Customer Care Excellence Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Customer Service Representatives, Customer Care Team Leaders and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-CS-134

Before you join: Participants should have at least six months of experience dealing with external customers, service users, account holders or internal clients.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Customer care failures often arise not from a lack of goodwill, but from inconsistent standards, unclear ownership, weak handovers and poor handling of customer emotion. A delayed payment investigation, incorrect account information, missed delivery or unresolved digital enquiry can quickly become a complaint when customers repeat their story, receive conflicting answers or cannot obtain a clear commitment. Organisations need staff who can diagnose needs accurately, communicate with confidence, resolve issues within authority limits and identify the process failures behind repeat contacts.

This course develops the practical disciplines required to deliver reliable, respectful customer care across telephone, email, face-to-face and digital channels. Participants examine customer expectations, moments of truth, journey mapping, questioning, active listening, plain-language communication and service standards. They learn structured methods for handling complaints, de-escalating difficult conversations, managing service recovery and escalating cases appropriately. The course also covers CRM case notes, internal handovers, quality assurance, customer feedback, service metrics and continuous improvement methods.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with sector-based cases, group analysis, communication simulations and structured reflection. Participants work with realistic situations such as a bank customer disputing a charge, a public-service applicant facing a delayed decision, an NGO beneficiary seeking urgent support, or a corporate client affected by a service failure. Each participant leaves with a customer care improvement action plan, service standards checklist, complaint-handling workflow and reusable communication models for their role.

The course is suited to professionals who already deal with customers, service users, account holders, patients, citizens, suppliers or internal clients and need a more consistent method for managing service quality and difficult interactions.

What you will be able to do

  • Map customer journeys to identify moments of truth, failure points and ownership gaps
  • Apply RATER and Kano models to define customer care expectations and priorities
  • Use funnel questioning and active listening to diagnose customer needs accurately
  • Structure telephone, email and face-to-face responses using clear service communication techniques
  • Handle complaints and difficult conversations using de-escalation and ISO 10002 principles
  • Design service recovery responses within authority limits, fairness requirements and stated commitments
  • Interpret customer feedback, quality scorecards and operational service metrics
  • Produce a practical customer care improvement plan with measures, owners and review dates

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence handling upset, demanding or dissatisfied customers
  • A repeatable method for diagnosing needs before proposing solutions
  • Clearer written and verbal communication across customer contact channels
  • Stronger judgement on escalation, authority limits and service recovery
  • Evidence-based improvement plan for personal customer care performance

For your organisation

  • More consistent service standards across teams, branches and customer channels
  • Fewer repeat contacts caused by incomplete answers and poor handovers
  • Better complaint records, investigation quality and response commitments
  • Improved customer trust through fair and timely service recovery
  • Actionable insight from customer feedback, quality checks and service metrics

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can distinguish customer care responsibilities and define observable service behaviours.

  • Customer care, customer service and customer experience roles distinguished
  • RATER dimensions translated into observable frontline service behaviours
  • Moments of truth mapped from arrival through post-resolution follow-up
  • Service promises aligned with customer expectations and operational constraints
  • Trust-building behaviours: ownership, accuracy, transparency and appropriate follow-through
  • Professional boundaries maintained while providing helpful, human service

Participants can diagnose stated and unstated needs using structured questioning and listening.

  • Open and closed questions selected using the funnel questioning method
  • Active listening demonstrated through attending, paraphrasing, probing and summarising
  • Customer needs separated into stated, unstated and latent requirements
  • Kano model distinguishes basic, performance and delight service attributes
  • Plain-language explanations matched to customer knowledge, urgency and channel
  • Confirmation questions secure shared understanding before recommending a resolution

Participants can communicate clearly and respectfully across telephone, written and face-to-face channels.

  • CALM communication structure used for clear, respectful customer conversations
  • Tone, pace and vocabulary adapted without sounding scripted or patronising
  • Positive language reframes constraints while preserving accuracy and policy boundaries
  • Email responses structured with purpose, action, ownership and closing commitments
  • Telephone call control balances rapport, diagnosis, resolution and timekeeping
  • Written records distinguish facts, customer statements, actions and commitments

Participants can map service journeys and specify standards for reliable customer interactions.

  • Customer journey maps connect touchpoints, emotions, needs, owners and measures
  • Service blueprints expose handoffs, backstage dependencies and likely failure points
  • Standard operating procedures specify greeting, verification, resolution and closure
  • Channel standards define response times, handover rules and escalation triggers
  • Accessibility needs accommodated through inclusive language and reasonable adjustments
  • Consistency checks identify variation between branches, teams and digital channels

Participants can respond to emotional, demanding and abusive interactions while maintaining boundaries.

  • Emotional states identified without labelling, dismissing or mirroring customer distress
  • HEARD method structures responses to anger, frustration and disappointment
  • De-escalation language lowers tension while maintaining service and safety boundaries
  • Assertive communication handles unreasonable demands, abuse and repeated complaints
  • Silence, pauses and acknowledgement used to regain conversational control
  • Escalation decisions separate service recovery, specialist referral and security incidents

Participants can manage complaints fairly, record cases accurately and maintain clear ownership.

