USAG Ansbach Housing emphasizes customer service training for employees

ANSBACH, Germany (Feb. 5, 2020) — U.S. Army Garrison (USAG) Ansbach housing employees have attended two of four training modules designed to increase their professional customer service abilities.

The four module course originates from the Navy Housing Learning Center in Jacksonville, Florida, where Perry Clark, USAG Ansbach Housing Operations and Facilities Branch chief, was certified as a Navy Expanding Housing Customer Service facilitator.

“I didn’t create it from scratch; however, I modified and changed it to fit the Army and the USAG Ansbach need,” he said. Perry was a part of the Navy working group that created and tested the customer service course.

The first module ‘Providing Stellar Customer Service’ covers the four main concepts of ‘Star Service’.

STAR stands for Seamless, Trustworthy, Attentive, and Resourceful.

“It links the Customer Report Card, Defining Moments, the Three Dimensions of Service (Human, Business, and Hidden), and STAR Qualities to housing positions and their roles as housing professionals,” he said.

The first module also covers product verses service, the importance of providing service excellence, customer service principles and defines who housing professionals are, what they do and how they do it.

The second module is ‘Guiding Customer Conversations’ and covers how to guide customers through effective conversations.

The four parts of a service conversation are open, learn, reply, and close, and this module explains and establishes the benefits of a good opening and explores skills involved in creating productive openings to service conversations.

“It provides them the tools necessary to conduct effective and efficient customer conversations, how to keep it on track, how to ask the right questions, how to meet customer needs, eliminate barriers to providing customer service, and gain customer trust,” Perry said.

It also helps attendees learn how to provide information and recommendations to customers effectively, present unwelcome information, and how to close a service conversation in a productive and positive manner.

Jürgen Klein, housing management assistant, has completed the first two modules and is looking forward to the last two modules that will be offered at the end of this month.

Klein hasn’t had customer service training in more than 10 years, but he said the training reminded him of things he had learned in the past and helped bring them back to mind, so it was a great refresher training.

“The customer himself or herself, and the customer’s needs, is the main purpose of why we have a job here,” he added.

During the training, participants have been engaged throughout and have talked very highly of it to Perry, he said.

“They are gaining a lot of insight on how to interact with customers in a way that helps them provide better service,” Perry said.

The last two modules will cover ‘Building Trust Under Pressure’ and ‘Teaming Up For Seamless Service’.

(Visited 38 times, 1 visits today)

Comments are closed.