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Last year, my team at Skybound faced 64% customer volume growth. Hiring wasn’t an option, so we had to scale our skills, not our headcount.
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Instead of building a bigger team, we built a smarter one. Our solution was doubling down on our technology and customer service training materials. We automated key workflows and focused on the core skills that allowed each agent to handle interactions with greater efficiency. This approach led to a boost in our team’s overall efficiency and a 10% increase in CSAT at that time.
That experience reinforced a core belief of mine. While building rapport is the most powerful tool we have in customer service, a great training program is how we sharpen that tool for every agent on the team. It’s the foundation of a scalable, world-class support operation.
In this article, I’m sharing my strategy for building that foundation, along with free resources you can use to empower your own team.
Table of Contents
- Types of Customer Service Training Materials
- Free Customer Service Training Materials
- How to Teach Customer Service
- How to Write a Customer Service Training Manual
- Customer Service & Support Training Exercises
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Types of Customer Service Training Materials
Human-to-human training isn’t going anywhere yet, whether it’s a new hire shadowing a senior agent on calls or a manager coaching an individual or cohort. But that kind of customer service training is resource-intensive and doesn’t scale well. That’s where customer service training materials come in.
When building a training program, it’s useful to separate your content into two categories:
- Training about the specifics of your products, services, and policies.
- Training about customer service best practices.
Company-specific training materials need to be built in-house or by a vendor and maintained to stay current. To educate your team on general best practices, however, you can tap into a wide network of courses and resources.
It’s time to get creative and look beyond a manual! Here are four types of online training materials that will engage your team and take them from novices to pros.
1. On-Demand Videos
Videos engage our visual and auditory senses much more than text alone. Studies have shown that learners retain more and perform better on assessments when taught with video over in-person teaching.
You can record in-person training or webinars as on-demand videos, saving staff time and letting staff watch it on their own time. Short videos are great for retention and can boost retention with microlearning.
Pros
- Scalability.
- Saves staff time.
- High engagement and comfort with video medium.
Cons
- No interactivity.
- No knowledge checks or credentials.
- Though costs have come down dramatically, video can still be expensive to produce.
2. Online Courses
While video has its benefits, teaching through individual videos has limitations. For a structured approach, I suggest looking for an online course for customer service reps to complete. Courses should outline learning outcomes, integrate multimedia for engaging learning content, and measure participants’ progress.
Employees cited online/self-paced courses as their number-one training format in a SHRM study, preferred by 70% of employees. Some courses integrate video, gamification, and other tactics to engage learners. You can also have confidence in the impact, as many courses integrate knowledge checks to gauge progress.
I’ve come to know the power of online courses. I’ve taken some myself through the years to refresh my skills and love the flexibility of HubSpot Academy (don’t miss their Delivering Exceptional Customer Support course!).
Pros
- Scalability.
- Flexibility.
- Progress measurement.
- Credential.
Cons
- Limited interactivity.
3. Virtual Reality
One of the best ways of learning is doing, yet most companies don’t want the risk of turning untrained customer service reps loose with customers.
So, how can new agents gain that valuable field experience? Virtual reality and augmented reality. Using a VR headset, trainees can practice conversations with a virtual customer.
Some of the largest corporations, like Verizon, Walmart, and MGM Resorts, are training their customer service workforce with VR. MGM Resorts reported that 92% of learners felt more confident in their skills after VR training. SHRM found that 64% of employees prefer to learn by simulation, higher than video and in-person training.
Pros
- High interactivity.
- Reduced training time.
- Scalable.
- Customizable.
- Progress measurement.
- Low risk.
Cons
- Higher cost.
4. AI-Powered Training
According to HubSpot’s research, 77% of service teams already use AI. AI models can imitate customer interactions via simulated video or chat. Customer service trainees can practice chatting with an AI-powered customer chatbot, for instance.
AI can also join live customer calls to help agents improve their performance with tools like Second Nature, TalkDesk, or Gong. A virtual assistant can analyze conversations in real-time and suggest knowledge base articles or resources for the topic. An AI model can also analyze a customer call and coach customer service reps on ways to improve.
Pros
- High interactivity.
- Scalable.
- Customizable.
- Progress measurement.
- Low risk.
Cons
- Resource-intensive to build.
Free Customer Support Training Template
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Free Customer Service Training Materials
Free Customer Service Training Videos
Take advantage of these customer service training videos to teach new hires how to provide exceptional customer service.
