Most of us would love to invest a fortune in higher education to further our careers. However, going back to school or taking courses can require a lot of time and money.

Enter training videos.

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They are budget-conscious. They can be done easily during free time and paused when necessary. They don't require you to commute to a random location. And, best of all, they allow you to still get the training you desire while dedicating your time to your current career.

Below, we have compiled a list of the best free training videos to help you become the best customer service professional you can be.

20 Free Customer Service Training Videos

1. The 7 Essentials To Excellent Customer Service

In 12 quick minutes, David Brownlee highlights his seven secret tips to producing exceptional customer service.

He gives examples of potential sales and customer service questions and shows you how to tackle each one. His goal is for customer service agents to always be trying to exceed customer expectations.

2. I Was Seduced By Exceptional Customer Service

This TEDx talk features John Boccuzzi who believes customer service is the greatest marketing tool a brand can nurture.

He believes in giving customers what they need, not what they think they want, which can often solve problems they didn't even know they had. In his opinion, great customer service is the secret to long-lasting customer loyalty.

3. The Six Steps in a Successful Tech Support Session

This is a great tool specifically for technical support reps, but it can benefit service or support reps in any industry.

Don Crawley goes over key points to handling a support session, such as authenticity, professionalism, avoiding silence, and getting a callback number. He even gives an example of a practice call that you might experience, and how you would respond to it using his six steps.

4. Customer Service vs. Customer Experience

This unique training video invites you to participate in an eye-opening exercise. The video has you list five brands or businesses to which you are loyal, note how often you go there, and write why you keep going back.

From this exercise, you can identify the six main reasons consumers return to companies. Seeing these reasons from the point-of-view of a customer is a useful trick for customer service professionals.

5. 10 Ways to Have a Better Conversation

Celeste Headlee uses her experience working as a radio show host to describe the ingredients to a better conversation.

Some of her rules include asking open-ended questions, admitting to not knowing something, and listening without distraction. She captures attention with her easy-to-remember, actionable rules that can highly improve conversations you have with your customers.

6. 7 Essential Customer Support Skills Every Rep Needs

This video from HubSpot Academy is a brief overview of the key skills that make a great customer support professional. This training video could be helpful for onboarding new team members or helping new managers cultivate great employees.

7. Five Critical Customer Service Mistakes

Don Crawley lays out the five common mistakes that customer service reps make when conversing with customers. Some of the mistakes include seeming uninterested, not listening, and focusing on ourselves rather than seeing the customer's perspective.

Crawley doesn't just recognize these mistakes. He also shows you ways to avoid these situations and improve conversations with customers.

8. Hostmanship: The Art of Making People Feel Welcome

In this TEDx talk, Jan Gunnarsson relays his perspective on customer service and leadership, based on his years of experience in the hospitality industry.

He brings in an interesting point that customer service is not about marketing strategies, but about the attitude customer service reps bring to the table.

Customer service, in his eyes, is a matter of having knowledge that you then share with customers. It can be a very welcoming relationship because they choose to learn from you, and you subsequently take on the task of improving their lives.

9. How to Create Brand Advocates and Fans

In this HubSpot Academy video, Amanda Slavin shares her tips that are applicable for marketers and customer service pros alike about how to cultivate brand loyalty and affinity among your customers. These high-level insights will help any professional improve their brand and customer perception.

10. Customer Service Training: Engage, Guide, and Grow Your Customers

Watch this training from Michael Redbord, the GM of HubSpot Service Hub, to learn how customer support, service, and success teams can work with their customers to solve their problems, proactively advise them, and help them achieve results that will pay off for your business, too.

11. Dealing With the Irate Customer

I really like this video because it gives you a genuine view of three upset customers as well as the steps your team can take to appease them. The situations visualized in this video are common and likely to occur at any business regardless of its industry. Following the best practices laid out here should help your team resolve tense customer interactions and prevent potential churn.

12. Brene Brown on Empathy

This video dissects the difference between sympathy and empathy, which is an important distinction to make in the customer service realm. Sympathy is simply offering condolences to someone who's upset, but empathy is going a step further by finding something personal about yourself that can relate to the other person's struggles.

One detail that customer service reps can take away from this video is avoiding "at least" statements. The speaker notes that rarely do empathetic statements begin with the phrase "at least." This phrase devalues the person's problems because we're trying to put a silver lining around their issues. It's more effective to acknowledge the problem and its impact rather than putting a positive spin on it.

