Customer Service

This course is designed for people who operate away from the front line customer service team. The course is designed to give participants some practical tools to help them build better relationships with customers. The course also reminds participants that they also have internal customers. So if you’d like to embed a culture of customer service across your organisation, this course is highly recommended.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Who should attend this course?
This course is perfect for employees who indirectly impact customer satisfaction — such as operations, admin, finance, or technical support teams.

2. How is this course different from standard customer service training?
Unlike typical customer service programs, this workshop focuses on internal service excellence — improving how teams communicate and collaborate internally to enhance external outcomes.

3. Can this course be customised for our organisation?
Absolutely. Preferred Training Network customises every session to your specific business goals, team size, and industry context.

4. Is it available Australia-wide?
Yes — the training can be delivered onsite or virtually across Australia, including NSW, VIC, QLD, WA, SA, and TAS.

We are becoming an experience economy, yet we overlook our employees and the experience each employee has at work. Here’s a course to help you design positive employee experiences. Your employees will feel more welcomed and valued.

Think of it this way: If you are not providing positive experiences for your employees, then another organisation will.

You’ll be surprised how small changes can have such a big impact. Participants will discover how to develop proven strategies to boost each employee’s experience at work.

‘Employee Experience’ In-House Program Details

For maximum effectiveness, this course is best conducted as an in-house program.

Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this course at your workplace. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost.

Duration: Each course can be tailored to suit your timeframes.

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact us at 1300 323 752 or email: [email protected]

How effectively does your team manage customer complaints?

When dealt with properly, complaints can turn unsatisfied customers into loyal customers and/or devoted supporters. Developing the ability to do so has a huge impact on your organisation’s reputation and success. Tailored in-house complaint handling courses provide powerful tools to improve customer satisfaction and resolve issues effectively.

By providing your team with the necessary techniques, any interaction, regardless of the challenge, can be handled with confidence and precision. Complaint-handling on site courses are designed to train participants to respond to complaints proactively and constructively. This also leads to improved customer satisfaction and enhanced brand reputation.

Refine Your Approach with Our Complaint Handling Courses

Participants will gain insights into complaint prioritisation and learn to listen without judgement. Our training also covers essential service recovery strategies and communication techniques. Instead of simply logging complaints, training empowers your staff to uncover root causes, identify root causes and effectively communicate resolutions, leading to better service and stronger business outcomes.

Our complaint handling courses can be tailored to suit your business or industry and can include training for the following:

• Conflict Resolution and Management
• Crisis Management
• Negotiation Skills Development
• Dealing with Difficult People
• Coping with Difficult Customers/Clients

Our comprehensive programs are designed to improve every aspect of customer interaction and service excellence. Further training with us will ensure your team excels in both communication and customer service. To further supplement your staff’s development, we also offers courses in business report writing, communication skills, and presentation delivery.

Why Enrol in Our Professional Complaint Handling Courses?

Investing in our professional complaint-handling training provides your team with the tools necessary to effectively resolve client/customer  problems. Here’s why enrolling in our courses is a wise decision for your organisation:

• Enhance Customer Satisfaction
  Learn how to handle concerns quickly and properly, leaving customers feeling heard and appreciated. Improved complaint management skills also mean that your team will develop stronger client relationships, resulting in long-term success.
• Strengthen Communication Skills
  Our complaint-handling seminars provide clear and emphatic communication strategies, allowing your team to handle even the most difficult conversations with confidence and poise.
• Improve Brand Reputation
  Efficiently handling complaints improves your brand’s reputation. By resolving concerns professionally, you demonstrate your dedication to customer service and quality.

Effective complaint handling is an essential ability that can significantly improve your leadership and management abilities. Our complaint handling courses provide your team with the strategies to resolve issues efficiently, lead with confidence, and build stronger relationships within your organisation and with clients.

Transform your approach to customer service. Explore our full range of professional development courses to enhance your team’s skills. We also offer micro-learning workshops that deliver more focused lessons designed to fit into busy schedules. Contact us today for an instant quote.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. Who should attend the Complaints Handling Training?

A. This course is ideal for customer service representatives, frontline staff, managers, and anyone responsible for managing customer complaints and feedback.

Q. What are the key learning outcomes of this course?

A. Participants will learn effective communication techniques, strategies to de-escalate conflicts, methods to identify underlying issues, and approaches to turn complaints into opportunities for improvement.

Q. Is this training available across Australia?

A. Yes, we offer the Complaints Handling Training in all major cities and regional areas across Australia, with options for in-person or virtual delivery.

Q. How long is the course?

A. The course can be tailored to your needs, with options ranging from 60-minute microlearning sessions to full-day workshops.

Clients often get angry and difficult when they perceive a service failure. The unfortunate thing is that the service failure does not even need to be real. If your client thinks it’s real, then it’s real. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities with difficult clients if you manage them instead of reacting to them.

