The True Reason Your Client Service Training Fails to Deliver: A Brutal Assessment
Ignore everything you’ve been told about customer care training. Over fifteen years in this field, I can tell you that 90% of what passes for employee education in this space is complete rubbish.
The reality is this: your staff already know they should be friendly to customers. They understand they should smile, say please and thank you, and resolve complaints efficiently. The gap is is how to handle the emotional labour that comes with dealing with challenging customers constantly.
A few years ago, I was working with a major phone company here in Sydney. Their service scores were dreadful, and leadership kept pumping money at conventional training programs. You know the type – mock conversations about welcoming clients, reciting company guidelines, and countless sessions about “putting yourself in the customer’s shoes.”
Total rubbish.
The core challenge wasn’t that team members didn’t know how to be polite. The problem was that they were emotionally drained from absorbing everyone else’s frustration without any strategies to shield their own emotional state. Here’s the thing: when someone calls to rage about their internet being down for the third time this month, they’re not just frustrated about the service problem. They’re livid because they feel helpless, and your team member becomes the recipient of all that pent-up rage.
Most training programs totally overlook this emotional reality. Instead, they focus on superficial skills that sound good in concept but fail the moment someone starts yelling at your staff.
The solution is this: teaching your team psychological protection methods before you even discuss client relations techniques. I’m talking about breathing exercises, emotional barriers, and most importantly, authorisation to disengage when things get too intense.
At that Sydney telco, we introduced what I call “Mental Shields” training. Instead of emphasising protocols, we taught staff how to recognise when they were internalising a customer’s feelings and how to mentally detach without coming across as unfeeling.
The outcomes were remarkable. Client feedback scores improved by 35% in three months, but more importantly, team stability fell by 50%. Turns out when your staff feel equipped to handle difficult situations, they actually enjoy helping customers fix their concerns.
Here’s another thing that drives me mad: the fixation with forced cheerfulness. You know what I’m talking about – those training sessions where they tell people to “always display a positive attitude” regardless of the circumstances.
Complete nonsense.
Clients can detect artificial positivity from a kilometre away. What they actually want is real attention for their issue. Sometimes that means recognising that yes, their situation actually is awful, and you’re going to do whatever it takes to assist them resolve it.
I think back to working with a big retail chain in Melbourne where leadership had insisted on that all service calls had to open with “Hello, thank you for picking [Company Name], how can I make your day absolutely fantastic?”
Really.
Can you imagine: you call because your costly product broke down two days after the guarantee ended, and some unfortunate customer service rep has to fake they can make your day “wonderful.” It’s insulting.
We scrapped that script and replaced it with straightforward honesty training. Train your people to really pay attention to what the client is explaining, validate their concern, and then focus on practical solutions.
Service ratings went up immediately.
After decades of experience of working in this field, I’m certain that the most significant problem with support training isn’t the training itself – it’s the impossible demands we set on service teams and the absolute lack of organisational support to handle the root causes of poor customer interactions.
Fix those issues first, and your support training will really have a chance to work.

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