Essential call control skills

Overview

The cost to an organisation of mis-handled calls is very often out of all proportion to the root cause of the initial call. Yet the skills required to control customer calls are well-known and can be successfully taught and mastered. This programme shows how calls can be controlled and dealt with swiftly, efficiently and to all reasonable customer satisfaction.

Training objectives

The objectives of this programme are to:

• Provide skills training to newer members of the team
• Refresh the skills of those wishing to attend from existing teams
• Show commitment to the development of the team members
• Honour staff development and skills enhancement expectations
• Complement the competencies required to be successful customer service ambassadors for your organisation

By the end of this course participants will be better able to:

• Recognise the causes of customer frustration
• Quickly establish the facts
• Remove behaviours which antagonise or aggravate the situations
• Take control of the call to offer confidence to the caller
• Reduce the number of escalated calls
• Manage the expectations of the caller as to possible solutions
• Deal confidently with uncertainty, reassuring the customer through style and manner

Audience

Sales, customer service and call centre staff – and any other staff who are regularly on the receiving end of telephone calls from customers and clients.

Format

This one-day course uses a mixture of formal tutor inputs, practical exercises, role play and tutor-facilitated discussion.

Depending on the number of participants and their pre-course skills levels, it may be preferable to run this programme over two days rather than one.

The expert trainer

Jocelyn is a highly experienced and very popular management trainer. After fifteen years as a training manager within blue-chip organisations such as Mars, she established her own consultancy in 1998. A passionate advocate of training for a reason, Jocelyn has a practical approach to training which focuses on giving participants and organisations relevant knowledge and skills improvement which is immediately transferable to the workplace.

A published author of training materials (including Contact Centre Management), her many clients cover an impressive range of sectors, including manufacturing, telecoms, retail, film and music, local authorities and universities. Equally impressive is their appreciation of her work, as the following comments show:

‘I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the recent telephone training course that you prepared and tutored for my Customer Services Department. The content was well received, and accurately reflected the day to day issues that occur on a busy desk. I have since reorganised the department to take advantage of the new professionalism… and it has made a big difference. Given the success of the proactive telephone selling course you prepared and ran for me a few years ago … I just knew it would be a success.’
Philips

‘This was clearly an excellent course. It really brought the best out of the managers. You’ve given them a foundation for the rest of their working lives.’
PPL

‘I would like to take the opportunity of thanking you for the way you worked with us to make a great success of the induction programme for the Centre. It was a pleasure working with you in partnership.’
One 2 One

Course outline

1. Introduction
   • Profitable customer service
   • ‘Call reasons’ – brainstorm exercise
   • What are the expected standards?
2. The key techniques
   • Behaviours and consequences
   • Questioning to establish facts
   • Gathering the right information
   • Behaviours which antagonise
   • Tactics to eliminate irritations
   • Developing rapport with ‘Mr Angry’
   • Exuding confidence
   • Using voice control
3. Putting it to the test!
   • Preparation for role play
   • Role plays with feedback
4. Conclusion
   • Open forum
   • Review
   • Action planning
   • Close