Telephone Skills Course

Build confidence and skills for handling telephone calls more professionally. Our comprehensive telephone training courses cover professional telephone techniques and call handling etiquette, with an emphasis on customer service. 

Improve your telephone etiquette and communication skills with KSL’s Telephone Skills Open Course. Perfect for people in customer service roles, the training covers professional telephone techniques for building rapport and efficient call handling, as well as effective complaint handling and dealing with difficult customer behaviour. 

Course Aim

• The course provides practical call handling training, teaching participants’ telephone etiquette and skills to confidently answer calls, as well as how to constructively respond to customer telephone enquiries and handle customer complaints.

Course Overview:
The importance of professional telephone skills

• Importance of professional telephone techniques to the business
• Benefits of professional telephone etiquette
• Small group exercise and facilitated group discussion

Telephone communication challenges

• The challenges of telephone communication
• Role of non verbal communication
• Building rapport and gathering information
• Small group practical exercises, facilitated group discussion

Answering the telephone

• Telephone guidelines when handling a call
• The verbal handshake
• Putting callers on hold, transferring callers
• Group exercise, demonstration, presentation and facilitated group discussion

Communication skills to handle enquiries

• Effective listening techniques
• Questioning techniques
• Recording information
• Using positive language and taking ownership of call
• Closing the call
• Small group practical exercises, presentation and group discussion

Communicating with customers with different communication styles 

• Recognising different communication challenges
• Main characteristics of communication styles
• Recognising your own communication preferences
• Adjusting to other styles of communication
• Presentation, individual questionnaire and group review, group exercises

Handling customer concerns and objections

• Pre-empting customers’ most frequent concerns
• Responding to customer concerns and objections
• Small group exercise, pairs practical activity, group review discussion

Handling customer complaints

• Handling emotional responses
• Responding to the complainant
• Escalating the complaint
• Small group exercise, facilitator tips, pairs practice session and group discussion

Reviewing the learning and next steps

• Review of learning and action planning
• Course feedback

The telephone skills training will be supported with:

• An optional participant pre-course questionnaire and/or pre-course reading on telephone techniques
• A colour printed workbook with telephone tips, techniques and space for personal notes
• An electronic communication styles questionnaire sent prior to the course

Course Objectives
Key objectives of the course are to:

• Answer and make telephone calls in a professional manner
• Learn techniques to efficiently respond to a customer call
• Build rapport with the customer and satisfy their needs quickly
• Handle a customer’s concern or complaint, with empathy and understanding