Service Leadership Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Customer Service Managers, Customer Experience Managers 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-161

Before you join: Participants should have experience managing, supervising or improving a customer-facing service, operational process or customer experience initiative.

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

Service leaders are expected to improve customer experience while controlling cost, meeting service commitments and coordinating teams that may not report to them. Customer dissatisfaction rarely results from one poor interaction; it commonly arises from broken handoffs, unclear ownership, uneven standards, inaccessible digital journeys or policies that prevent sensible resolution. Leaders need to turn customer evidence into operating priorities, decide where personal service matters, and hold internal teams and suppliers accountable for results. This course addresses that management challenge through service strategy, operating design and performance governance.

Participants learn to define a clear customer promise, map end-to-end journeys, identify failure points and set measures that connect experience outcomes with operational performance. The course covers voice-of-customer systems, service blueprinting, customer effort, complaint recovery, employee engagement, digital and assisted channels, supplier management and cost-to-serve analysis. Participants apply established methods including SERVQUAL, RACI, HEARD, service blueprinting, root-cause analysis and balanced scorecards. They build the judgement needed to prioritise service improvements where customer harm, commercial value and operational feasibility intersect.

Teaching combines concise instructor briefings with sector-based cases, facilitated group analysis, service leadership simulations and structured application planning. Cases reflect common challenges in banking, public services, utilities, telecommunications, business-to-business services and consumer operations. Participants leave with a practical service improvement pack: a customer promise, scorecard, service blueprint, recovery playbook and 90-day roadmap ready for adaptation in their own organisation.

The course suits managers responsible for customer-facing operations, service quality, contact centres, branch networks, digital service journeys or cross-functional improvement programmes. It is particularly relevant where customer outcomes depend on several teams, channels or external providers.

What you will be able to do

  • Define a customer promise linked to strategic priorities and operating choices
  • Map customer journeys and service blueprints to identify friction and ownership gaps
  • Build a balanced service scorecard using experience, operational, people and financial measures
  • Apply voice-of-customer methods to prioritise service improvements using evidence
  • Design service recovery procedures using the HEARD model and defined authority limits
  • Analyse service failures using five whys, fishbone diagrams and failure mode analysis
  • Develop cost-to-serve and retention cases for service improvement investments
  • Produce a 90-day service improvement roadmap with governance, measures and accountabilities

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Make stronger service investment recommendations using customer and cost evidence
  • Lead cross-functional discussions with clearer service priorities and decision rights
  • Handle serious complaints using a repeatable recovery and escalation approach
  • Interpret customer metrics without relying on satisfaction scores alone
  • Create a credible service improvement roadmap for management review

For your organisation

  • Reduces repeat contact, rework and avoidable customer effort
  • Improves accountability for service failures across teams and suppliers
  • Connects customer feedback to measurable operational improvement priorities
  • Strengthens complaint handling controls, remedies and root-cause prevention
  • Supports better allocation of service investment across channels and customer segments

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define a service leadership agenda that links customer promises with operating priorities.

  • Service strategy translated into customer promises, operating choices and performance priorities
  • Moments of truth mapped across acquisition, onboarding, use and renewal
  • Service-profit chain links employee conditions, loyalty, retention and revenue
  • Customer expectations segmented by need, value, risk and channel preference
  • Leadership behaviours assessed against service vision, standards and decision rights
  • North-star service proposition defined with explicit promises and trade-offs

Participants can gather and interpret customer evidence to identify priority service problems.

  • Voice-of-customer systems combine interviews, complaints, surveys, reviews and operational data
  • JTBD interviews distinguish functional, emotional and social customer progress
  • Customer journey maps expose handoffs, wait states, failure points and emotions
  • Persona evidence separated from assumptions using research confidence ratings
  • Closed-loop feedback routes detractor cases to accountable service owners
  • Root-cause themes prioritised by frequency, customer harm and business impact

Participants can build a service measurement system that supports sound management decisions.

  • SERVQUAL dimensions adapted to stated service promises and customer segments
  • Net Promoter Score interpreted alongside response bias and verbatim comments
  • Customer effort measures identify friction in high-volume service transactions
  • Balanced service scorecards connect experience, operations, people and financial measures
  • Statistical process control distinguishes common-cause variation from special-cause signals
  • Metric definitions set owners, calculation rules, targets and review cadence

Participants can redesign service processes to reduce friction, risk and avoidable demand.

  • Service blueprinting links customer actions, frontstage work, backstage processes and support
  • Demand patterns matched to capacity, queues, appointments and self-service options
  • Lean waste analysis removes rework, handoffs, delays and avoidable customer effort
  • Failure mode and effects analysis ranks service risks before customer impact
  • Standard work specifies critical steps, tolerances, escalation triggers and ownership
  • Channel strategy assigns tasks between people, digital journeys and partners

Participants can align employee practices, coaching and accountability with the customer promise.

  • Employee journey mapping identifies barriers to delivering the intended customer promise
  • Psychological safety supports upward reporting of defects, risks and customer pain
  • Service standards converted into observable behaviours, coaching points and quality criteria
  • Recognition systems reinforce discretionary effort without rewarding metric manipulation
  • RACI matrices clarify accountability for cross-functional service outcomes and incidents
  • Team huddles use visual management, customer stories and daily performance data

Participants can manage complaints and recovery actions while preventing recurrence of service failures.