- 57 Phrases to De-escalate Any Angry Customer by Myra Golden (Format: 1 video, 35 minutes)
- The Secret to Outstanding Customer Service by Simon Sinek (Format: 1 video, 3 minutes)
- 6 Tips for Improving Your Customer Service Skills by Indeed (Format: 1 video, 8 minutes)
- De-escalation Skills Training for Customer Service & Employees by Pollack Peacebuilding Systems (Format: 1 video, 6 minutes)
- Effective Conflict Resolution For Customer Service Agents: Proven Techniques by Pollack Peacebuilding Systems (Format: 1 video, 7 minutes)
- The Secret Ingredients of Great Hospitality by TED (Format: 1 video, 14 minutes)
- The State Of Customer Service 2024 by HubSpot (Format: 1 video, 2 minutes)
- The SERVICE in Customer Service by Simon Sinek (Format: 1 video, 5 minutes)
- AI-Powered Customer Service by HubSpot (Format: 1 video, 12 minutes)
Want a humorous approach? Discover the funniest customer service training videos in this blog post.
Free Customer Service Courses
- Delivering Exceptional Customer Support by HubSpot Academy (Format: 6 videos, 4 lessons, 3 quizzes, 1 hour)
- Inbound Service Fundamentals by HubSpot Academy (Format: 6 videos, 1 hour)
- Customer Service Essentials by Great Learning (Format: 1.5-hour online module, certification)
- Customer Management by Great Learning (Format: 1-hour online module, certification)
- Customer Service Training | Keys To Satisfy Your Customers by Jack Tran/Udemy (Format: 1-hour online module)
- Technical Support Basic for Everyone by IBM/edX (Format: Self-paced online modules, 9-12 hours per week over 5 weeks)
- Diploma in Customer Service by Alison (Format: Online modules taking 6-10 hours, assessment, CPD accreditation)
- Customer Service Skills by Alison (Format: Online modules taking 1.5-3 hours, assessment, certificate)
- Customer Service (Short Course) by Oxford Home Study (Format: 20 hours of online modules followed by an assessment and certification)
Have a bigger professional development budget? See our roundup of the top customer service certifications.
Free E-Learning Tools
- Kahoot! Kahoot! allows you to create learning games and quizzes to teach anything, anytime.
- Course Hero. Turn your training manual into an interactive study guide with AI-powered answers, explanations, and recommendations for learners.
- Brainscape. Brainscape lets you create your own flashcards for optimized learning through repetition.
- Socrative. Use Socrative to create personalized content, from quizzes to polls, to reinforce your learning content and provide instant feedback for your team.
- Quizlet. With Quizlet, you can make flashcards, games, and quizzes to help your team learn your training materials from the inside out.
How to Teach Customer Service
Over the years, I’ve learned that the difference between a good support team and a great one is the quality of its training. Building a confident, effective team doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a deliberate framework.
This is my 10-step process, refined in the trenches of SaaS and ecommerce, designed to transform potential into high performance.
1. It all starts with deep product knowledge.
Credibility with customers starts with being a power user of your own product. In a B2C setting like Skybound’s Shopify storefront, this means knowing every product and policy.
In a technical B2B environment, it means having deep knowledge of complex workflows. At the end of the day, the principle is the same. Mastery builds the trust you need to solve problems. The best companies take this to another level. As Zapier co-founder Tony Hsieh (rest in peace) famously said, “Customer service shouldn’t be a department, it should be the entire company.”
My advice? Have your support team actually complete a project using your product. For ecommerce, have them place a test order then process their own return. Nothing reveals pain points faster than firsthand experience.
2. Educate on the industry, not just the company.
Great support goes beyond product features. It requires industry context. An agent who understands the customer’s world can anticipate their next question. They know the common challenges their customers face.
At Skybound, since it’s a fandom and collector environment, I make sure my team stays up to date with our latest games and intellectual property. This deeper understanding lets them be proactive partners, not just reactive problem-solvers.
3. Never forget the fundamentals.
Even seasoned pros need to practice the fundamentals.
- Active listening.
- Empathy.
- Clear communication.
- Tone.
These are the bedrock of every quality interaction. And the modern customer’s core expectation is speed. HubSpot’s 2024 data shows that 82% of customers expect immediate problem resolution. The fundamentals have to deliver that speed without sacrificing quality.
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4. Master the toolkit.
Your tech stack is your team’s command center. Effective training must cover how to use tools to be efficient and effective. The alternative is friction.
Research shows that 74% of CRM leaders report that tool switching makes ticket resolution take longer. I think it’s safe to say we all relate to that one, and it’s a big, self-inflicted roadblock that proper training can help eliminate. An agent who masters their tools can devote more mental energy to connecting with the customer.
5. Simulate real-world pressure.
Simulations and role-playing are where training becomes real. This practice builds the muscle memory needed to navigate difficult conversations with confidence. Before a major product drop, my team runs through potential customer service scenarios like website errors or oversold inventory. Even a small amount of preparation can ensure your team is steady and professional when the pressure is on.
