfect job match.

“Helping someone secure a suitable role is so satisfying, especially since we all spend so much of our lives at work,” she says.

“It allows people to live their best life and that kind of success is a real motivator for me.”

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If you and your team can demonstrate your personal commitment to finding matters of customer love and passion in your customer programs, it is likely to translate through to the judging panel.

Honest reflection While showing the judges that your organisation has built a customer service function that enriches and empowers the company’s bottom line is certainly required, it’s those who reflect honestly on their challenges and difficulties who really impress the judges.

“Self reflection is powerful,” says Danielle. “A lot of organisations don’t speak to that criteria enough.”

As is well-known throughout the industry, management and executive buy-in is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of a successful customer service strategy.

“Look carefully at your own financial governance structures and show how management has bought into the changes,” says Danielle.

And lastly, adhere to the allotted time frame when presenting!

Often organisations want to show in great detail their progress or strategy that they sometimes go off track.

“Any presentation that goes over the time allowed, is likely to miss the opportunity to present all the information prepared, and in fairness to the judging process, extra time cannot be given ” says Danielle.

So, as 2019 gets up and running, hopefully you and your team are thinking about ways you can tell your customer success story.

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CSIA FOCUS

How to write your way into your customers’ hearts Friendly Persuasion's Peter Vierod explores how the right tone and friendly approach can prompt lasting customer relationships.

Today, a huge amount of customer service is experienced in writing, through emails, letters, text, live chat, social media and content.

CSIA partners with customer service writing specialists, Friendly Persuasion, who’ve provided these tips for writing your way into customers’ hearts.

1. Make it personal A customer service message shouldn’t sound cold and formal like it’s been written by a corporate lawyer. It should sound personal, as though someone has written it just for you.

2. It’s you, not me The most powerful word in any customer service message is the word ‘you’.

Ideally the words ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘you’re’, and ‘you’ll’ should appear three times more than ‘we’, ‘I’, or the name of your organisation.

Follow this rule when you write and your customers will always know who matters most in your relationship.

3. Write as you speak When you write to customers, your tone should echo the conversations they have with your contact centre.

This requires a more spoken writing style than ‘old school’ business correspondence.

It’s easier than you might think – simply write your message, then read it out loud. If it doesn’t sound like something you’d say in conversation, find a more spoken way of writing it.

For example, you wouldn’t say: “Further to our recent telephone discussion...” You’d say: “Nice chatting with you just now...”

4. Make it easy Good service experiences are easy.

Likewise, your writing should be easy to read and understand.

"Simply written messages make customers feel like you’re on their level."

5. Get to the point

6. Tell them what you’re going to tell them

Don’t waste your customers’ time.

Make it obvious what your message is about – and what you’re asking of them. If you’re writing to ask for information, make sure that’s the first thing they read. Ideally, put it in a headline or the first sentence.

The first thing many customers do when they receive written communications is scan the page to see what it’s about. So, as well as headings, add plenty of subheadings to ‘tell them what you’re going to tell them’. Just like we’ve done here.

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7. Simple is smart Short, simple words are easier to read and understand, so choose them over longer alternatives. ‘Facilitate’ and ‘help’ mean the same thing. But ‘help’ is more helpful.

Using jargon and technical terms in correspondence might make some people feel more authoritative, but what really matters is how the customer feels.

Simply written messages make customers feel like you’re on their level. Plus, they get the job done more effectively.

8. Don’t ramble Once a sentence goes beyond 30 words, the human brain struggles because it has more information than it can carry and comprehend.

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Ideally, your sentence length should average between 15 and 20 words.

That way, your customers are more likely to understand you and act on your advice.

• Is it more spoken than written?

• Is it factually and grammatically correct?

• Is it a good service experience?

9. Make sure it’s good to go

Are you responsible for interacting with customers using the written word?

Join us for the Certified Written Service Excellence (CWSE) program presented by CSIA and Friendly Persuasion in Sydney on Thursday, 30 May 2019.

Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors lose you the respect of customers. Factual errors lose you their trust. So, before you press send, make sure you’ve checked everything.

Better still, have a checklist that every writer in your team can easily refer to and follow.

Something like this: • Is your reason for writing obvious?

• Does it sound like a personal message?

• Have you used simple words and short sentences?

Peter Vierod Founder and Managing Partner Friendly Persuasion

Share. Connect. Learn. Grow.

Join our powerful network of customer service professionals today If you're looking for ways to improve your lifestyle, work life balance or create new habits, why not start with a powerful career objective?

Become a CSIA member and join a network of customer service professionals who are dedicated to creating better customer service experiences. Your individual or corporate membership proves that you are among the best in the customer service industry sector.

With our new online registration form, it’s now easier than ever for to join a diverse community of customer service professionals who enjoy event discounts, access to training programs and registered customer service consultants.

Give your professional career development a new lens and enhance your company’s performance in 2019.

Join the CSIA community today Become a member

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Register now! Upcoming CSIA Public Training Programs

Certified Customer Service Excellence (CCSE) Program

Certified Complaints Handling Excellence (CCHE) Program

Gain the skills to become a Customer Service Champion!

Gain the skills to handle complaints!

The CCSE program focuses on the essential skills and techniques that make customer service better.

CSIA helps you build cognitive and effective empathy skills and techniques required to provide exceptional customer service and support.

The CCHE program focuses on understanding why customer complaints are so valuable, how they should be handled, and what skills areneeded to turn angry customers into your best friends.

Wednesday 27 March 2019.

Wednesday 27 February 2019

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Certified Customer Service Leader (CCSL) Program

Certified Written Excellence (CWSE) Program

Lead a way to a better customer experience!

Learn how to deliver excellent customer service in writing

The CCSL program is about equipping customer service leaders with practical tools and techniques to inspire and motivate their teams to deliver great customer experiences.

Thursday 11 April 2019

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The CWSE program, in partnership with Friendly Persuasion, focuses on how to write customer service messages that engage and inform.

Thursday 30 May 2019

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