Customer Service Professional

Discovering, Experiencing, And Sharing The World Of Hospitality

Program Introduction

Meet customer service professional students from around the world; sharpen the skills you will need in the service industry, and develop the confidence, perspective, skills, knowledge and drive that will help you succeed in the hospitality industry.

The fundamental duties of a Customer Service Worker are to answer questions, resolve problems and provide caring and efficient service. Success in this regard depends on the worker’s ability to connect with customers on a personal level. To that end, this program will teach skills related to forming proper attitudes, creating strong first impressions, communicating well both verbally and non-verbally, and – most importantly – understanding just what it is a customer needs and wants.

Join us in participating and practicing within the world of Customer Service Professionals in this highly interactive program. Videos, lectures, guest presentations, and field trips abound!

This weekday, 9am-1pm, 28-week Diploma program provides you with the skills to succeed in the hospitality industry, while at the same time allowing you the ability to work part-time (up to 20 hours per week) and/or explore your new Canadian city!

Create exciting and rewarding job opportunities for yourself!

What Learning Goals Will I Achieve?

Gain knowledge from both inside and outside the classroom tours, field trips, and guest speakers.
Learn the basics of the hospitality industry from experienced professional instructors.
Expand your communication skills through team and instructor speaking activities.
Opportunity to earn your diploma in Customer Service, as well as your BC FOOD SAFE and Serving It Right certificates in one program.
Understand your own personal strengths to interrelate with others.
Enhance your resume, learn and practice interview skills and gain confidence to improve your chances of finding a good job.
Broaden your service industry contact network.

Courses

Course 1: Interpersonal Skills Development

This course focuses on core communication concepts. Students with customer service experience share their stories and insights, while everyone reflects on what is at the heart of effective communication and whether this message is similar to their own ideas and ambitions. Oral practice sessions and consistent classroom interaction, bring the topic to life. The course is primarily geared to students with little or no experience in Canadian customer service work or those who wish to practice and improve their communication for success in the workplace.

Course 2: Food and Beverage

The key advantage of effective customer service in the restaurant and bar industry hinges on the ability to communicate clearly and professionally in a positive and friendly manner. Real communication goes hand in hand with cultural awareness: without the latter, the former will simply not happen. This course welds the required knowledge in the food and beverage industry and command of language required, giving students an exhilarating sense of empowerment. Within this course, students will learn Serve-It-Right, an integral component program required by most restaurant, hotel and bar employers Customers can be demanding; you need to be be able to keep your cool and offer professional service even in difficult situations. You’ll learn and practice language that will help you with this and through practice, you’ll gain the confidence you need to be a customer service professional. In addition, there will be lots of opportunities to discuss the wonderful world of food and beverages.

Course 3: Communications

The course focuses on those areas of communication most relevant to customer service students. Few employees in the customer service field can expect to succeed without at least a basic understanding of how to communicate with a country’s or company’s culture. Because of the nature of the material involved, the course tends to provide a major boost to students’ writing, listening, and speaking skills from getting started, to communicating on the job, and on to working relationships.

Course 4: The Hotel Industry

The focus of the course offers advice, knowledge, and skills relevant to work with Canadian hotels with a focus on understanding the system from reservations to check-in, concierge functions and handling a wide variety of customer inquiries. Students will learn key industry terms, challenges and systems through interactive classroom lectures and activities. Interested students will be advised about the BC FOODSAFE certificate and exam. Please note: there is an additional charge to take the BC FOODSAFE exam.

About BC FOODSAFE: the course is NOT required for servers, but may be required by individual restaurants.

Course 5: Career Tools

Whether the student is currently employed in the customer service industry within Canada, or is looking for work, or possibly interested in upgrading their job, this course will provide a variety of skill development and practical advice in job and career pursuits. In this course, the student will have the opportunity to create a formal resume and cover letter and practice a formal and graded interview, complete with feedback, coaching, and advice for success.

Course 6: Tourism

Learning what one needs to know and practicing the skills required to succeed in an entry level customer service position within the tourist industry is the focus of this course. This course gives the student the language, information and skills to start by listening to tourism industry personnel talk about their work, learning key interpersonal skills for customer relations, as well as working on tourism projects and internet research. This course also incorporates a field trip to the Vancouver Tourist office and a variety of tourist sites with Vancouver as part of the student’s classroom research.

Course 7: Leaders and Motivation

Leadership can be defined as the ability to inspire the support and confidence of people to accomplish common goals. This course not only extends the principles and practices of customer service but also serves as a channel for those who are ambitious to grow throughout their work and take on more supervisory functions. Case studies, surveys, self-assessment quizzes, and skill-building exercises will lead the students through this journey of career growth. A very interactive and personal self-examination course.