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CTE/Business, Finance and Marketing Curriculum Customer Service
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Core Standards of the Course

Strand 1
Students will understand the components of customer service

Standard 1
Students will identify customer services policies and procedures.

  1. Understand the marketing concept and how it relates to the customer.
  2. Define policy and procedure
  3. Research and analyze customer service policies in terms of their effectiveness.
  4. Analyze and improve customer service policies and procedures based upon research.
  5. Describe appropriate procedures and customer care based -on industry environment.
  6. Call and Chat Centers (telecommunication)
  7. Retail (i.e. brick and mortar stores, e-tailing)
  8. Wholesale
  9. Service Industries (i.e. medical, hospitality and tourism, lodging and recreation, sports/entertainment, etc.)

Standard 2
Students will understand and demonstrate the customer service mindset of achieving the "win-win".

  1. Recognize the difference between: "lose-lose", "lose-win", "win-lose", and "win-win".
    • Customer Perspective
    • Company Perspective
  2. Identify behaviors (ref. strand 3 standard 1) associated with the "win-win" customer service mindset based on industry environment.
    • Call and Chat Centers
    • Retail (i.e. brick and mortar stores, e-tailing)
    • Wholesale
    • Service Industries (i.e. medical, hospitality and tourism, lodging and recreation, sports/entertainment, etc.)

Performance Skills
Research how to provide proper customer service through:

  1. Role Play
  2. Case Study
  3. Business Simulation

Strand 2
Students will identify and understand the target customer.

Standard 1
Identify and explain the importance of a customer profile - Determines the target market, where to spend advertising dollars, common key factors of a company's customers, etc.

  1. Create a customer profile using market segmentation.
    • Demographic
    • Psychographic
    • Geographic
    • Behavioral
  2. Compare customer expectations based on the market segmentation.
  3. Identify and explain how a customer profile can help obtain new customers or retain existing customer.

Strand 3
Students will discover & develop critical aptitudes and "soft skills" in customer service.

Standard 1
Identify traits and develop communication skills necessary to provide exceptional customer service.

  1. Follow directions from management and provided training experience.
    • Show the ability to communicate clearly
    • Ask meaningful questions
    • Explain relevant company policies
    • Use appropriate customer-centered vocabulary
    • Focus on solutions
    • Step by step instructions if a customer-involved solution is required
  2. Compare listening types.
    • Active Listening
    • Passive Listening
      • Identify different forms of communication
        • Verbal
          • Voice inflection
          • Appropriate word choice (i.e. avoiding slang, jargon, non- positive words such as can't, won't, wouldn't, no)
        • Non-Verbal
          • Eye Contact
          • Body Language
          • Facial Expressions
          • Posture
          • Gestures
          • Touching/Physical Contact
          • Eating/Chewing gum
          • Sighing
          • Slow Movement (Dilly-Dallying)
  3. Identify soft skills used in customer service.
    • Demonstrate professionalism (dressing appropriately for the industry, speaking clearly with appropriate word choice, showing appropriate respect to your customer, etc.)
    • Effective interactions (not allowing emotions to escalate, keeping tangents at bay, conversations moving toward resolution, speaking to your audience vs talking up or down to them, reading your customer, respecting your customer's pace [not too fast or too slow])
  4. Identify some components of customer service to establish customer rapport (opening, discovery, resolution, ownership, etc.).
    • Opening
      • Greet customer (Smile: in person or on phone)
    • Discovery
      • Active listening
      • Questioning
    • Resolution
      • Clarify
      • Paraphrase
      • Summarize
    • Ownership
      • Employee Empowerment (clearly defining what the employee is allowed and limited to do in resolving
        issues)
      • Taking ownership of resolving issues and assuring that employees work towards resolution in terms of every reasonable request.
    • Customer service representatives should always:
      • Be courteous
      • Be responsive in a timely manner
      • Reflect company values and goals (acting professional on and off the clock)
      • Be an advocate for company products and services
      • Be honest with customers
      • Show Empathy
    • Ways of Showing Empathy
      • Show humanity and respect to every customer
      • Give your customer your full attention
      • Listen carefully and genuinely
      • Ask meaningful questions
      • Show sincere appreciation
      • Acknowledge and follow-up with customers who are waiting
      • Briefly reference similar experiences when appropriate to build relationship and trust with customer

Standard 2
Explore and understand the aptitudes needed to complete the customer service process.

  1. Customer Service employment evaluations.
    • Aptitude Test
      • Complete an aptitude test
      • Evaluate the results of the aptitude test
      • Compare aptitudes with traits necessary in a customer service role/environment for the industry.
    • Personality Profile
      • Complete a personality profile
      • Compare profile with traits necessary in a customer service role/environment for the industry.
  2. Develop and demonstrate product knowledge
    • Assess how certain aptitudes may hinder or encourage an employee's ability to develop a strong base of product/service knowledge.

