Telephone Etiquette Mastery

SIM Professional Development


Course introduction

The telephone is at the heart of all business communications and great service begins when the telephone rings because with every ring, your organisation has an opportunity to make a sale. Much of your organisation's success in attracting and retaining customers is dependent on how well the people in your organisation handle business calls. Are your people trained to receive calls in a manner that's perceived as friendly, empathetic and in control? Do they listen well? Do they understand what makes the person on the other end of the telephone tick? The way your people handle those business calls can create the right or the wrong impression. It is critical to ensure that every call is handled in a way that will create a positive impression for your clients and customers, which will set your organisation apart from your competitors. This programme equips your customer contact professionals with the tools they need to make every caller interaction with your organisation a positive experience. The end result will be greater professionalism in the way calls are managed and higher profits for your organisation.



Course Benefits


  • Greater confidence in handling customer requests effectively over the phone and/or face-to-face by applying appropriate styles to match different personalities.
  • A clearer understanding of the telephone techniques to possess, thus better able to manage callers with poise and professionalism.
  • Achieve higher efficiency and ultimately help you to do your job more effectively



Target Audience


(Level 1) Admin & Support
(Level 2) Supervisor, Executive, & Emerging Managers



Course Outline


Module 1:

Experiential learning activity: “Do you see what I see?”

  • Putting verbal communication skills to the test
  • Reflecting on the importance of the impact your message, based on what and how you deliver it

Professor Albert Mehrabian’s Communication Model: 3Vs
  • Verbal, Vocal, Visual impact on the your message when to callers
  • Understanding the importance of the impact of tone and pace over the phone

Reflecting on the current challenges faced in current telephone call situations
  • Inbound vs. outbound calls: what you need to prepare and expect
  • Introduction of Open Space Technology (OST) facilitation forum
  • Reflecting on your own experiences: voicing of work issues and analyse the factors that helped you to handle phone calls successfully or caused you to receive complains
Module 2:

Introducing “SMILE” Systematic Approach to improve the standard of handling phone calls

Smile
  • The smile: psychological and physiological impact to you and to the caller
  • Understand a scientific approach through the True Colors© Personality Profiling tool to help you understand your own phone behaviours and quickly identify different customer profiles over the phone
  • Learn how to adjust your communication style to suit different types of callers
  • Develop a telephone voice: vocal exercises, diction and tone

Role plays
  • Based on non-business scenarios and real work scenarios
  • Application of learning
Module 3:

Manage
  • Manage callers’ expectations effectively
  • The Assertive Grid: Difference between being passive, suicidal, aggressive and assertive
  • Achieving a win-win situation over the phone
  • Manage difficult/angry callers using the “PAUSE” technique
  • Turning a customer’s “No” into a “Yes” in a customer-focused systematic manner
  • Open discussion
Role plays
  • Based on non-business scenarios and real work scenarios
  • Application of learning
Module 4:

Influence
  • Identify your own influencing style
  • Learning how to influence others effectively others using “pull vs. pull” techniques
  • Linking back to the core values in True Colors© Personality Profiling
  • Use positive language to influence callers positively

Teambuilding activity: “Knot or Not”
  • An action learning activity that brings out natural behaviours when trying to influence callers over the phone
  • Realizing the power of external and internal factors that influence yours and others’ decision-making process
Module 5:

Listen
  • Active vs. passive listening
  • How to pick up verbal cues and understand the caller’s real concerns
  • How to paraphrase and recap to ensure understanding and alignment: take messages accurately
  • Understanding facts vs. feelings: not making assumptions
  • Adjusting your communication style based on caller’s listening preferences

Individual activity
  • Sharing of a story and answering a quiz to test your listening skills
  • Knowing the difference between what is true, false or don’t know
Module 6:

Engage
  • Engaging customers by asking questions effectively to find out their real needs
  • Open vs. Closed ended questions: 5 wives and 1 husband
  • LEARN questioning technique: Use of open, probing, reflective and closing questions to get to the heart of the matter
  • PPF questioning framework: conducting meaningful conversations over the phone
  • End a call on a positive note: managing chatty callers

Team building activity: Poker activity
  • Participants are challenged to ask one another a number of questions based on the number on their poker card
  • Realizing the challenge in asking questions when there is no framework or systematic approach
Module 7:

SMART Planning
  • Recapping and reflecting
  • Closing circle to share your greatest take away from the programme
  • Personal Action Planning (PAP) on areas to do differently to improve telephone skills
  • Programme feedback



Available Course Sessions


Please click here to stay updated on upcoming sessions.



Trainer Profile


Maxine Teo

Maxine Teo is a tri-lingual corporate facilitator, trainer and coach with a passion for colourfully impacting lives™ over 15 years of training experience working with diverse teams across Asia.

Ms Teo has a knack of turning complicated concepts into practical and fun applications. Coming from years of working in the financial services industry, she shares her experience and knowledge in Sales and Client Relationship topics like Effective Communication, Advisory Sales, Negotiation Skills, Presentation Skills and Customer Service Excellence. The skills imparted are especially applicable to relationship based industries like finance and banking, insurance, real estate and retail. Industrial and chemical industries have also benefited from her training. Maxine graduated with merit from National University of Singapore with a Bachelor of Business Administration.

She holds a Professional Diploma in Training & Development, a Professional Certificate in Designing & Facilitating Experiential Learning and accreditations in various personality profiling tools like True Colors©.



 

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