Phone Skills Training: The Structure of an Effective Phone Call
Every phone contact is important, and training your staff to handle each call professionally and effectively is essential. Telephone skills training should be done in short sessions on an ongoing basis. Refresher training is good for everyone.
Training Objectives
The objective of the training is twofold:
1. To update our purpose with callers and our goals on every phone call
2. To refresh our skills on every call from start to finish
The goal is to clarify the trainee’s focus and increase the trainee’s awareness for the effective use of the skills in each call.
Looking at the call itself, the structure of the call is a great method of improving skills throughout the call.
Using the call structure to train staff
Every phone call has a structure. The structure is made up of the essential phases or stages of the telephone call from the greeting to the closing. The structure of the call may vary. A credit check call has a different structure than a customer service call. A complaint call has a different structure to handle an easy inquiry from the Customer.
It is important that you work through the key stages of your typical calls and use the training session to improve your technique at each stage. For example, what is a good greeting? What are good ways to ask questions? What are the not so good ways that we should avoid?
When handling difficult calls, it is really important to make sure that the initial stages of the call are done effectively so that the entire call is handled in a professional manner.
The call structure for customer service
A good call structure for a standard Customer Service phone call is:
1. Good hello. The greeting should always begin with good morning, or good afternoon. Not only is it a nice way to greet someone, but it also ensures that the first word the caller hears is a positive one. The greeting also includes the identification of the Company or Department and the name of the person taking the call. Giving your name ensures that the call is personal.
two. First positive response. The Interlocutor will express his query or request. Again, the first thing they should hear has to be positive. I can certainly help with that, or no problem, I’ll be happy to help.
3. Good question. The representative will ask questions to resolve the issue and make sure you have the information you need to help. Questions can often be perceived as aggressive or intrusive. Have your team review how they ask questions to make sure they’re not creating backlash. A good method of doing this in a training session is to ask the questions wrong first, and then ask the same questions very well. The group can then analyze the bad and the good to identify the difference.
Four. Listen and hear answers. When the caller has answered a question, the representative should repeat previous numbers or key details, or respond encouragingly to the caller. This ensures that the details are correct and that there is no silence.
5. Confirmation of understanding. This is a key stage in the call that is often overlooked. The representative summarizes the problem or query to the caller and confirms that they have the correct problem. There are two main benefits of this stage of the call. One is that the rep really makes sure to get it right before providing a solution. The other is that the caller has a very positive feeling that the representative has heard and also that he or she understands. With an angry caller or a sticky situation, this phase is the key to handling this call well, tell them back!
6. Provide a solution. At this point the representative will offer information or a solution. This is done by using definite, positive language rather than negative, submissive, or aggressive language. Even if you can’t offer a solution, we can still be positive and helpful. The format for this is, unfortunately we can’t do this, but what I can suggest is that. Make sure you have a positive option to offer.
7. Get the caller’s agreement. The effective representative will ask closed questions to get the caller’s agreement and move smoothly toward closing the call.
8. Close the call. Have alternate closures for different types of calls. Remember that the closing is the last thing the caller will remember, so make sure it’s positive.