I have to deliver an in house workshop to improve customer care through the way we answer telephones. It's only 3 hours long so I want to be short and snappy and (as it is my first event for a new company) fun!
This objectives are:
„h Ensure customers are valued and dealt with an a freindly and effecient manner
„h Ensure each call is treated as a selling opportunity rather than just a problem solving exercise
„h Encourage staff to take ownership of calls wherever possible
„h Improve internal customer service and communication
„h Promote professionalism and service excellence in our written communication with customers
Can anyone help?
Stephanie Timms
3 Responses
yes
send me your email address and I will sort something out for you. lbirch@paragon-group.co.uk
Practical telephone exercise
I am just in the process of putting together a short practical follow up session for a basic telephone skills course that we run.
The exercise is to play delegates a short hypothetical telephone conversation on a cassette whilst supplying them with the script to read as they listen.
The conversation is between the customer and company employee and should highlight obvious telephone behaviours to be avoided.
Then ask the delegates to re-write the script in pairs correcting the original errors as they see appropriate. Ask them to role play the re-vised version and the rest of the group can give feedback afterwards.
I haven’t yet tried this out but hoping to in the near future. One of the benefits is to include subject matter that is relevant to the company business and therefore increases the realism of the exercise.
If you need any further help, let me know.
Make it real
Have participants actually contact and talk to clients – can’t do it in the middle of a 3 hour program – you can in a longer one. Perhaps they could do it as a pre-course exercise. They ring or go and see a client they have worked with and ask them specific questions about the service they recieved from the them personally or their organisation. You can arm with a pre-designed set of questions to ask. “What could I/we have done to improve our service/dealings with you, etc?(Takes courage – but shows the client you are really trying to do something about service and also gives you some amazing insights into things that you could do to improve your client relationships.) Participants bring their findings to the workshop and you can work with what they come back with.
Also try ringing either their own or some other organisation that provides a service (bank, govt dept, etc) using a speaker phone so they can all listen and observe how you are treated by the person who ansewers. Good fun and a good basis for discussion.
Case studies based on their real life situations can also be used – get them to design them.