6. Establish a daily rhythm.
A clear workflow provides structure and prevents burnout. I provide a rhythm for the day, not a rigid script. This includes guidance on how to prioritize tickets, when to follow up, and how to document issues for other teams. A well-designed workflow is the secret to both team efficiency and individual agent well-being.
7. Teach confident conflict resolution.
I train my teams to follow a simple framework for turning friction into trust.
First, listen to fully understand the situation. Next, validate the customer’s frustration to show you are their advocate. Then, clearly outline the path to a solution.
This skill is essential when handling an emotional customer.
8. Provide a clear escalation path.
Your agents need a psychological safety net. A clear escalation path empowers them to solve what they can. It also gives them the confidence to hand off issues that require different expertise. This clarity reduces agent anxiety and improves the experience and resolution time for the customer.
9. Prioritize work-life balance.
Customer support is demanding. Don’t make it all about the tickets. I view protecting my team from burnout as a primary responsibility. I focus on manageable workloads and encourage taking paid time off. When you can automate tedious work, do it.
I also like to implement career development frameworks with clear OKRs so my team members see a real future with the company. This is also part of fostering well-invested team members.
10. Measure to empower, not micromanage.
I don’t use data as a disciplinary tool, unless absolutely necessary of course. For me, it’s a coaching tool. Beyond lagging indicators like NPS and CSAT, I track leading operational indicators.
I measure First Contact Resolution (FCR) to see if we are solving issues on the first try. I use Customer Effort Score (CES) to find and remove friction. I also use internal QA scorecards to coach agents on our standards of service. The goal is to elevate the team’s ability to provide stellar service.
How to Write a Customer Service Training Manual
In my experience, one of the biggest challenges of scaling a support team is scaling knowledge. How do you make sure your tenth and one-hundredth hire are just as effective as your first?
The answer is a central playbook. Knowledge management goes both ways, internal and external. A great customer service training manual is a tool for bottling excellence and distributing it across the entire team. It’s your source of truth, and it must be created and maintained with that spirit in mind.
Here’s how I approach it.
1. Map the customer journey first.
I never start a manual by writing about our processes. I start by mapping the entire customer journey. I’ve found that if an agent understands the context of a customer’s issue, not just the issue itself, they provide far more insightful support.
HubSpot’s research found that only 24% of customer service leaders had full-funnel visibility of their customer’s journey, so getting this right gives your team a big advantage. My first step is always to collaborate with the sales and marketing teams to build this map. Then, I use a Voice of Customer program to bring in direct quotes and stories to make those journey stages real.
2. Define your team’s objectives.
For any playbook I create, I make sure it directly supports our team’s core KPIs. I learned this at Greenhouse Software when I created our support SLAs for a new SaaS pricing model. We had to be clear about our objectives for each customer segment.
An agent who knows the primary objective is retention will handle a high-stress situation differently than an agent whose only goal is speed. This clarity gives your team a shared purpose and guides their decision-making. Before I write anything else, I clearly state the top one to three objectives on the first page of the manual.
3. Blend your training content.
My go-to strategy has always been a blended approach because it’s the most efficient way to build a comprehensive customer service training manual. I use free, high-quality resources (sometimes paid) for foundational skills like active listening.
Then, I focus my team’s energy on the internal standard operating procedures and playbooks that give us a competitive advantage. I like to start with a simple content inventory, making two columns for what we can source externally versus what we must build internally. This creates a clear roadmap.
4. Make it interactive.
I’ve learned the hard way that a static, text-only manual is a dead manual.
People rarely use them, and knowledge retention is low. That’s why I have one firm rule for my playbooks: They must be for doing, not just reading. I build them with links to practice exercises, role-playing scenarios, and knowledge quizzes that transform them from a passive resource to an active training tool.
For every major process you document, it’s helpful to include a corresponding quiz or practice exercise. An agent who has role-played a customer scenario is always more prepared than one who has only read about it.
5. Explain the “why” behind the metrics.
As a leader, one of my responsibilities is to explain the purpose of our work. It’s the key to fostering buy-in. Telling an agent to improve their FCR is just a command. Explaining that a high FCR builds customer trust and reduces customer churn gives their work a mission. That’s why I always include a “Metrics Glossary” in these training manuals.
For each KPI, I define what it is, how it’s measured, and most importantly, what it means for the customer and the company. This understanding is critical for an agent’s career growth.
6. Create a process for updates.
A training manual must be a living document, not a relic left to gather dust. An outdated manual is worse than no manual because it erodes your team’s trust in their resources. To prevent this, I suggest assigning owners to different sections and establishing a regular review cadence.
One of the best approaches I’ve used is empowering frontline agents to suggest updates. They’re in the trenches every day and are the first to spot outdated information. I create a simple submission process — in our case at Skybound, a Microsoft Teams channel. I make sure to close the loop so agents know their expertise is valued.
