1. Celebrate Customer Service Week
By: Gretchen Fox, International Customer Service Association

Customer Service Week is an international event devoted to recognizing the importance of customer service and honoring the people on the front lines of the service revolution. It creates a positive message that provides a productive opportunity to generate an even stronger ongoing commitment to customer service excellence.

National Customer Service Week was established by the International Customer Service Association (ICSA) in 1988 and proclaimed a national event by the U.S. Congress in 1992. National Customer Service Week is celebrated annually during the first full week of October, with this year's festivities taking place October 3-7, 2005.

According to John Kressaty, ICSA Past President, National Customer Service Week activities have far-reaching effects in October and throughout the year. "There are two main purposes of National Customer Service Week,” says Kressaty. "It lets you recognize the job that your customer service professionals do 52 weeks a year. The other purpose is to get the message across a wide range of business, government and industry that customer service is very important along with bottom line profit in running a business," explains Kressaty.

Each year the Customer Service Group provides how-to information; support materials imprinted with the official CS Week logo; and inspiration from the hundreds of customer service professionals who share their celebration stories, plans and ideas.

Take advantage of the Customer Service Group's extensive experience and make this year's Customer Service Week the best! Visit the Customer Service Week website at www.csweek.com for additional information and to sign up for Countdown to Customer Service Week E-mail Bulletin.



2. Improve Customer Service Today

Business Training Library, a partner of ICSA, is excited to report that we’ve released a brand new customer service series just in time for Customer Service Week. These new courses are produced by Telephone Doctor, an organization that specializes in supplying proven service skills and techniques which translate into higher revenue, lower customer turnover and reduced stress on your customer contact team members.

Click here to view complete course descriptions.

• Customer Service Video Courses
• Determining Caller Needs I
• Basic Basic Telephone Skills
• Five Forbidden Phrases
• Essential Elements of Internal Customer Service
• Four C's of Coaching Skills
• From Curt to Courteous
• How to Avoid Emotional Leakage
• Telesales Tips From A-H
• Telesales Tips From I-Q
• Telesales Tips From R-Z
• Determining Caller Needs II
• How to Deal With the Foreign Accent
• How to Handle the Irate Caller
• How to Treat Every Caller As A Welcome Guest
• Proactive Customer Service
• Seven Keys to a Positive Mental Attitude
• Six Cardinal Rules of Customer Service
• That's Just Rude
• The Service Mentality
• What's Wrong with this Picture

Visit our website to try these courses today!



3. System Upgrade

Flash Upgrade for Technical Computer Courses
All technical computer courses released in or after September of 2005 will require the Macromedia Flash plugin for proper functionality. This applies to courses in the Technical General, Technical Microsoft, Technical Web Development and End User Desktop Computing Catalogs. This requirement will allow the vendor to create courses with a higher level of interactivity, which will help your students remain motivated and learn more deeply.

There will be a detection page for the new courses that checks for the compliant version of Flash. If the user doesn't have it, it will offer it as a download.

In the event that someone denies the Flash 7.0 download prior to launching the "new" course, the course will still function. The course will automatically go into "Non-Flash" mode and skip over the DO-ITs and Simulations that are built with Flash.

To download Flash 7.0 click here. If you have any questions regarding these upgrades please click here to contact our Technical Support Department.



4. Track Your Classroom Training Programs with Business Training Library LMS

Did you know that in addition to the tracking and management of online courses, our LMS includes a powerful classroom training management tool? The Classroom Management module allows you to seamlessly blend your online training initiatives with your off-line so that you can use one tool to report on and manage all of your organization’s training.

Features of the Classroom Management module include:

• Online Registration for Off-line Resources
• Online Fulfillment of Off-line Resources such as Books, Videos, CD-ROM’s
• Online Event Scheduling
• Online Instructor, Facility and Equipment Management
• Online Reporting on all Training Activities
• Online Approval Agent
• Integrated Messaging

In the coming weeks, we will be sharing more information about this added value to the CompanyCollege LMS. We will also be hosting a Webinar on September 14, 2005 to highlight the features of the Classroom Management module. We will be looking forward to discussing how this tool can enhance your training program!

Please do not hesitate to contact Shannon Kluczny at (888) 432-3077 ext. 118 with any questions.

Members in the News
Congratulations to the Rooster Group for being named Lowe's Supplier of the Year.

Have good news to share? Let us know!



5. Course Review: Sustaining Excellent Customer Service

Course Title
Sustaining Excellent Customer Service

Course Group
Business & Professional Skills Catalog

Course Overview
This course teaches you to promote excellent customer service behavior by reinforcing and rewarding employees for their efforts. It also provides tools for you to address extreme service recovery situations. The practical know-how that you'll gain from this course will encourage you to take your organization to customer-service giant status.

Target Audience
Front-line employees, managers, supervisors, and customer service agents

Expected Duration
3.5 hours

Tom's Rating
5 Stars (out of 5)

Tom's Review
Customers drive revenue, it’s not a secret. How effectively you manage your customer base directly affects every asset of your organization, for better or worse. This course introduces some great concepts to help you sustain excellent customer service. After all, it’s easier to keep an existing customer happy than to find a new one, and a lot cheaper too!

Do you know what motivates your employee to provide great service? How do you ensure they are motivated? These are questions this course pose, and then come the solutions! This course teaches how to recognize and reward excellent customer service within your organization and to promote the right behavior. In the SkillBriefs and Job Aids, you’ll find additional resources to help you put a plan into action.

This is my new favorite course, I recommend it for all Managers and Supervisors that manage anyone that communicates with their customers.

Tom Braning is a Senior Training Consultant for Business Training Library's E-Learning team. He has been with Business Training Library since January 2004. He enjoys the outdoors, attempting to play music and playing with his two dogs.

Business Training Library
285 Chesterfield Business Parkway
Chesterfield, MO 63005
(888) 432-3077
(636) 534-1001 (fax)
www.bizlibrary.com

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