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How Much to Spend on Customer Service Training

Customer Service Training

How Much to Spend on Customer Service Training

Customer service training is unavoidable for a growing small business. But how much cash does it take to train up a team of true customer service professionals? And is there any way to minimize the impact on your bottom line?

In theory, customer service training makes a lot of sense for your business.

But like anything else, the decision to launch a customer service training program ultimately boils down to dollars and cents. And with the cost of training these days, it can be hard to envision a decent ROI from high end, offsite seminars.

Before you reach any conclusions, you need to get a handle on the real costs involved with customer service training. There are a lot of factors that will determine how much to spend on customer service training - and in many cases there are ways to cost manage your program to fit within the parameters of your training budget.

Off-site seminars. No doubt about it, an off-site seminar is the most expensive training option. A high quality seminar experience can transform your customer service team. On the other hand, you could spend thousands ($1,800+/participant) on a seminar without any guarantee of results.
Training videos. Training videos are a less expensive way to conduct customer service training through a third-party provider. Premium training videos can run anywhere from $20 to several hundred dollars or more for a full series.
In-house training. One of the least expensive options for customer service training is to create an in-house training program. Obviously, this approach involves a lot more effort on your part, but it has the advantages of a minimal cash outlay and the ability to customize the training to your company's specific business model.
Lost time. Lost time is one of the hidden costs of customer service training. But that doesn't mean the cost is any less substantial than the investment in the training itself. A three-day training seminar could translate into a need to hire temporary staff, lost productivity or both.
Ramping up costs. If the training is focused on retooling your staff or a transition to a new system, you'll also need to factor in the amount of time it will take for the call center to ramp up and become familiar with new processes.