4.4 Recommended topics for CSR workshops

The CSR workshop examples provided here are based extensively on training and curriculum information provided by Bell Contact Centre Solutions, a division of Bell Canada, and are included with permission. There are five recommended CSR workshop categories in the series, which cover a range from basic customer service, sales, and listening skills to help desk and collections. A summary description of each workshop is provided, with details of each workshop syllabus shown in the exhibits that follow.

Excellence in Customer Service (One Day)
- Communication skills
- Call control
- Handling customer complaints
- Maximizing the call
- Personal effectiveness
Contact Center Sales Skills (Two Days)
- Attitudes for success (belief in self, goal-oriented)
- Skills for success (call preplanning, cultivating, discovering, presenting recommendations, why people buy)
- Skills practice (applying skills learned)
Building Effective Listening Skills (Half Day)
- Effective listening
- Listening skills
- Role of listening
- Ten common faults
- Developing a personal action plan
Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk (One Day)
- Behavior leading to a positive customer experience
- Understanding the difference between basic and excellent service and the effect it has on customers
- Communicating with and understanding customers, using effective listening and questioning
- Addressing and satisfying a difficult or irate customer
- Dealing with different personalities
- Declining with diplomacy
- Negotiating mutually positive outcomes
- Learning how to manage stress
Collecting Overdue Accounts (One Day)
- Proactive customer account management
- Collections call processing
- Handling difficult customers
- Skills practice
- Action planning

Details of each workshop are provided in Exhibits 4-1, 4-2, 4-3, 4-4, and 4-5.

Exhibit 4-1: Excellence in Customer Service (One Day)

Objectives

This half-day, six-module workshop focuses on developing the following skills:

Enhanced telephone professionalism
Adapting individual communication styles
Applying active, empathetic listening with question techniques for complete understanding of customer needs
Managing conversations with an assertive, action-oriented approach
Effectively addressing and satisfying a difficult or irate customer
Identifying revenue opportunities for maximized customer contacts
Improving personal effectiveness through time and stress management

By learning and applying superior customer service techniques on every call, CSRs will strengthen their customer relationships, resulting in long-term loyalty. How effectively CSRs manage calls directly impacts a customer's perception of the company.

Module 1: Workshop Introduction

Objectives
The call center CSR's role:
- meeting and exceeding customer expectations
- best telephone practices (greet, hold, transfer, close)

Module 2: Communication Skills—Voice

Developing rapport through speed, articulation, tone, and modulation
Customers with an accent

Module 3: Communication Skills—Listening

Listening effectively
Acknowledging and empathizing

Module 4: Call Control

Question types and how to apply them
Managing conversations that go "off topic"
Assertiveness techniques
Professional phrases

Module 5: Handling Customer Complaints

A 10-step process for handling customer complaints or other difficult calls
Handling callers who shout, swear/threaten, become sarcastic
Declining with diplomacy
Controlling emotional reactions

Module 6: Maximizing the Call

Identifying revenue opportunities for maximum contact return

Module 7: Personal Effectiveness

Stress-management techniques
Time-management skills

Exhibit 4-2: Contact Center Sales Skills (One Day)

Objectives

This one-day call/contact center sales skills workshop will teach CSRs fundamental telephone skills and proven sales techniques to strengthen their ability to deliver superior customer service and maximize sales on each and every customer contact. CSRs will learn

The consultative sales call flow strategy
The skills and behaviors required to be successful at consultative selling
The steps to identifying buying motives and triggers
How to effectively apply their product knowledge during a sales call
How to use benefits, advantages, and features to recommend solutions and techniques for neutralizing objections
Effective techniques for closing the sale

Module 1: Workshop Introduction

Overview
Personal vision statement
Critical teleselling skills

Module 2: Initial Approach

Effective call opening—inbound/outbound
Quality standards
Voice dynamics to capture the customer's attention
Establishing rapport and securing the customer's interest

Module 3: Determining Needs

Question types and when to ask them
Listening effectively to pinpoint needs
Positioning information gathered to present effective recommendations

Module 4: Recommendations

Linking needs uncovered to benefits of product/service
Matching benefits to customer needs
Checking for customer approval

