Frosch Learning

7 Common Mistakes Everyone Makes in Customer Service

In any venture in life, mistakes are bound to happen. Whether it is your first steps, or you’ve worn a well-trodden path, it is always possible to trip up once or twice. At Frosch Learning, we know that we are always learning. Learning from our mistakes can only lead to a stronger business and more experience in how best to satisfy customers. For a head start, or a heads-up, here are seven common mistakes everybody makes in customer service.

Not being prepared

Any customer service team needs to be informed and on their toes. If, however, an advisor is inadequately prepared for their role, this will have a negative impact on customer relations, whether the advisor is making a sale or handling an urgent query. It is always worth investing in employees. With full commitment and sales training, your sales team will be ready to deliver the best possible results.

Not keeping up to date

It is not only your employees that need to be prepared for anything. It is worthwhile for the organisation as a whole to keep up to date with the latest developments in the industry. As we at Frosch Learning have previously noted, “the sales landscape is a dynamic and ever-changing one, making it crucial for your staff to receive sales training that is as comprehensive, relevant and up-to-date as it is convenient around their usual working hours.” If the company is conscious of change, they can properly equip their employees with the tools to succeed in sales.

Not following up on sales

According to HubSpot, 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up on the sale despite most (80%) requiring at least five. On average, a salesperson only attempts to reach a prospect twice in the first place. This lack of persistence may mean that a fledging sale is overlooked and could ultimately cost the company profit. Encouraging salespeople to pursue potential sales and not to give in to doubt or discouragement is imperative. Though not every prospect or follow-up will result in an eventual sale, you will be more successful overall.

Being impatient

As well as persistent, in sales, it pays to be patient. HubSpot estimates that 63% of customers who request information on your company will take at least three months to make a purchase: 20% of those may even take up to a year. Taking into account also that only a quarter of leads will advance to a sale, you may find themselves playing a very long game. To increase sales, it is important that leads are pursued from whichever end they reach, regardless of how long it takes them.

Sticking to a script

In customer service, it is easy to adopt a certain pattern when approaching customers. There may be words, lines, or even a full speech relied upon to draw customers’ interest. This is a good way to ensure that customer service advisors have a platform to jump off of, but be wary of allowing interactions with customers to become too scripted. This article by Vala Afshar for the Huffington Post points out that the customer experience "is not a one-time event, and every single interaction is going to be different."

Patrick Collinson of The Guardian reaches a similar conclusion that the best customer service “really [tries] to sort things out rather than sticking to a script.” Customers want to feel that it is their own needs being addressed, so a generic speech might not be so effective. To really pitch a sale, prepare for some improvisation within your presentation.

Not listening to the customer

More than anything, customers should feel that their needs are being respected, and their voices heard. Afshar estimates that 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience. That is how much customers care about receiving the best customer service. Do right by the customer, and you will guarantee a positive experience. As Paul Greenberg notes in Afshar’s article: “If a customer likes you and continues to like you, they will do business with you. If they don’t, they won’t.

Taking the bad as well as the good

It requires a thick skin to be in customer service. The most important thing to remember is not to let the bad overwhelm the good. An unsuccessful sale won’t erase nine successful ones. Every day is a new chance to learn and try again. To quote Patrick Collinson: “Just do it.”

by Frosch Learning

5 Quick Tips on Leadership Training

When it comes to leadership training, it’s important to get the most out of your course and return to the office ready to manage your team. Whether you're heading to a training course yourself, or you want to equip your team leaders with the right information before their training begins, we've put together five tips you should follow.

1. Work with a professional

When it comes to leadership training, you cannot afford to make mistakes. Your leaders should be equipped with the appropriate skills and knowledge if they are responsible for leading a team. Otherwise, they won't be able to exert authority or manage successfully. Regardless of your industry or the size of your organisation, you should consider working with a professional leadership training provider. This will allow your leaders to get the right knowledge and stay up-to-date with the latest tried-and-tested industry practices.

2. Communication is key

If you want to create a team of leaders that can manage groups of employees effectively, place emphasis on communication. Perhaps the most important part of any successful business relationship, communication allows you to express ideas clearly which ensures that your employees know what is being asked of them. By allowing your employees to express their thoughts and concerns clearly and simply, and creating a question-friendly environment, you will be able to create a successful leader-worker relationship that works not only for both parties but for your business and its objectives.

