Telephone Customer Service Training
 How May I Help You?: Professional Telephone Courtesy and Customer Service
Program Overview
If your organization's telephone presence is less than top-notch, people will likely judge your employees as rude, uncaring, unprofessional, and uninterested in their business. Do the people who answer your phone appear empathetic? Friendly? In control? Do they listen well? Do they understand what makes the person on the other end of the telephone tick? During this onsite training program, participants will learn the basics of customer service, how to project a polished phone image, demonstrate proper telephone skills through practice activities, and leave with the tools to present an image that says "confident, credible, and capable."
Program Objectives
At this program's conclusion, participants should be able to:
- Explain the importance of a positive attitude in delivering good customer service.
- List the benefits of providing good customer service to both internal and external customers.
- Identify barriers to providing high quality customer service.
- Apply techniques for dealing with angry or upset customers by successfully answering case studies.
- Effectively deal with dialects and accents on the telephone.
- Demonstrate the proper way to greet, transfer, and hold calls.
- Understand and identify different behavioral styles and adapt as necessary. Successful understanding will be demonstrated through correct completion of case studies.
- Rephrase blunt communication for better results.
- Effectively manage job stress.
- Develop an action plan to improve customer service skills.
The following outline highlights some of the course’s key learning points. As part of your training program, we will modify content as needed to meet your business objectives. Upon request, we will provide you with a copy of the participant materials prior to the session(s).
Course Outline
What an Attitude!: Where Service Excellence Starts
A positive attitude on the part of the customer service provider goes a long way toward delivering an excellent experience. This introductory lesson covers the factors that produce great service and those that ruin a customer service interaction.
Tools of the Trade: The Telephone
In this unit, participants will learn phrases that say "professional, warm, and ready to help." They will learn how to screen calls without putting people off; find out what to say instead of, "Hold, please;" practice taking accurate and effective messages; and understand questioning techniques that get to the root of customer concerns.
Accents and Dialects: Keys for Navigating Through Tough Calls
A thick accent or regional dialect can make a telephone conversation more difficult. This component focuses on ways to better understand heavy accents and dialects, along with skills for reducing the speech markers of your organization's staff.
It's Not What You Say...: Rephrasing for Better Relationships
The lesson "it's not what you say, but how you say it" is one that takes some people years to learn. In this section, participants will learn how to use language so that their messages will be better received during customer interactions. Special emphasis is placed on learning to say "no" in ways that reduce conflict and eliminating phrases such as "that's not my job" and "I don't know."
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Dealing with Difficult Customers
Not all customers are easy to deal with. Using real-world case studies, participants will learn in this portion of the training how to effectively interact with angry customers, complaining customers, those who try to take advantage of the organization, and more.
Do Call Again: Leaving Positive, Lasting Impressions
This discussion teaches participants how to leave a lasting impression that makes callers want to call again. Points covered include managing talkative callers without being rude, making statements that indicate a conversation is over, and leaving effective voicemails that don't lead to endless telephone tag.
Customer Service Stress: 15 Minute Mini Spa
Dealing with customers' needs, wants, and frustrations can lead to unneeded stress and frustration. The training session concludes with a presentation of stress management techniques to ensure that participants stay refreshed and alert and that they deliver exceptional customer service.
At the program's conclusion, participants will have an understanding of what makes a good customer service experience, how to deliver excellent customer service over the telephone, how to deal with difficult customers, and how to take care of themselves.
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