The costs of an angry and difficult client

• Time and emotional cost reacting to the perceived problem
• Resources allocated to fixing the problem, which may not actually be the problem
• Higher staff turnover as angry clients shred employee loyalty
• Less engaged staff and lower motivational levels
• Client fees are often discounted to soothe the anger
• Bad WOM – In your industry, you can’t afford this

The benefits of redirecting the anger

• Instead of being the target, you redirect the anger to the real problem
• Improved client loyalty if you create a successful service recovery
• Positive WOM and referral opportunities
• Work flows are more streamlined and not bouncing from conflict to conflict
• Maintain long term client relationships

4 reasons to choose this ‘Dealing with Difficult Clients’ in-house program for your staff

• An angry, difficult client creates negative word of mouth
• Difficult clients are often less profitable due to the amount of concessions they get
• Your people may lose an opportunity as they were too busy fixing the problem
• Clients love alternative solutions – they save face and you get new business

Key ‘Dealing with Difficult Clients’ Workshop Content: 

• Correctly identify and label the type of anger
• Practice active listening and questioning techniques
• Use the 5 Why’s to understand the root cause of the problem
• Use strategic interruptions to target venting
• Redirect client anger towards a solution
• Communicate that you are accountable and take ownership of the problem
• Decide the correct time to put forward a “fix it” plan
• Understand the halo effect and the laws of attraction
• Build a service recovery plan
• Position client centric services
• Understand how to influence different generations and personalities
• Understand the impacts of client’s attitude, beliefs, values and expectations
• Understand client intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence
• Keep solutions inside the client’s zones of tolerance
• Use NLP techniques to promote a sense of understanding
• Substitute words that cause unnecessary tensions and build in positive reinforcement.
• Create behavioural boundaries even when it seems impossible

The Nuts and Bolts of our ‘Dealing with Difficult Clients’ Course

This ‘Dealing with Difficult Clients’ program can be conducted as an in-house training at your organisation or virtually.

Guidelines

• Group Size: An ideal group size is 5–9 participants.

• Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this program at your offices. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost.

• Duration: Each session can be modified to your timeframe.
• Cost: Upon request.
• Target Audience: Managers and staff dealing with difficult clients.

Building better relationships with your most profitable customers is vital. You need to start focusing better attention on your most profitable customers or somebody else will. Pareto’s principle suggests 20% of your customers are responsible for 80% of your revenue, so why treat all your customers the same.

How strong are your relationships with your most profitable customers?

Ask yourself the following:

• I always return calls within half a day.
• I never overpromise and/or under deliver.
• I know the rank order of my most profitable customers.
• My most profitable customers often refer business to me.
• I am aware of their hobbies and interests.
• Our conversations are value oriented, not price oriented.
• I communicate carefully and effectively.
• I use active listening and questioning skills.
• I make tangible notes of conversations.
• I record conversations in a database.
• I know the names of their family.
• I can deal with difficult people effectively.
• I offer alternatives and ideas to my customers.
• I know my customer’s personality styles.
• I solve problems rather than create problems for my customers.
• My customers trust me.

Your Relationship Building program can be custom designed to help participants build better relationships with your customers.

Relationship Building with Customers In-House Program Details

For maximum effectiveness, this program is best conducted as an in-house program.

• Ideal group size: 4 –12 participants.
• Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this program at your business premises. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost.
• Duration: Your Relationship Building Course can be modified to fit inside your timeframe.
• Cost: Price on request.
• Target Audience: Employees, Supervisors, Team Leaders, Senior Managers or CEO’s.

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact: Deborah Dear on 1300 323 752 or email: [email protected] or contact us online today.

The benefits of your Reward and Recognition workshop are:

1. Getting buy-in for higher performance objectives.
2. Linking higher performance to rewards (how the experts do it).
3. Motivating your employees to achieve stretch goals.
4. Rewarding your employees on achieving their KPIs.
5. Developing a long term incentive program.
6. Creating intrinsic and extrinsic rewards for your employees.
7. Designing a recognition strategy that is aligned with your organisational strategy.
8. Creating seamless process improvement.
9. Building rapport to generate trust and productivity.
10. Using effective communication techniques to empower others.
11. Building a culture of continuous improvement.
12. Encouraging a knowledge and information sharing culture.
13. Removing any potential bottlenecks.

‘Employee Recognition’ In-House Program Details:

For maximum effectiveness, this program is best conducted as an in-house program.

• Ideal group size: 4–12 participants.
• Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this program at your business premises. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost.
• Duration: This program can be adapted to meet your requirements.
• Cost: Price on request.
• Target Audience: Anybody who communicates with your customers.

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact: 1300 323 752 Email:[email protected]

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact: Deborah Dear on 1300 323 752 or email: [email protected] or contact us online today.

Here are 7 reasons to welcome complaints as an opportunity rather than an annoyance:

• Most customers vote with their feet and don’t even give you the chance to fix a perceived value imbalance, so be thankful they are still a customer.
• Measuring and reducing complaints as a performance indicator is often easier than measuring ‘increased customer service levels’.
• In marketing, there is a term known as the “bugger principle”. Every time someone says “bugger” there is a business opportunity.
• Complaints are free. Customer satisfaction surveys are not.
• Complaints will give you broader user perspectives. Often people are too close to their products and services and need to break free from myopic perspectives.
• Research has proven that if you conduct a successful service recovery, you will increase customer loyalty levels.
• Resolving complaints involves dialogue with customers. Dialogue generates new ideas and increases customer engagement levels.

“A customer who complains is my best friend.” –Leonard, Stew

Reduce Customer Complaints In-House Program Details

For maximum effectiveness, this program is best conducted as an in-house program.

Ideal group size: 4–12 participants.

Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this program at your business premises. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost.

Duration: This program can be adapted to meet your requirements.

Cost: Price on request.

Target Audience: Employees, Supervisors, Team Leaders, Senior Managers or CEO’s.

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact: Deborah Dear on 1300 323 752 or email: [email protected] or contact us online today.

Would you like to attend this program?

For maximum effectiveness, this program is best conducted as an in-house program.

Ideal group size: 4 – 12 participants.

Venue: For your convenience, you can choose to conduct this program at your business premises. Alternatively, we can provide a training venue at a small additional cost

Duration: This program can be conducted as a one day or half day program

Cost: Price on request.

Target Audience: Health Managers and Staff

If you would like more information on this training program, please contact: Preferred Training Networks on 1300 323 752
Email: Deborah at [email protected]