Highlights:

Learn to:

• Exhibit the exact traits the caller wants and expects
• Pinpoint causes of caller frustration
• Calm, win-over, and drive callers toward positive outcomes
• Know what to do when a customer cannot be satisfied
• Manage, recover, and maintain your own attitude and composure
• Practice the art of customer recovery, and turn dissatisfied customers into a loyal customers
• Master use of the How to Manage Difficult Caller Personalities desktop reference, the ultimate real-time customer recovery "cheat sheet"

Overview

Contact center professionals consistently cite the difficult caller as the most stressful encounter they face on a day-to-day basis.  At the same time, every difficult incident presents an opportunity for the organization to demonstrate above-and-beyond service and to earn long-term customer loyalty.  Done right, real-time customer recovery is a dazzling, jaw-dropping experience for the customer -- one they will never forget, and a story they will relate again and again.  

Turn your service professionals' fear of the difficult caller into positive expectations.  Attendees of this course will walk away with the knowledge, tools and confidence they need to handle any type of customer with skill and professionalism.  Participants will learn why dissatisfied callers expect the worst, what callers really want, and how to reverse customer perception.  Activities, exercises, discussions, and role-plays are used in the classroom, allowing participants to practice and hone newly-learned techniques. Instruction is enhanced by real-life situations and customer voice files that demonstrate strategies for effectively dealing with difficult callers.

Participants will learn simple proven strategies for handling the most challenging customer encounters, tactics for managing a variety of caller personalities, and customer recovery skills that can be used in real-time customer encountered at the "moment of truth".

Attendees will learn to:

• Understand caller behavior
• Understand common causes of customer distress
• Listen for the cause of frustration
• Employ non-confrontation questioning techniques
• Assess a caller's true expectations
• Reflect the attributes of quality service that customers expect
• Use calming techniques
• Take steps to win-over the frustrated caller and drive the incident toward a positive resolution
• Recognize different types of difficult callers and apply the correct strategy for diffusing each

• Address negative customer reactions, questions, objections, and attitudes
• Handle complaint effectively
• Respond appropriately when expectations are not met
• Employ customer recovery techniques that really work
• Maintain your own self control
• Respond vs. react
• Remain calm in a high-pressure situation
• Recover your own composure after an upsetting encounter

Course Chapters

• Chapter 1 - Understanding the Customer
• Chapter 2 - Basic Rules of Effective Call Handling
• Chapter 3 - Recognizing Signs of Conflict
• Chapter 4 - Self-Preservation
• Chapter 5 - Understanding Caller Needs and Expectations
• Chapter 6 - Communicating Concern and Empathy
• Chapter 7 - The Art of Skillful Conflict Resolution
• Chapter 8 - Meeting the Caller's Expectations
• Chapter 9 - Strategies for Managing Specific Caller Behaviors
• Chapter 10 - Managing Unresolved Conflicts
• Chapter 11 - Customer Recovery Techniques

Who Should Participate

This training program is a must for front-line service providers at every experience level. Inbound customer care agents, technical help desk analysts, teleservices representatives, collections professionals, and the team leads and supervisors that support them, will benefit from this course.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this introductory course.

Agenda

Day 1

Chapter 1 - Understanding the Customer

• Why customers contact the center
• Caller behavior
• Common experiences and incidents that incite customers to upset, angry, or demanding states

Chapter 2- Basic Rules of Effective Call Handling

• Managing the first impression
• Asking the right questions to gather accurate, needed information
• Steps to follow in contact discovery
• The process of combining knowledge and resources
• Steps to follow in contact resolution
• Steps to follow when closing a contact
• Properly documenting customer contacts
• Follow-up contacts
• Setting realistic timeframes

Chapter 3 - Recognizing the Signs of Conflict

• Communication barriers
• Emotions
• Differences in values
• Stress
• The need to be right
• Non-compliance with processes

Chapter 4 - Self-Preservation

• Remaining calm in a high-pressure situation
• Maintaining self control
• Respond vs. react
• Recovering composure after an upsetting encounter

Chapter 5- Understanding Caller Needs and Frustrations

• Venting, ranting and raving
  • Procedures to be followed when encountering an unruly customer
  • Effective disengagement - procedures for handling customers who have crossed the line
    • The disconnection process
    • Transferring with warning process
• Assessing a caller's true expectations and listening for the cause of their frustration
  • How to listen for what a customer really wants
  • Differentiating fact from opinion
  • Strategies to use when addressing customer opinions
• Listening for what the customer is not saying
• Asking the right question at the time that's right for the distressed customer
• Forms of questions; how and when to use each
  • Open-ended
  • Closed-ended
  • Probing
  • Verification
• Addressing negative reactions, questions, objections, and attitudes

