Okay, so you've trained your new front office employee on how to answer the phones and set appointments... what's next?
Well, the very next thing you need to train your new hire on is handling customer service issues. After handling the phones, customer service is going to be their number two priority as your new right hand.
And here's the thing - training someone to handle all the day-to-day customer service issues that your students have frees you up to focus on high-level work in your business.
Granted, providing outstanding customer service is what keeps your business going. However, what keeps your business GROWING is strategy, planning, and implementation at the executive level ("executive" means you, my friend).
So, let's get your new girl Friday or boy Friday trained, shall we? Now, when it comes to customer service issues in a martial art school, they generally fall under four headings:
- Billing and Contracts
- Scheduling
- Testing
- Equipment/Pro Shop Sales
So, we're going to start tackling each of these areas, starting with...
BILLING AND CONTRACT SERVICE ISSUES
This is definitely going to be the most crucial area of training for your new hire, at least as far as customer service goes. The reason is that it's really easy to screw things up in this area, and screw-ups can mean lost clients and lost revenue.
So, you want to make sure you spend an adequate amount of time teaching your new hire everything they need to know about your membership and billing policies.
LANGUAGE
The first thing to teach them, of course, is to use the right language. Subtle changes in the language you and your employees use can have a big impact on how your clients think and feel about your dojo.
So, it's not a "contract", it's a "membership", and it's not a "bill", it's their "tuition statement." Get it? Good, and make sure your employees do as well.
COMMUNICATION
The second part of this is teaching them how to speak to customers. No matter how irate a customer gets, they must always be courteous and polite. You need to role-play this to hammer this point home.
Teach them not to take things personally or to internalize the client's aggression. And also tell them that you will be available to step in and back them up if a customer gets out of hand.
So spend some time role-playing with them, allowing them to deal with you as you play the irate customer. Let them feel what it's like to remain calm and civilized while they have someone across the counter who is upset because they were billed early and their account was over-drafted.
Give them a few strategies for dealing with that sort of situation, because it will increase their confidence and make them that much more autonomous. This will in turn allow you more freedom of movement in your dojo as your employees will be able to handle difficult customers on their own.
MONEY ISSUES
Early on in my wife's time working the front office, she confided in me that she felt horrible calling people up when their tuition was late. She also told me that she lacked confidence when asking people for payments.
My response was simple. "They signed the contract, so it's not their money you're asking for, it's OUR money. If you want to pay our mortgage and eat, then you need to get comfortable with getting what should already be ours." Needless to say, my wife got comfortable asking for money, real quick.
By the same token, you may hire employees who are shy about asking for money. By making clear the obligations between the dojo and student, you'll be making it easier for your employee to do their job. Once they understand the why, the what should be easy.
It's also a good idea to let your employee know that a business runs on cash. Once they understand that if the payments stop, their paycheck stops, even the most shy person will soon become a lion when it comes to asking for the check.
So, let your people know the more practical side of running a business, while making it clear that just because you're being paid, it doesn't mean that you're not in the business of helping people. The two are not mutually exclusive, no matter what Bernie Sanders' supporters might think.
BILLING AND MEMBERSHIP POLICIES
It is incredibly important that your new hire understands your policies regarding billing and memberships. Teach them the what as well as the why, because they're going to need to understand things from a business owner's perspective.
Since your policies in these areas are going to vary from my own, I can only present you with questions that should be answered during the training process. Questions such as:
- If a client wants to cancel their membership before the termination date, what do you say and do?
- If a client gives notice of membership cancellation at the end of their membership, what do you say and do?
- Is there a trial or no-fault cancellation period for new members? If so, what are the policies regarding that period?
- If a client wants to suspend their membership, what do you say and do?
- If a client wants to change their billing date, what procedure (if any) should be taken?
- If there is a mistake in billing, what should be done to correct it?
- How do you enroll a new member? What paperwork needs to be done?
- What happens when a client moves? What happens when a client becomes ill and can't continue training? What happens when a client dies?
- What happens if a client is late on their payment? Does the dojo charge a late fee? How is that handled?
- What happens if a client is over-billed? How does the dojo handle that?
- What happens if a client is under-billed? How do you handle that situation?
- What should an employee say if someone asks them a question and they don't know the answer? And, who should the employee go to get an answer?
As you can see, when it comes to training an employee on your billing and membership policies the goal is to cover the most common eventualities. Simply by answering the questions above for your staff, they'll be equipped to handle 90% of the situations that arise.
And, so long as they know you're available to help them when an issue arises that they aren't yet trained to handle, they'll have confidence in their ability to do their job well. This in turn will make your job easier, so be thorough in equipping your new hire to do their job
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Okay, so that covers training a front office employee on billing and membership customer service issues. Tomorrow, I'll be back to cover customer service with regards to scheduling and testing. Stay tuned!
