What is Customer Service Phone Training and Why Do You Need It?

customer service phone training

Unleash Excellence on the Phone: Elevate Customer Service Training for Employees

Mastering the art of customer service in person and on the phone can be challenging. It is not merely ‘common sense’. It’s a learned skill that your employees must master for your company to succeed. 

One of the most common ways customers communicate with employees is through the telephone. How your team handles those calls can create a huge impact on your reputation and your bottom line. Fostering customer loyalty begins with the first contact a customer makes with your company. Despite living in an age where social media seems to dominate, 74% of Americans have used their landline to initiate contact with customer service. 

Solid and effective communication is the foundation of customer service. The words we use, tone of voice, active listening, and non-verbal cues like eye contact and body language convey the messages that we send. But, when we communicate via telephone, we can’t rely on non-verbal cues, so we must practice our verbal-only issue-resolution skills. That’s why customer service training (Customer Service Phone Training) for employees on the phone is so important. 

What’s Different About Customer Service on the Phone? 

When customer service is conducted on the phone, customer service professionals cannot read body language and other non-verbal cues. Representatives may not realize that what they are saying is being taken negatively and upsetting the customer until it is too late. With 82% of customers ceasing to do business with a company because of bad customer service, that’s not a risk worth taking. 

When providing customer service on the phone, your frontline representatives have to rely solely on what they hear. Limiting your team members to a single sense makes the process of resolving customer issues tougher, but certainly possible! 

Great customer service can be achieved by paying attention to verbal cues. This involves shifting your team members’ mindsets to focusing on building emotional intelligence and exercising skills like active listening.

Active listening involves investing yourself fully in what the customer is saying. The goal is to show genuine interest in the customer’s thoughts, feelings, and perspectives, while offering them a supportive environment to express themselves. It’s an opportunity for frontline representatives to exercise empathy and provide exceptional customer service. 

On the other side of the conversation, your staff have only the tone of their voice and vocabulary choices to make a great impression on customers. Customer service professionals should clearly convey messages by choosing their language carefully to reflect positivity and empathy.

The end result is a positive two-way conversation that resolves a customer’s issue and leaves them satisfied and happy!

What Goes Into Customer Service Training (Customer Service Phone Training) for Employees?

Your customers expect undivided attention and prompt resolution. They need to ‘hear’ a smile and a welcoming tone. If you can deliver on that desire, you can foster loyalty, build your reputation, and expand your base. 77% of customers have said they would recommend a business they’ve had a positive customer service experience with to a friend.

Our Customer Service Essentials (Customer Service Training for Employees) course can teach your team new and improved communication techniques. These include delivering messages in the right tone of voice, and demonstrating the phrasing and word choices that will help every call go smoothly for you and your customers. Upon completion of our Customer Service Training for Employees, your team members will know the details of providing exceptional customer service over the phone through Customer Service Training for Employees, including how to:

  • Guide a phone conversation from the beginning to end and stay in control.
  • Ensure the customer’s needs are not only met but exceeded.
  • Build and maintain rapport using positive vocabulary choices and voice tone techniques.
  • Show empathy and compassion.
  • Deliver a negative message in a positive way while ensuring the customer’s accurate understanding of the message to increase their receptivity and cooperation.
  • Transform an unhappy customer into a satisfied one without the need for supervisor intervention and increase one-call resolution.

By mastering communication techniques, demonstrating empathy, and delivering resolutions effectively, your customer service professionals can meet and exceed customer expectations, foster loyalty, and bolster your company’s reputation. 

 

Training Your Professionals Leads to Great Service Over the Phone (Customer Service Phone Training)

Face-to-face interactions in business are becoming less commonplace, as they are replaced by the phone as a medium for regular customer interactions. Investing in Customer Service Phone Training now matters more than ever to ensure that your customer service professionals are equipped with the skills and knowledge to deliver consistent and top-notch service.

With the techniques we present in our Customer Service Training for Employees, your employees can elevate their ability to provide exceptional customer service over the phone. You can ensure that each customer call is an opportunity to forge strong relationships and enhance your company’s reputation. Make the most of every phone call, and unleash excellence in customer service across your organization.

To improve your customer service experience over the phone, start with our Customer Service Essentials course.

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