Performance Skills

  1. Complete and evaluate a personal aptitude assessment.
  2. Complete and evaluate a personality style assessment.

Strand 4
Students will understand resources used to enhance customer experiences.

Standard 1
Identify reasons a company would utilize resources to enhance customer service.

  1. Understand how, and why companies track online communication.
  2. Identify ways a company could increase profits/sales by customers experiencing positive interaction.
    • Customer Loyalty
    • Referrals
    • Goodwill
    • Word-of-Mouth
  3. List ways a company could decrease profits/market-share by customers having poor experiences.
    • Reviews
    • Forums
    • Word-of-Mouth
    • Rate of use
  4. Describe the benefits and ethical implementation of using a "secret shopper" program to ensure the quality of customer service provided.

Standard 2
Students will identify resources to communicate with customers.

  1. Identify tools to communicate with customers and the effectiveness of these tools in different industries.
    • Phone (inbound, outbound, notification)
    • Electronic (e-mail, social media, surveys, online rating/reviews, other)
    • Print Mediums (flyers, catalogs, postcards, billboards, etc.)
    • Broadcast (TV, radio, etc.)
    • Other forums

Standard 3
Students will explain and understand the need for confidentiality.

  1. Identify reasons for customers to expect privacy in a variety of company settings (i.e. health, service, travel/tourism, sports/entertainment, etc.)
  2. Discuss liability issues faced by companies and how those liabilities could have an impact on the company (future customer service trainings, company profitability, company image, etc.)
    • Lawsuits
    • Fines
    • HIPPA
    • FERPA
    • OSHA
    • Other
  3. Investigate the need for security measures to protect information gathered and maintained by companies.
    • Protection of personnel records
    • Protection of business records
    • Protection of customer information
    • Internal (leaking information) and external (hacking) threats

Strand 5
Students will evaluate, develop, and measure customer loyalty and satisfaction.

Standard 1

  1. Define Customer Satisfaction
  2. Evaluate the expenses involved with attracting, maintaining and satisfying customers.
    • Identify how and why customer satisfaction is measured. (Online references, repeat customers, personal recommendation)
    • Compare the different expenses related to customer acquisition vs. customer retention.

Standard 2
Understand the need for customer retention as an integral function of every company employee.

  1. Compare the different ways employees on different authority levels within the company might impact customer retention.
    • Middle or upper management:
      • Development of procedural standards
      • Planning for and evaluating existing customers and prospecting new customers.
    • Employees directly interacting with customers or entry level employees:
      • Observing and interacting with customers regarding continual points of concern.
      • Providing feedback of consistent issues and resolutions through the proper chains of authority.
      • Interactions with customers with the goal of achieving a "win-win" --aka being the "Face of the Company"
      • The level of authority granted employees to solve problems for customers without management approval.
  2. Positive and negative impact of word of mouth.
    • Explore how word of mouth has evolved with the use of online technologies.

Standard 3
Improving customer satisfaction.

  1. Identify and understand the implementation and use of common loyalty programs.
    • Points for purchase
    • Tiered rewards
    • Memberships (free and paid)
    • Humanitarian causes (donation of money or goods to a charity/cause for customer purchase)
    • Partnering with other companies/causes
    • Games/sweepstakes (both purchase and no purchase necessary)
    • Other
  2. Identify and evaluate how to increase satisfaction through a "customer service experience."
    • Guestology (use examples from popular theme parks, fast-food chains, retail stores, etc.)
    • Other Guest-Centered Experiences
  3. Specify customer service tactics in sales that make the customer feel as though they are being "sold" or taken advantage of vs receiving a positive, mutually beneficial customer service experience.
    • Such as sales experiences in:
      • Travel and tourism/resort ownership shares
      • Food
      • Auto
      • Electronics
      • Other

Performance Skills

  1. Students should select a company from an industry he/she is interested in. Research and evaluate a current customer service program for selected company and suggest changes to increase clarity, efficiency of employees or achievement of customer service goals.
  2. Create a customer service program and assess it for proper behavior.

UEN logo http://www.uen.org - in partnership with Utah State Board of Education (USBE) and Utah System of Higher Education (USHE).  Send questions or comments to USBE Specialist - Racheal  Routt and see the CTE/Business, Finance and Marketing website. For general questions about Utah's Core Standards contact the Director - THALEA  LONGHURST.

These materials have been produced by and for the teachers of the State of Utah. Copies of these materials may be freely reproduced for teacher and classroom use. When distributing these materials, credit should be given to Utah State Board of Education. These materials may not be published, in whole or part, or in any other format, without the written permission of the Utah State Board of Education, 250 East 500 South, PO Box 144200, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114-4200.