Customer service training for email support is can be a risky task—new agents need exposure to real customer situations to build up their experience and product knowledge. Yet, doing so too prematurely may incur the wrath of upset customers and lost opportunities. 

Our brand new email ‘Training Mode’ helps you balance the two. 

What is customer service training?

Customer service training is the coaching that agents go through, with an explicit objective to improve their service delivery and customer satisfaction. Typically, training will encompass several facets, including product knowledge, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, crisis management, and more. 

Why is customer service training for email important?

Email remains the dominant channel for ‘official’ communications and transactions, where professionalism is expected and crucial to your brand image. Email is also the de-facto channel for B2B organisations, where emails are highly emphasised because a tiny mistake may potentially derail high-stakes discussions and deals.

At the same time, there are also nuances in the skills needed to win over customers across the different channels. For instance, good pronunciation is needed in phone support, while strong language and writing skills are required in emails.

That’s why customer service training for email is so important—you are training agents to deal with your most important stakeholders.

Benefits of customer service training for email support

Targeting email support, our new Training Mode allows new or struggling agents to get practical, hands-on experience replying to real customer queries. At the same time, it allows you to maintain service quality and customer satisfaction.

How it works

Training Mode allows you to designate trainee agents and assign them to supervisors who will oversee and moderate their email responses. When a trainee agent replies to a customer enquiry, their response will first go to their assigned supervisor instead of the customer.

Here, the supervisor gets a chance to review the email and make amendments. Hitting the send button will dispatch the email to the customer, who will receive it written in your trainee agent’s name, without any sign of the supervisor’s influence.

Trainees will get a copy of the final email and see a side-by-side before/after comparison of the two. Supervisors and trainees can also make use of FocalScope’s internal notes and chat features to get help or discuss issues with senior colleagues.

Key features of email support Training Mode

While its core function is to enable a low-risk environment for hands-on learning, Training Mode also comes with several productivity perks:

• • Streamline the email vetting and approval processes
  • Eliminate back-and-forth email forwarding and churn between supervisors and agents 
  • Maintain clean version control and avoid confusion from multiple copies of the same email
    

Measure individual agent performance

Once a trainee agent is deemed proficient, you can take them off Training Mode. Thereafter, keep an eye on them by tracking KPIs like email handling times, first-touch resolution rates, CSAT and NPS scores via dashboards and reporting. 

Explore FocalScope’s training features

To learn more about our training features beyond email, read our best practices for training new or struggling agents or deep dive into phone monitoring features.

Alternatively, contact us for a guided demo today.