With our curated list of the best free online hospitality courses for training, you won’t have to worry about not impressing your guests ever again. Our curated list contains both hospitality training courses for entry-level workers and hospitality management courses for team leaders. Your employees will learn fundamental skills for hotel management and restaurant management in these free online hospitality courses.
1. Active Listening Course
To make customers feel welcome, it’s essential to use active listening. Customers like being listened to and you can train your employees to do that effectively through this free course. Using passive hearing, instead of active listening, has negative consequences on the customer experience. Nobody, much less a tired customer, likes having someone only pretend to listen to them. Enhance the active listening skills of your employees with this free course and get good feedback on your customer service.
Scope:
- Introduction to Active Listening
- Components of Active Listening
- Benefits of Active Listening
- Assessing and Reflecting on Active Listening Skills
Best for: Guest relations manager, guest service supervisors, and other members of the front office department
Cost: Free
2. Communicate with Internal and External Customers Course
Communication can make or break your customer’s first impression of your business. Your employees must know how to interact with customers. But for employees who don’t naturally excel at it, communicating with customers can be quite intimidating and even stressful. However, you can help them turn that weakness into a strength by enrolling them on this free course. Even more experienced or extroverted employees may sometimes struggle with navigating customer interactions. With this free course, they too can learn how to interpret situations for the best possible customer experience.
Scope:
- Elevating Customer Experiences in Hospitality
- Understanding Customer Cues in Hospitality
- Mastering Active Listening and Customer Engagement
- Mastering Hospitality Interactions for Every Context
Best for: Front desk staff, restaurant hosts/hostesses, and servers
Cost: Free
3. Respond to Customer Complaints Course
Though customer complaints should be brought down to a minimum, there may still be some cases where an unexpected issue results in customer dissatisfaction. If your employees are slow or dismissive in handling complaints, then it’s likely that bad reviews or negative word-of-mouth will harm the popularity and reputation of your business. But with this free course, your employees can instead become experts at responding to customer complaints promptly and appropriately. Don’t let your customers down twice. Enrol your employees on this hospitality course for free.
Scope:
- Addressing and Anticipating Customer Dissatisfaction
- Customer-Centric Solutions: Engaging Customers for Mutual Resolution
- Navigating Complaint Resolution: Balancing Authority and Organisational Policy
- Mastering Complex Service Issue Escalation
Best for: Servers, front desk staff, as well as operations managers of hotels and restaurants
Cost: Free
4. Complete End-of-Shift Duties Course
Aside from ensuring a seamless transition to the next shift, performing end-of-shift duties correctly can help improve productivity, quality, accountability, and customer satisfaction. Though it can be tempting to disregard end-of-shift duties, taking them seriously might be the difference between an unhappy and a happy customer. With this free course, your employees will know the necessary procedures for completing end-of-shift duties as well as how to implement them effectively. Empower your employees to seize opportunities related to end-of-shift duties today.
Scope:
- A Comprehensive Guide to Hospitality Excellence
- A Step-by-Step Guide to End-of-Shift Duties
- Navigating End-of-Shift Requirements in Hospitality Services
- Maximising Debriefing Sessions in Hospitality Services
Best for: Shift managers of hotels and restaurants
Cost: Free
5. Provide Internal Feedback on Customer Service Practices Course
While careful decision-making should go into making any big changes, you should still listen to what employees have to say regarding customer service practices. You even need to go beyond that and ask your leaders to establish internal feedback systems. Now the problem lies in whether or not your leaders are up to the challenge of doing so. After all, it can be difficult to listen to feedback and not hear complaints. But if you enrol your leaders on this free course, they’ll be able to see and reap the benefits of encouraging internal feedback.
Scope:
- Feedback Fuel: Empowering Excellence in Hospitality
- Ways to Implement Ongoing Internal Feedback
- Improvements in Ongoing Internal Feedback on Practices, Policies, and Procedures
- Promoting Change through Internal Feedback
Best for: Team leaders in the hospitality industry
Cost: Free
6. Interpersonal Skills Course
It’s impossible to create an amazing guest experience without a coordinated, high-functioning team. To ensure the success of teams across your organisation, start by giving every member the tools they need to work well with others. Though interpersonal skills might seem like a basic skill set that everyone in hospitality already has, it’s still important enough to be included in onboarding, refresher, and remedial training. Improve the performance of both individuals and teams by enrolling your employees on this free course.
Scope:
- Verbal and Non-Verbal Communication Skills
- Cultural Sensitivity and Diversity
- Conflict Resolution and Negotiation
- Practising and Applying Interpersonal Skills
Best for: New hires and those struggling to be part of a team
Cost: Free
7. Coach Colleagues On-the-Job Course
For any industry, there are a lot of benefits to workplace coaching. But in the hospitality sector where it can be difficult to learn certain skills without years of experience, coaching should be encouraged and supported by management. With this free course, your employees will have an easier time coaching their colleagues. Don’t underestimate the value of internal upskilling. Exponentially increase the knowledge of your workforce by enrolling your long-term staff on this free course today.
Scope:
- Mastering Hospitality Coaching Techniques
- Conveying Knowledge and Ensuring Understanding
- Navigating Organisational Procedures for Workplace Excellence
- Fostering Skill Development and Encouraging Curiosity
Best for: Experienced employees and long-term staff
Cost: Free
8. Organisational Skills Course
Having organisational skills is crucial in the fast-paced world of hospitality. Poor management of resources and time can lead to costly delays and upset customers. Leaders need to know how to maintain order in a chaotic hospitality environment. If not, things can go downhill pretty quickly. Leaders might become stressed or frustrated because they can’t seem to put out fires permanently. Their teams could also suffer from this lack of organisation and won’t be able to do their jobs effectively as well. However, you can prevent all this by enrolling your leaders on this free course.
Scope:
- Introduction to Organisational Skills in Leadership
- Organising and Managing Resources
- Time Management and Prioritisation as a Leader
- Fostering an Organised and Productive Work Culture
Best for: Team leaders in the hospitality industry
Cost: Free
9. Motivating Teams Course
If your leader is great at organisation but can’t seem to inspire their team, then this free course is just what they need. Hospitality is a challenging industry to work in. The long shifts and unpleasant customers could easily demotivate both wide-eyed new starters and employees with years of experience. That’s why it’s so important for your leaders to be excellent at motivating teams. If they’re not, enrol them on this free course and turnover rates might even decrease.
Scope:
- Understanding Team Motivation
- Strategies for Motivating Teams
- Overcoming Challenges in Team Motivation
- Fostering a Positive Work Culture
Best for: Leaders whose teams have low employee engagement
Cost: Free
10. Harassment in the Workplace Course
A key element of a positive work culture is having a workplace where employees feel safe and valued. Tolerating harassment will diminish all of your efforts in improving productivity, motivation, efficiency, and reputation among customers as well as in the industry. Sweeping things under the rug is not only incredibly harmful to employees but is also illegal. In customer-centric industries like hospitality, even regular or VIP customers can be perpetrators of harassment. Though you need to establish other measures to protect employees, you can start by enrolling them on this free course for addressing harassment at work.
Scope:
- What is Workplace Harassment?
- Examples of Workplace Harassment
- What to Do if You’re Being Harassed at Work
- How to Intervene if You Witness Harassment
Best for: Entry-level employees and those in low positions of power
Cost: Free
Other Customer-Centric Industry Courses
To get more free courses for customer-centric industries such as hospitality, food, and retail, take a look at some of our curated lists:
You can also check out our Course Library for more free courses (with built-in assessments) on topics across various industries.
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