Module 5: Answer

Preparing to overcome common objections
Proven techniques to remove the objection
Moving the customer to a buying position
Recognizing buying signals
Knowing when to close
Asking for a commitment
Using voice dynamics to close

Module 6: Call Completion

Recap agreements and next steps
Apply quality close standards
Note callbacks/follow-up

Exhibit 4-3: Building Effective Listening Skills (Half Day)

Objectives

This interactive workshop will provide CSRs with the skills required to determine customer needs, gather important information, and avoid misunderstanding and frustration, resulting in positive customer perception and increased customer loyalty. It includes both individual/group exercises and role playing. Participants practice their newly acquired skills by applying them to their own simulated job environments. This course will enable CSRs to

Assess their listening style and identify areas for improvement
Avoid the most common faults of poor listeners and use the accompanying prescriptions for better listening
Apply and practice empathetic listening
Listen "nonvisually" and "nonverbally"
Take notes and process information effectively

Key Topics

The role and value of effective listening in the overall communication process
Listening skills and habit, self-assessment
Understanding the role of listening in the perception, reception, and attention equation
Ten common faults or barriers to effective listening and the solutions for improvement
Understanding key characteristics of the "Five Levels of Listening"
How to listen "nonvisually" and "nonverbally" and why these skills are important
How information processing and note taking can help with effective listening
Developing a personal action plan to apply and build on improved listening skills and habits

Exhibit 4-4: Customer Service Skills for the Help Desk (One Day)

Objectives

This interactive one-day workshop is designed for the special needs of help desk personnel to effectively manage SOS calls in a friendly, yet focused manner. Emphasis is on understanding callers' needs and maintaining call control. It includes both individual and group exercises and role playing. Participants practice examples, phrases, and approaches to apply during caller duress. By learning and applying superior customer service techniques, this workshop will help CSRs strengthen their customer service relationships, resulting in long-term loyalty to the business. The specific skills learned will include

Behavior that leads to a positive customer experience
Understanding the difference between giving basic "core" service versus excellent "more" service, and the effect it has on customers
Discovering how to communicate and understand customers by using effective listening and questioning techniques, proper words and phrases, and the all-important voice tone
Learning how to address and satisfy a difficult or irate customer
Acquiring techniques on how to deal with different personality types by identifying your own and understanding the characteristics of other types
Declining with diplomacy and negotiating mutually positive outcomes
Learning how to manage stress

Exhibit 4-5: Collecting Overdue Accounts (One Day)

Objectives

The objectives of this workshop are to train CSRs to do collection calls on outstanding company accounts.

Module 1: Workshop Introduction

Overview
Introduction to the collections call process

Module 2: Being Proactive in Customer Account Management

Understanding the time value of money
Why collections policies are important
The telephone collector's role and qualities for effective performance
Seven commandments in collections
Eight common mistakes in collections
Personal privacy: collections and the law

Module 3: Communication Skills

Comparing face-to-face with telephone communication
Setting an effective telephone speech rate
Why it's important to reflect the customer's communication style
Enhancing voice quality through tone, volume, inflection, and elimination of jargon
Overcoming listening barriers; listening effectively using active/interactive skills

Module 4: The ABCs of the Collections Call Process

Reviewing the collections call process
Planning and preparing for the collection call
Identifying and assessing "at-risk" accounts
Setting call objectives and making the call introduction
Asking for payment: the call to action
Handling excuses or reasons for nonpayment
Selling the benefits of prompt payment and negotiating a payment plan
Confirming commitments and ending the call

Module 5: Handling Difficult Customers

Handling a customer's complaint
Using assertiveness skills
Handling anger from a personal and customer perspective
Applying principles of empathy
Tactics for getting to "yes"
Enhancing customer relationships through the "law of reciprocity"
Overcoming frustration and call reluctance
Techniques for handling stress

Module 6: Experiential Skills Practice

Role-playing exercises that allow participants to practice collection skills by applying them in a simulated on-the-job environment

Module 7: Action Planning and Workshop Review

Reviewing key workshop lessons
Setting an action plan for improved job performance
Establishing an ongoing improvement process
Workshop evaluation