3. Training should not be a one-off job

Although the same could be said of all areas of training, leadership training is particularly important. Therefore, it’s vital that training is not treated as a one-off job – regular training, development and professional development should be baked into all aspects of their job.

Doing so will allow them to stay on top of their growth and develop new skills that can be used to further enhance their leadership.

4. Set goals and expectations

There’s little point in sending your departmental leaders on a training course without first establishing their goals and expectations of such training. If a particular staff member has been promoted to a leader, for example, they may wish to focus their training goals around confidence building and general leadership development. On the other hand, a seasoned leader may wish to develop a particular management technique they have been struggling to master. Some training providers, including Frosch Learning, can create tailored leadership management solutions that place emphasis on particular pain-points.

5. Take notes

While you may be given some printed material as part of your training course, studies suggest that taking notes affects cognitive processing. Take a pen and paper with you to your training course, ask questions and jot down the most important points in order to remember them. Not only is note-taking good for your concentration, but it means that you can take back all of your new-found wisdom to the office.

There you have it – five quick tips for leadership training. Don’t hesitate to get in touch with a member of the Frosch Learning team if you’d like to find out more about how we can benefit your organisation.

by Frosch Learning

Why investing in training for your business is vital in 2017

You might expect us here at Frosch Learning to say that staff training is a worthwhile investment rather than a dead cost, but there really is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is the former rather than the latter – as well as that the right training will become even more important in 2017.

Of course, an obvious reason to invest in training for your business is to upgrade your workforce’s skills – including in such areas as sales, leadership and key account management, which are specialities of ours here at Frosch Learning. This, in turn, helps to make your business more competitive.

Training helps to keep your firm in front of the chasing pack

It is especially difficult for any business to become more competitive if its rivals are marching ahead – and there’s evidence to suggest that employers have been taking employee training more seriously in recent years.

According to one recent study cited by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the proportion of employees given a structured personal development plan had reached 42%, which was 8% higher than a year earlier. That same survey found that 58% of respondents felt their employer was taking their personal development seriously, up from 52% 12 months earlier.

The survey also discovered that of the 66% of employers that already trained their staff, 47% of them wanted to do more training, and that even of the 34% of employers that didn’t train, 29% wished to do so. Such statistics indicate just how proactive you will need to be as an employer with your approach to training heading into 2017.

More training can improve employee retention

Putting money towards training for your staff can pay dividends.  Stephen MacLaren, Head of Regional Sales Employee Benefits at Al Futtaim Willis, has observed in an article for the Entrepreneur website that the happier workers are, the likelier they are to stay with their employer.

Training can boost employees' happiness; as MacLaren further notes, research by Middlesex University's Institute for Work Based Learning found that 74% of UK workers wished they had received more job training and felt their full potential was out of their grasp.

The message is clear: if you have been deterred from delivering ongoing employee training due to the fear of a high turnover rate, you have good reason to think again. While, on the one hand, you might still be convinced that certain staff would long stay even without any further training, there remain other good reasons to make such training a priority in 2017.

Even workers regard training as crucial

MacLaren has also noted that according to another survey, 70% of workers consider training to be crucial for developing skills directly related to their job, while 66% expected training to improve their performance in their role. Perhaps most vitally, however, 68% believed that workplace training was still relevant regardless of the worker's rank or time in service.

So, as you can see, there are always opportunities to make a big difference to your business’s effectiveness and success by investing in the right training.  Turn to our team here at Frosch Learning for useful and well-run corporate training courses, and you can rest assured that our track record has taken in all kinds of companies  - no stone has been left unturned in this regard.

by Frosch Learning

Should You Invest in Your Own Leadership Training?

You might have long been under the impression that leadership training is only necessary when you have workers in your organisation who you wish to prepare for leadership roles.

However, if you currently hold a leadership role at your company, or even if you don’t, you might have overlooked the merits of investing in leadership training for yourself.

Develop a "promote-from-within" culture

If you are reading this article, there’s a good chance that you are already tasked with the arrangement of regular training for your company’s employees.

It’s a great idea to equip your workers with leadership training / skills, even if not all of them will ever take on leadership roles. After all, simply by developing a "promote-from-within" culture, you can improve your company's appeal to potential future employees.

As Marty Fukuda, Chief Operating Officer of N2 Publishing, explains in an article for the Entrepreneur website, your current team are likely to be more motivated if they believe that there is potential for them to rise up your company's ranks. Another reason for leadership training is that the up-and-coming generation of leaders will be both prepared for leading and exactly the kind of leaders that your organisation needs.

