I'm an accidental customer service trainer.

One day, I was working in customer service as a retail associate. The next day, my boss asked me to train. No materials, no facilitator's guide, no nothing. Figure it out.

I've now been a customer service trainer for more than 30 years. I love it.

Today, I talk to a lot of people who want to become customer service trainers. My goal is to share from my experience.

I'm going to share three steps you can take right now to jumpstart your career as a customer service trainer.

Whether it's part-time or full-time, these steps will help you build the skills and experience to do it right.

Step 1: Become a customer service expert

You have to be an expert to train others.

Imagine you wanted to become an airplane pilot. Naturally, you'd want a flight instructor who was really good at flying planes.

The same is true for customer service. You have to be really good at serving customers if you want to train others.

Experience is the best teacher.

My first customer service encounter ended in disaster. I couldn't answer a basic product question. The customer got angry and stormed out of the store.

I hadn't been trained on our product or what to say to a customer. At sixteen, I didn't yet have the poise, experience, or common sense to say the right thing.

But I so badly wanted to do better.

From then on I made a point to learn as much as I could about our products so I could answer questions with confidence. I learned how to better respond to questions I couldn't answer, such as "I'm not sure, so let me go find out for you."

You've had those experiences, too.

Learn from them. Experiment with different approaches. Try like heck to do better the next time.

Some things will work. Others won’t. Keep trying!

You'll eventually improve. Those hard-learned lessons will be gold when it’s your turn to train someone else.

There’s another reason to grow your skills. A great customer service trainer must have an unquenchable thirst for continuous improvement. This is how you start.

There are many resources that can help you. For example:

Free weekly tips: Customer Service Tip of the Week
Training videos: LinkedIn Learning courses
Books: Check out some of my favs

Step 2: Build informal training skills

Most trainers start informally. Helping someone else grow provides a wealth of experience.

My first training opportunity came when my boss at the retail store asked me to help train a new employee. I loved it.

I sought out every opportunity to train over the course of several years in various jobs. This included mentoring new hires, facilitating short training sessions, and putting together training programs on my own.

It was all done informally. I didn’t know much about the science of adult learning, but I discovered what worked and what didn't. Eventually, I landed a full-time training position based on my experience.

You can do the same thing.

Look for opportunities to develop your informal training skills. It might be in your current job or part of a special assignment within your company.

You can also develop your training skills through volunteering with a nonprofit organization in your community.

Here’s a secret I’ve learned after training thousands of employees: informal training is more important than formal training.

Employees learn more from coaching, feedback, and mentorship than they do from content delivered in a formal program.

Step 3: Develop formal training skills

The final step is to learn specific skills that will help you become a better trainer. This includes the ability to put together a training session and deliver it.

There are a few ways to do this.

Join your local ATD chapter. ATD is the Association for Talent Development, and it’s where trainers go for professional development. Many have mentor programs that pair you with an experienced trainer who can help you grow. Find your local chapter.

Take a train-the-trainer course. If you have access to LinkedIn Learning, try How to Design and Develop Training Programs.

Create a personal development plan. Use the Individual Development Plan worksheet as a guide. LinkedIn also has a great career explorer tool that can help you identify the specific skills you need to build.

Conclusion

I hope you love customer service training as much as I do. It feels great to help someone build the skills necessary to delight the people they serve.

There are three big steps to becoming a customer service trainer.