Day 2

Chapter 6- Communicating Concern and Empathy

• Calming techniques
• When to and when not to apologize

Chapter 7 - The Art of Skillful Conflict Resolution

• Conflict resolution best practices
  • Words and phrases that exacerbate conflict
  • Winning phrases that diffuse conflict
• Steps to win-over the frustrated caller and drive the incident toward a positive resolution
  • Clarifying the conflict
  • The ownership process
  • Developing a solution
  • Remaining objective
  • Establishing follow-up and time frames
• Documentation

Chapter 8 - Meeting the Caller's Expectations

• How customers define quality
• Basic attributes of high-quality service that the distressed customer should perceive
  • Adaptiveness
  • Assurance
  • Empathy
  • Authority
• Techniques for demonstrating the customer's definition of quality service
  • How to demonstrate adaptiveness
  • How to impart assurance
  • How to establish and demonstrate authority
  • Using tone to engage the customer
  • How to say "no" without saying no
  • Empathy and sincerity
  • What your empathetic phrases convey to the customer

Chapter 9 - Strategies for Managing Specific Caller Behaviors

• The emotional customer
• The angry, complaining customer
• The lost customer
• The click happy customer
• The half-truth customer
• The bull
• The brick wall
• The whining complainer
• The tantrum thrower
• The flirt
• The perpetually amiable
• The pessimist
• The gossip
• The know-it-all
• The fake know-it-all
• The indecisive staller

Chapter 10 - Managing Unresolved Conflicts

• Responding appropriately when expectations are not met
• Routing the unresolved contact
• Hold, transfer, and escalation processes
• Steps to follow before putting a customer on hold
• Routing the unresolved contact
• Correct transfer processes
• The escalation process

Chapter 11 - Customer Recovery Techniques

• Free stuff
• Atonement gestures
• Working with the caller
• Up the chain of command
• Service guarentees
• Proactive communication
• Staying in touch

Registration Fees

The per student registration fee for public training and certification program is $1,895 and includes:

• 2-day instructor-led training
• Course manual
• Certificate of completion
• Breakfast, lunch, and refreshments each day

Class begins at 9:00 AM and ends at 5:00 PM each day.

Register securely online with confidence or please call (708) 246-0320.

Seminar Schedule

Oct 9-10, 2014	Tampa, FL	Doubletree Suites by Hilton Tampa Bay
December 4-5, 2014	Tampa, FL	Doubletree Suites by Hilton Tampa Bay

Maximize Your Training Investment - Attend Courses Back-to-Back

Managing Difficult Callers immediately precedes the following courses in select locations:

• Contact Center Professional Certification
• Contact Center Supervisor Certification
• Intro to Telecom

In-House Training Option

In-house, private training offers the added benefits of

• Facilitated team interaction
• A confidential environment where customer interactions, team synergies, conflicts, and front-line policies can be openly discussed
• Minimal travel time and costs; and
• Accessibility
• Cost effectiveness

If your support centers has a number of front-line professionals and team leads, an in-house program can maximize your training investment.  To discuss pricing and instructor availability, contact RCCSP at (708) 246-0320.

Pricing for an on-site course delivered at your location is determined based on a "Base Fee" for up to six attendees, and a per person fee for each attendee thereafter.  On-site fees are all inclusive:

• Up to 6 participants - $8,995 including:
  • Instructor-led training
  • Course manuals
  • Shipping costs
  • Instructor's travel & lodging expenses in the continental USA
  • Certificates of completion

• Additional participants - $695 each.

Additional travel surcharges apply for travel outside of the continental USA and for seminars scheduled within three weeks, or paid for within three weeks, of the onsite delivery date.

The customer site must provide suitable meeting space, any desired meals or refreshments, and the following presentation supplies:

• An easel with self-stick flip chart paper, and markers
• LCD projection unit and projection screen

Request In-House Training

More Training and Certification Courses

See the complete calendar of RCCSP Professional Education Alliance Contact Center Training dates and locations.

For more IT, technical and field support training course options, see the RCCSP Help Desk, ITIL, and Support Center Calendar.