Introduction

In today's highly competitive business environment, managing customer relationships and effectively interacting with your customers are critical to an organization's success. By enhancing the customer experience, organizations can develop a strong relationship between the customer and the organization. If sustained over time, organizations can strengthen their competitive position and as a result increase its profitability.

This program examines customer service and customer relationship management (CRM) as a key strategic process within all organizations. CRM is defined as the overall process of building and maintaining profitable customer relationships by delivering value and satisfaction to the customer. Focusing on process, strategy and technology, this program leads students from understanding the fundamentals of customer service and CRM through the implementation of CRM systems and analysis of customer data. It discusses customer service and CRM philosophy as well as the systems in place that incorporate and integrate information from sales, marketing and service.

The theory of CRM is being exalted to a new status because of today's severe competition and nearly saturated products.  Wal-Mart, Southwest Airline with great reputation highly listed in Fortune magazine make management ability of customer service as their core competitiveness.  The essence of competition between corporations is customer satisfaction; customer service department is no longer a dispensable department but the edge tool of corporate development.

The program is designed to introduce students to both customer service skills and CRM fundamentals in managing customers.  The curriculum will introduce students to concepts and functionality for all customer service professionals.  This Certification Program is a core certification program of the American Certification Institute. This program offers the designation of CICSP (Certified International Customer Service Professional) to candidates who demonstrate their understanding of the fundamentals of the profession through the successful completion of rigorous professional certification examinations based upon the CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGEMENT BODY OF KNOWLEDGE (CSMBOK). The CSMBOK is supported by 2 modules of study material for the CICSP.

Who Should Attend?

Customer service director or manager, marketing director and related managerial personnel
Excellent customer service personnel
Anyone wishing to become a customer service professional

Modules for Certification


The certification program consists of two modules and an 80 question multiple choice examination prepared from the CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGEMENT BODY OF KNOWLEDGE (CSMBOK). Candidates may complete the modules in any order. However, the suggested sequence is spelled out below:

Module 1 (Customer Service Skills)
1) Achieving high customer satisfaction
2) Developing strong listening and communication skills
3) Winning Telephone skills
4) Technical writing skills for support professionals
5) Handling difficult customer situation
6) Solving and preventing problems
7) Teams and team players in a help desk setting
8) Minimizing stress and avoiding burnout
 

Module 2 (Customer Relationship Management)
1) CRM Overview, Types, Strategy and Implementation
2) The Theoretical Framework of CRM
3) CRM Project Organization in the Financial Industry
4) The Evolution of Customer Relationships and Customer Value
5) Main Benefits and Organizational Impacts of CRM within the Bank
6) Data Mining Systems Supporting the Marketing Function
7) CRM Conclusion
 

Recommended Text(s)
 
CICSP Customer Service Text
CICSP CRM Text
(Provided to Students as Part of Their Course Tuition)