  • Service recovery paradox tested cautiously; prevention remains the primary priority
  • HEARD model structures complaint listening, empathy, resolution, diagnosis and follow-up
  • Authority limits define goodwill remedies, approvals, documentation and fraud controls
  • Complaint taxonomy separates individual errors, process defects and policy dissatisfaction
  • Root-cause analysis uses five whys and fishbone diagrams after serious failures
  • Recovery communications state ownership, timescales, remedies and next contact points

Participants can improve consistency and customer effort across digital and human service channels.

  • Omnichannel journeys maintain context, identity and consistent commitments between channels
  • Knowledge-centred service captures resolved cases as searchable, governed knowledge articles
  • Contact reason analysis identifies automation candidates without forcing unsuitable self-service
  • Chatbot handoffs preserve conversation history, customer intent and priority information
  • Accessibility requirements shape digital service content, forms, language and assisted routes
  • CRM case data improves routing, proactive contact and repeat-contact prevention

Participants can establish governance arrangements for consistent delivery across functions and providers.

  • Service operating model defines governance forums, roles, processes and technology ownership
  • Supplier scorecards align outsourced service levels with customer outcomes and remedies
  • SLAs distinguish response, resolution, quality, availability and customer-experience measures
  • Contract review meetings address trend data, recurring failures and improvement commitments
  • Stakeholder maps identify sponsors, blockers, affected teams and communication needs
  • Change impact assessments sequence process, policy, technology and capability changes

Participants can prioritise service investments using customer impact, cost and commercial value.

  • Cost-to-serve analysis compares channels, segments, transaction types and service demands
  • Retention economics estimates value protected through improved experience and recovery
  • Business cases quantify benefits, implementation costs, risks, assumptions and payback
  • Prioritisation matrices compare customer impact, feasibility, cost and strategic fit
  • Benefits registers assign measure owners, baselines, targets and validation dates
  • Investment decisions balance service differentiation against operational standardisation

Participants can create a practical service leadership plan for sustained improvement after the course.

  • Service maturity assessment benchmarks current practices across strategy, people, process and data
  • 90-day improvement roadmap sequences quick wins, pilots, dependencies and governance
  • OKRs translate service priorities into measurable objectives, key results and initiatives
  • Communication plans tailor service change messages for executives, teams and partners
  • Review routines test results, remove barriers and revise improvement hypotheses
  • Personal leadership commitments specify conversations, decisions and behaviours after return

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

What you take back to work

  1. Customer promise and service strategy canvas
  2. Voice-of-customer and journey evidence pack
  3. Balanced service scorecard template
  4. Service blueprint and failure mode register
  5. Complaint recovery playbook
  6. 90-day service improvement roadmap

Who should attend

  • Customer Service Managers — need to improve standards, recovery and team performance
  • Customer Experience Managers — need to connect journey insights with operational change
  • Contact Centre Managers — need to reduce customer effort and repeat contact
  • Operations Managers — need to manage service quality across processes and channels
  • Branch and Network Managers — need consistent customer delivery across distributed teams
  • Service Improvement Leads — need structured methods for prioritising and governing change

Skills and tools covered

Service strategy designCustomer journey analysisService performance measurementComplaint recovery managementService operations improvementCross-functional service governance

Tools and standards

SERVQUAL, Service Blueprint, RACI matrix, HEARD model

How the course runs

Training methodology

The five days use short instructor briefings to introduce service leadership methods, followed by case analysis, group exercises, simulations and individual application planning. Participants examine customer complaints, journey evidence, service metrics and operating scenarios to make realistic management decisions. Simulations address competing priorities such as service recovery, capacity constraints, supplier performance and investment choices. Trainers use participant examples where appropriate, while protecting confidential information. Each participant develops reusable service leadership materials and a focused action plan for workplace application.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience managing, supervising or improving a customer-facing service, operational process or customer experience initiative. Familiarity with common measures such as customer satisfaction, complaints, response times, service levels or retention is useful. Participants should be comfortable discussing operational data and contributing examples from their own workplace. Prior formal study in customer experience, marketing, Lean, project management or finance is not required. The course does not assume statistical modelling expertise, software configuration skills or responsibility for an entire customer service function.

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

Participants should have practical exposure to customer service, operations, customer experience or service improvement. Formal qualifications in marketing, Lean, data analysis or project management are not required.

Bring examples of service challenges, customer feedback, performance measures or process issues that can be discussed without sharing confidential information. A laptop is useful for adapting templates and completing the application plan.

It is designed for managers and experienced professionals responsible for customer-facing teams, service processes, experience programmes or improvement work. It is also suitable for managers who coordinate service outcomes across operations, digital channels and suppliers.

Customer service skills courses focus mainly on frontline communication and individual interactions. This course focuses on the management systems behind service quality: strategy, process design, measurement, governance, recovery and improvement investment.

Participants leave with templates that can be adapted to a current service challenge, such as repeat contact, complaint volumes, poor handoffs or inconsistent channel delivery. The 90-day roadmap provides a structured starting point for engaging sponsors, teams and service partners.

Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, with approximately 6.5 contact hours excluding breaks. The programme progresses from service strategy and customer evidence through operations, recovery, governance, investment decisions and action 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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