Funny Customer Service Training Videos

13. How to Provide Extraordinary Customer Service: The Fred Factor

In this video, Mark Sanborn shares the story of getting to know his mailman, and how Fred proceeded to wow him by going above and beyond the call of duty to provide an exceptional customer experience. You'll be inspired and moved by the conversation they shared, which teaches another lesson on the impact of doing as much as you can to help the customers you connect with.

14. Amazing Customer Service Taxi Cab Story

In this video, Mark Sanborn talks about his move to Denver, where he met his new mailman Fred.

Fred might have seemed like an ordinary mailman, but he went above and beyond for Mark. He even went so far as helping fix a mistake made by a shipping company that was in no way tied to him.

Fred made incredible efforts to take his job as an opportunity to truly support his customers. These efforts inspired Sanborn in writing his book The Fred Factor about how exceptional customer service can often not even cost a cent.

15. Seinfeld Customer Service Example

This classic Seinfeld episode poses an interesting customer service case study. The soup shop has the best product in the city, but the worst customer service. The shop's owner believes his soup and "ordering process" are enough to keep customers happy but finds out that without decent service, his customers will eventually look elsewhere. Or, in this case, exact revenge after being yelled at.

This video teaches us that customer service is a long-term game. It gets people excited to return to your company and shop at your business again and again. Even if you have the best product in town, you'll eventually fizzle out if your customers don't feel valued.

16. Change Customer Service Like THIS Woman

In this video, Ross Shafer shares a story of how a Marriott employee giving him a free Coke had a dramatic effect on his loyalty and advocacy as a customer. The story goes to show how the smallest of gestures can have a huge impact on the customer, and how going an extra step can pay off in dividends for reps on the front lines of customer service.

17. Greg Has to Wait - Meet the Parents

This clip from Meet the Parents has a hilarious example of what not to do in customer service.

The flight attendant in this clip is so unnecessarily adamant about sticking to procedures that she completely disrespects and infuriates the customer.

The lesson learned from this video is that customer service doesn't have to be so scripted and inhuman. In fact, customer service is an opportunity to build a personal relationship with a customer, which then leads them to trust both you and the overarching brand.

18. How to Sound Smart in Your TEDx Talk

This TED talk is about nothing. Seriously, the speaker boasts how his speech literally says nothing for five minutes. But, the irony is, the fewer things he says the more points his speech is actually making.

In this video, Will Stephen shows us the important role that body language and preparation play in communication. If you look and sound smart, people will think you are even if you aren't making any real points. It's the appearance of intelligence that makes the difference.

This is particularly important for customer service reps as they're often faced with situations where they may not have an immediate answer. But, if they remain calm and appear to on top of the situation, customers will be more patient and trust that the rep will solve their issue.

19. Love Actually - The Necklace Scene

Here's a great example of understanding customer needs . While the store clerk thinks he's providing above-and-beyond customer service , he's actually doing a disservice to his customer who needs to make the purchase quickly. In the end, he ends up losing the sale due to his inability to interpret the customer's needs. This highlights how aligning with the customer's short- and long-term needs are more important than company policies or protocol.

20. Jim Dwight Sales Call

Source: Vimeo

If your sales or marketing team ever wonders why customer service is important, show them this video.

In this clip from The Office, Jim and Dwight visit a potential client to make a sales pitch. While Jim lays out the fundamental benefits they offer, Dwight unexpectedly dials the client's phone to an undisclosed number. As the phone rings awkwardly, it's eventually answered by an automated message that tells them they're on hold with one of Jim and Dwight's competitors. To show how their business is different, Jim dials his company's customer service number and is immediately answered by Kelly, a human service rep who seems excited about the call.

This humorous scene is an excellent example of how customer service can be leveraged by sales and marketing teams. If a potential client knows that they'll be treated better by your company, they'll prioritize your business over your competitors.

Online training videos are the perfect tool for those of us who don't have the time in our busy schedules to attend in-person courses.

We can learn so much from industry professionals, right from the comfort of our desks or homes. All of these resources are available to you for free, so relish in all the new knowledge you can gain without spending a penny.

Read more about some examples of good customer service.

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Customer Support Training Template

Originally published Nov 11, 2019 8:19:18 AM, updated June 15 2021