You can better prepare ahead of time

With the help of both open courses and in-house training from our team here at Frosch Learning, there are plenty of great reasons to make use of leadership training for you, too. After all, while you might already be in a leadership position, you will almost certainly still have the potential to become a more effective leader and even further ascend the ranks at your firm.

Even if you are never promoted, further refining your leadership skills could help you and your business to better handle the challenges ahead. Fukuda notes that the right training programme can help in mentally strengthening a trainee for meeting a range of tests, including handling adversity, unforeseen obstacles and losses.

You could more easily cope with an unexpected promotion

Imagine a situation where your company has had to promote you to a leadership role earlier than they had originally intended. They may feel a considerable urgency to arrange leadership training for you; however, with proceedings moving so speedily, you might simply lack the time to take on such training. So, why not pre-empt such a situation by investing in leadership training for yourself right now?

Of course, it would be ideal to never end up in such an awkward "make-do" scenario. However, business, like life itself, can be unpredictable. Therefore, by undertaking your own leadership training at a time when the chances of getting promoted may seem remote, you can follow that training at your own pace and thoroughly soak up the advice that your tutor provides.

Furthermore, making mistakes and learning from them during training is infinitely preferable to real-world blunders, which could prove much more costly to everyone involved in your business.

The fact that according to a study cited by Training magazine, more than one-third of surveyed organisations still consider their leadership development practices to be below average or poor should further alert to you the importance of investing in your own leadership training.

So, why not get in touch with the Frosch Learning team today to talk through your requirements with us in greater detail?

by Frosch Learning

In-House Sales Training: All the Stats, Facts, And Data You Need to Know

When it comes to educating your sales team, you might be uncertain whether you should opt for open courses, where your staff are taught at an external facility, or in-house training, which involves training your workers on your own premises.

You shouldn't completely overlook either option; however, we are going to dedicate particular space here to the features and merits of in-house sales training – along with many of the facts, data and statistics that should further alert you to its importance.

Why should you choose our in-house sales training?

We know that you would like to leave no stone unturned in your attempts to bolster your salespeople's know-how. That's why, here at Frosch Learning, we offer sales education that covers a broad range of bases. Just look at the in-house sales training options on our website, which shows that we can teach skills in selling, negotiating, presentation, winning tenders, customer service and telesales.

As this interesting article on the TrainingZone website makes clear, there are many great reasons to invest specifically in in-house training, including the typically lower cost per delegate than on public training courses, and the potential travel savings for your employees when they don’t need to travel any further than their usual workplace.

The astounding statistics showing the importance of sales training

Did you know that 44% of salespeople give up after a single follow-up, or that 80% of sales require five follow-up phone calls after the meeting? What about that 50% of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy, or that nurtured leads produce, on average, 20% more sales opportunities than non-nurtured leads?

These and many more mind-blowing sales statistics have been published by HubSpot, and there are various other stats out there outlining how the right sales training could make an immense difference to your team’s results. According to an infographic published on the LevelEleven website, for example, sales managers at world-class sales organisations spend 8.6 hours per month on skills development and product training, and ROI on sales training quadruples when employees receive in-field coaching and reinforcement.

We could cite many more of the statistics that should alert you to the value of the right in-house sales training – such as that it now takes eight cold call attempts on average to reach a prospect, compared to just 3.68 in 2007, or that sales reps using social selling are 50% more likely to meet or exceed their sales quota.

However, we think you get the message by now – that the sales landscape is a dynamic and ever-changing one, making it crucial for your staff to receive sales training that is as comprehensive, relevant and up-to-date as it is convenient around their usual working hours.

Don't completely overlook external courses

However, we would also advise you to keep an open mind about the various open courses that we offer. This is because off-site training has its own unique benefits and so, by making use of both in-house and external options, you can utilise their respective advantages.

You should consider, for example, that off-site trainees are usually harder to contact from your company's premises, and therefore less likely to be hindered by distractions. Furthermore, off-site training opens up opportunities for your employees to network with and learn from delegates from other firms.

Don’t be afraid to contact Frosch Learning today for an in-depth discussion about your organisation’s full range of options for sales training.

by Frosch Learning

Why Investing in Training For Your Business Is Vital In 2017?

You might expect us here at Frosch Learning to say that staff training is a worthwhile investment rather than a dead cost, but there really is plenty of evidence to suggest that it is the former rather than the latter – as well as that the right training will become even more important in 2017.