  • ISO 10002 principles applied to accessible, fair and timely complaint handling
  • Complaint intake captures issue, impact, evidence, desired outcome and urgency
  • Root cause analysis uses five whys and cause-and-effect diagrams
  • Case ownership prevents customers repeating information across internal handoffs
  • Written complaint acknowledgements set realistic next steps and review dates
  • Closure communications explain findings, remedies, learning and remaining options

Participants can select proportionate recovery actions and confirm that service failures are resolved.

  • Service recovery sequence acknowledges, apologises, resolves and confirms satisfaction
  • Recovery options assessed against authority limits, fairness and customer impact
  • Goodwill gestures selected without creating inconsistent precedent or false promises
  • Expectation resets communicate delays, dependencies, alternatives and confirmed dates
  • Recovery follow-up checks resolution quality and identifies repeat-contact risk
  • Failure demand tracked to distinguish avoidable contacts from legitimate enquiries

Participants can maintain continuity and accountability when cases move between channels and teams.

  • Channel choice matched to complexity, sensitivity, urgency and customer preference
  • CRM case notes create a single, usable customer interaction record
  • Warm transfers preserve context, accountability and agreed next actions
  • Digital service replies meet response standards without sacrificing personal attention
  • Knowledge-base articles use task steps, exceptions and plain-language headings
  • Data privacy safeguards govern identity checks, consent and record sharing

Participants can interpret service data and customer feedback to identify performance priorities.

  • SERVQUAL gaps assessed across reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness
  • Customer satisfaction, CES and NPS interpreted with operational context
  • First-contact resolution, repeat contacts and backlog reveal service performance
  • Quality assurance scorecards evaluate compliance, communication, accuracy and ownership
  • Verbatim feedback coded into themes, drivers and improvement priorities
  • Control charts distinguish common-cause variation from special-cause service failures

Participants can develop a measurable plan for improving customer care in their workplace.

  • PDCA cycles convert service evidence into tested process improvements
  • Pareto analysis prioritises recurring issues by frequency, impact and effort
  • Service improvement charters define problem, target, owner, measures and milestones
  • Coaching conversations use observed behaviours, feedback and agreed practice goals
  • Personal application plans assign workplace actions, support and review dates
  • Progress reviews compare baseline measures, customer feedback and completed actions

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Customer journey mapping template
  2. RATER service standards checklist
  3. Complaint intake and escalation workflow
  4. HEARD difficult conversation response model
  5. Service recovery decision guide
  6. Customer care improvement action plan

Who should attend

  • Customer Service Representatives — need consistent methods for resolving enquiries and complaints
  • Customer Care Team Leaders — need to coach service behaviours and monitor quality
  • Contact Centre Supervisors — need stronger call control, escalation and performance practices
  • Relationship Managers — need to protect trust during service failures and difficult requests
  • Frontline Public Service Staff — need fair, accessible and respectful citizen interactions
  • Operations and Service Improvement Managers — need evidence for reducing repeat contacts and failures

Skills and tools covered

Customer journey mappingComplaint handlingService recoveryDifficult conversationsQuality assuranceCustomer feedback analysis

Tools and standards

RATER model, Kano model, ISO 10002, SERVQUAL

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce service models, followed by realistic case work, group analysis, communication simulations and guided application planning. Participants analyse customer journeys, service failures, complaint records and feedback data drawn from banking, public services, corporate support and not-for-profit settings. Simulations cover telephone, email and face-to-face interactions, including emotionally charged complaints. Facilitated peer feedback links observed behaviours to service standards, authority limits and measurable improvement actions.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have at least six months of experience dealing with external customers, service users, account holders or internal clients. They should be familiar with the basic products, policies and escalation routes of their own organisation. Experience of handling routine enquiries by telephone, email, face-to-face or digital channels is useful. No formal customer service qualification is required. The course does not require prior knowledge of SERVQUAL, ISO 10002, customer journey mapping, CRM systems or service quality metrics.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have experience handling routine customer enquiries, requests or service issues. No formal qualification or prior study of customer service frameworks is required.

Bring examples of recurring customer issues, service standards, complaint categories or feedback reports where organisational policy permits. A laptop or tablet is useful for recording notes and completing your application plan.

It is designed for customer-facing professionals, team leaders, contact centre supervisors, relationship managers and service improvement staff. It is particularly useful for people who handle complaints, escalations or complex service requests.

Sales training focuses primarily on prospecting, needs discovery and securing commercial commitments. This course focuses on service reliability, complaint handling, customer communication, recovery and retention after service problems.

Participants use their own service context to identify a customer journey, recurring failure point and improvement priority. They leave with communication models, complaint-handling methods and an action plan that can be used immediately.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily. The five days cover service principles, communication, journeys, complaints, recovery, channels, measurement and improvement planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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