Telephone Etiquette & Techniques on Handling Difficult Callers
While some of us may dislike handling calls, especially when they prove to be difficult, we can still work things in our favour with the right methods and attitude.
Course Code/ID: CRS-N-0028054
"This course focuses on helping working professionals with the skills in handling the telephone calls professionally, confidently and effectively. It also provides you with the techniques on dealing with the common types of difficult customer situations that you come across in your daily encounters with customers."
Love the phone or hate it, it is becoming clear that it is the way to do business and it is here to stay. As the telephone is now widely used in business, it is important that we excel in areas of telephone communication. So being able to handle telephone calls efficiently and effectively will let you go a long way to enhance not only your own image but also the image of your organisation.
After the workshop, you will be able to:
- determine how callers measure your service and what it takes for you to do your job professionally
- demonstrate the 2Vs to project a professional image of yourself and enhance the caller’s confidence in you
- say the four phrases in a telephone call
- apply the techniques to handle different difficult caller situations
- demonstrate proper telephone etiquette to enhance your image and that of your organisation
Outline
- Customer Service Basics
– Understand what it takes to do your job professionally
– Service as defined by customers - You As The Communicator
– Managing your voice
– Use professional service language
– Use of questions
– Use of empathic listening – levels of listening - The Structure of a Telephone Call
– The 4 phases of a telephone call - Develop Telephone Etiquette to Project a Professional Image
– Announcing yourself
– Put customer on hold
– Making an outgoing call
– Terminating a call - Techniques in Handling Different Difficult Situations
– The approach to dealing with angry/irate callers
– Ways to interrupt a talkative caller to refocus them back to the issue
– The different methods of saying “No” when it is just not possible to accede to their requests
– Ways to get callers to work with you towards your proposed solutions
– Role Play
Who should attend?
Those who have to handle customers over the phone regularly.
Methodology
Participants are guided through practical steps of the topic with a combination of reflection and group discussions, activities related to learning points, role-play, and lectures.
Trainer
Ms Chua Bee Choo has worked in both the private and public sectors. Her main focus of training are on service excellence and personal effectiveness. She has been training adult learners since 1999 and her areas of training include; Customer Service, WITS/IQC, WSQ Courses in customer service, EI Intelligence at work, EI Skills & Handling Difficult Customers, Time Management, Supervising and Coaching Staff for Service Excellence, Working with People of Different Personalities and The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Her strength in customer service comes from her practical experience in dealing with customers at the front counters and call centres, as well as developing and implementing service policies and initiatives; such as setting service standards, conduct service audits, evaluating performance and implementing the integrated rewards system for the organisation.
She holds a Master of Education in Training and Development with the University of Sheffield, Bachelor of Arts (Hons), Diploma in HRD, Associate Diploma in Customer Service (USA) and the Associate Diploma in Public Speaking (LCM), a Certified Trainer for the Disc Profiling System, Certified Trainer for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Certified Six Seconds Associate EQ Trainer and Certified Stress Management Consultant. She has also attained ACTA certification awarded by WDA. She was also one of the recipients of CSC (Civil Service College) Trainer Excellence Award 2012.