Of course, an obvious reason to invest in training for your business is to upgrade your workforce’s skills – including in such areas as sales, leadership and key account management, which are specialities of ours here at Frosch Learning. This, in turn, helps to make your business more competitive.

Training helps to keep your firm in front of the chasing pack

It is especially difficult for any business to become more competitive if its rivals are marching ahead – and there’s evidence to suggest that employers have been taking employee training more seriously in recent years.

According to one recent study cited by the Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT), the proportion of employees given a structured personal development plan had reached 42%, which was 8% higher than a year earlier. That same survey found that 58% of respondents felt their employer was taking their personal development seriously, up from 52% 12 months earlier.

The survey also discovered that of the 66% of employers that already trained their staff, 47% of them wanted to do more training, and that even of the 34% of employers that didn’t train, 29% wished to do so. Such statistics indicate just how proactive you will need to be as an employer with your approach to training heading into 2017.

More training can improve employee retention

Putting money towards training for your staff can pay dividends.  Stephen MacLaren, Head of Regional Sales Employee Benefits at Al Futtaim Willis, has observed in an article for the Entrepreneur website that the happier workers are, the likelier they are to stay with their employer.

Training can boost employees' happiness; as MacLaren further notes, research by Middlesex University's Institute for Work Based Learning found that 74% of UK workers wished they had received more job training and felt their full potential was out of their grasp.

The message is clear: if you have been deterred from delivering ongoing employee training due to the fear of a high turnover rate, you have good reason to think again. While, on the one hand, you might still be convinced that certain staff would long stay even without any further training, there remain other good reasons to make such training a priority in 2017.

Even workers regard training as crucial

MacLaren has also noted that according to another survey, 70% of workers consider training to be crucial for developing skills directly related to their job, while 66% expected training to improve their performance in their role. Perhaps most vitally, however, 68% believed that workplace training was still relevant regardless of the worker's rank or time in service.

So, as you can see, there are always opportunities to make a big difference to your business’s effectiveness and success by investing in the right training.  Turn to our team here at Frosch Learning for useful and well-run corporate training courses, and you can rest assured that our track record has taken in all kinds of companies  - no stone has been left unturned in this regard.

by Frosch Learning

Strengthening Your Business with Business Development Training

Creating a business that is well-positioned for long-term growth is a taxing process. There's a lot to think about. It's more than just looking for new clients and concentrating on the external factors. In fact, there's a lot you can do in-house to enhance your business' development. Obviously, finding the time to review all of your procedures can be difficult - especially with the amount of work it takes to perfect your external processes - but this is where business development training from Frosch Learning can come in useful.

Grow existing relationships

With so much emphasis placed on winning new contracts and attracting new clients to your business, it can be easy to neglect the clients that you're already dealing with. Existing clients should be taken care of; they're the ones who have already trusted you with their projects. If you're struggling to grow and maintain your client accounts, then perhaps you should take a look at the Key Account Management Course offered by Frosch Learning. This course will teach you how to manage your accounts in a way that's profitable for you and your customers and how to create an internal supportive structure that will allow your accounts to flourish.

Win those important contracts

Business development is a broad line of work, and so our comprehensive range of courses cover a numerous bases. If you need advice and guidance on how to secure more lucrative contracts, then our course in negotiating skills could be just what you're looking for. This course focuses on how to analyse body language during the negotiation process and adapt your stance accordingly. We will also provide you with all the tools needed to secure the best deal for your business and expose you to the decision-making process that clients usually go through when negotiating. Great negotiation skills are essential if your business is to remain ahead of the pack.

Give your business procedures added efficiency

Time management might seem like a simple thing to master, but you may be surprised at just how many employees struggle to cope with a demanding schedule. Poor time management could mean that deadlines are not met, and this could paint an unprofessional picture of your company. Our expert team will help your staff members create a personalised schedule, teach them how to prioritise workloads and offer assistance on how to cope when placed under pressure. It's always a good idea to learn new time management techniques, and you should see some instant results upon completion of the course.

Create a driven workforce

Over time, it's only natural that some employees may start to lose motivation in what they do. If an employee lacks motivation, it could mean that their work does not live up to the required standards. If you decide to take part in a motivational course from Frosch Learning, then your employees will learn how to inspire other people around them, how to overcome any weaknesses they may have and gain access to a world of unique techniques that will raise their motivational levels again.

by Frosch Learning