Customer Service & Support Training Exercises
Here are a few of the exercises I’ve used throughout my career to build sharp, confident teams.
1. Mock Calls
In my experience, mock calls are the closest thing to a sparring session for a support agent. They are an invaluable, low-stakes way to practice navigating difficult questions. For these to be truly effective, I recommend recording the sessions (with permission) to use in one-on-one coaching. Let the agent listen back to their own call first and identify what went well and what could be improved. Self-discovery is often more powerful than direct critique.
Pro tip: Invite a product manager or engineer to your next mock call session to play the role of a customer reporting a complex bug. It’s a great way to build cross-departmental empathy and gives your technical teams a direct look at how customers potentially communicate their issues.
2. Personality Testing
I have a nuanced view of personality tests. I see them as a potential starting point for conversation about communication, nothing more. They can help agents understand their own style and adapt to different customer types. I strongly caution against using them in hiring or performance reviews. Their value is in fostering self-awareness.
Pro tip: Don’t just share the results. Run a workshop where the team discusses how a “big-picture thinker” can best communicate with a “detail-oriented” customer. The goal is to create a practical cheat sheet for adapting communication styles on the fly, turning a theoretical test into a practical tool.
3. No “NOs” Allowed
I call this training exercise “positive positioning.” The goal is to train agents to reframe limitations in a helpful, solution-oriented way.
For example, at Skybound I coach my team to avoid saying, “No, we don’t carry that size.” Instead, they can say, “While that size is out of stock, I’d be happy to notify you the moment it’s available.” It’s a subtle shift that changes the conversation’s dynamic.
Pro tip: Add some fun to this. Create a shared document or Slack channel where agents can post their best examples of “positive positioning” from real customer interactions. Celebrate the best ones in your team meeting to reinforce the habit and build a library of great responses.
4. Employee Shadowing
Let me tell you, I think shadowing is one of the most underrated training tools. So much institutional knowledge is absorbed through observation. It’s about learning the unwritten rules of great service. As Eric Vandenberg from G2 Crowd explains, “What I find most valuable about training is listening to how peers handle objections and navigate conversations.”
That’s exactly why I’m a big advocate for two-way shadowing. New agents shadow veterans to learn the ropes. Veterans periodically shadow newer team members to offer targeted coaching. This builds leadership within your team.
Pro tip: Expand shadowing beyond your own department. Have a new support agent spend an hour shadowing a sales rep on a demo call and see what they learn. This builds invaluable business context and helps your agents understand the entire customer journey, making them better at their jobs.
5. Product Testing
I have always made product testing a core responsibility for my team. The support team must be the most active and critical user of the product. At Skybound, we have our interactive customer loyalty program. Whenever we launch a new feature, I ask my team to stress-test it. This proactive testing turns support into the first line of defense for the customer experience.
Pro tip: Create a formal “Support-Led Bug Report” or “Friction Log” that your team uses during testing. Partner with your product team to ensure these reports are reviewed regularly. This turns your support team from just users into a vital part of your product’s quality assurance process.
6. Ticket Teardowns
In today’s world, your support team is also a writing team. This exercise sharpens that specific skill. We take real, anonymized tickets and review the agent’s response as a group. We look at tone, clarity, grammar, and accuracy. It’s a collaborative way to elevate the quality of our written support.
You have to get granular here. Focus each session on a specific skill. One week, you might focus only on tone. The next, you might focus on the clarity of the instructions provided. This targeted approach prevents agents from feeling overwhelmed and leads to more measurable improvements.
Pro tip: Make it a rule to tear down at least one “perfect” ticket in every session. Analyzing why a great response worked so well is just as important as fixing a poor one. It gives the team a clear, positive model to emulate and reinforce what excellence looks like.
Build excellence in customer service with better training.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my career, it’s that effective training is built on a foundation of empathy, both for your customers and your agents. It’s the best investment you can make in your customer experience. It’s what makes a good team great.
The takeaways from this process and framework are simple:
- Build a framework. Don’t leave training to chance. Use a structured process that covers everything from product knowledge to conflict resolution.
- Create a playbook. Your customer service training manual is your team’s single source of truth. Build it around the customer journey and create a process to keep it a living document.
- Practice relentlessly. Use practical, hands-on exercises to turn knowledge into skill and build your team’s confidence.
My final advice is to start small. Don’t try to implement everything at once. Pick one exercise from the list, like ticket teardowns, and run your first session with your team next week. The journey to building a world-class customer support team is a marathon, not a sprint, and it begins with that single, actionable step.
Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Free Customer Support Training Template
Train and onboard your new customer support hires with this downloadable template.
- Training Timeline
- People to Meet
- 100 Day Goals
- And More!
Download Free
All fields are required.
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