How to Use the Sandwich Technique for Customer Service

Kim Ellis, Chief Learning Architect at Go Ginger Learning Solutions, explains how to use the Sandwich Technique in customer service when providing feedback to both agents and customers.

Using the Sandwich Technique in Customer Service

What Is the Sandwich Technique?

The Sandwich Feedback Technique is fantastic for when you need to give constructive feedback to a colleague, a co-worker, or even a customer.

The way that the feedback works is that you start off with some positive reinforcement, and then you give the constructive feedback, and then you round it off with some more positive reinforcement.

How to Use the Sandwich Technique for Agent Feedback

The Sandwich Feedback Technique is great when you need to give feedback to your agents. Let’s say, for instance, that one of your agents has had an interaction with a customer, and they could have done better, but they handled some of the call really, really well.

What you would do is you would take some of the positive elements, for instance you might say the way that you greeted the caller was excellent, you built rapport throughout.

One thing that you could maybe improve on for the next call, would be to make sure that you have all the information to hand, so you’re not having to have so many pauses or place the customer on hold.

And then you can round it off with another positive reinforcement, and say the customer went away happy, they had all the information that they needed, and ultimately their query was resolved.

How to Use the Sandwich Technique in Customer Conversations

So now let’s switch that over to how do you use the Sandwich Technique with a customer. Imagine that you’re on the retention line, or your agent is on the retention line, and you’ve got a customer contacting you because they have had an increase in their broadband package price.

Now first of all, we can thank the customer for being a loyal member with us, a loyal customer, they’ve been with us for X amount of years, thank you very much.

And then you come in with the price increase, and explaining why the price has increased – that’s your constructive bit in the middle.

And then rounding it off with this price increase means that your broadband speeds have increased to X, or we’re giving you this additional service, or this is the additional support.

Really highlight what the company is doing for that customer that’s going to make them want to stay with you.

Words of Caution When Using the Sandwich Feedback Technique

When you’re using the Sandwich Technique, you need to make sure that you’re using it at the right time, for the right kind of feedback. One of the things that you need to look out for is overusing the Sandwich Technique, and also not really thinking about the two positives.

It’s very easy when you’re giving feedback just to focus on negatives, or just to focus on the constructive element, and then kind of just pad it out at the ends with a little bit of positive feedback that isn’t really meaning anything to that agent, or to that customer.

So you really need to think about all three elements as separate entities before you’re giving that feedback.

With thanks to Kim Ellis, Chief Learning Architect at Go Ginger Learning Solutions, for contributing to this video.

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