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Telephone skills training is a key area for customer service training in call centers.

Unfortunately, while a lot of time is spent in induction training for call center agents or customer service agents on the computer systems (which help the efficiency of the call center operation), the call handling skills of people talking to customers are often overlooked.

Telephone manner is the thing that the customer hears. It is much more than having a pleasant voice; although pace, tone, pitch, and volume will all have an impact on the customer and their perception of how helpful the customer service agent is.

We strongly recommend using call recording equipment to help people understand the scenarios they have to deal with, while also experiencing what they sound like to the customer. It is this practice that will help your people develop the competence they need to handle calls and customers effectively.

Key Telephone Skills

If you are looking to include telephone or call handling skills in your customer service training you should consider the following areas:-

• greeting the customer and building rapport

• understanding customer requirements, quickly and thoroughly through good questioning skills

• listening carefully to the customer even when looking at account histories or computer screens

• Being able to explain your solution to their query or problem in a way that helps the caller

• closing the call

• controlling the call

• connecting with the customer especially when the customer is experiencing problems

• dealing effectively with unhappy or angry customers

• being able to deal quickly and efficiently with regular queries and calls, but spending time thoroughly understanding the out of the ordinary enquiries or a complaint.

If your people are dealing regularly with angry customers there may often be something which they are doing that triggers the response in the customer. If anyone in your team gets more than their fair share of angry customers they need to consider what they do to trigger the customers anger. There is a useful Go To Guide you can find here for dealing with and preventing customers from becoming angry.

Telephone skills can increase the efficiency of your operation, but it is in the customer relationship where call center agents skills and manners will really make the difference.

Leaders, if you want the business to be successful, care sooner about employees and customers to keep them around. This sounds so obvious. Yet many business spend more time trying to get employees and customers back than they do to keep them in the first place. So, how can you as leaders change this?

Image by The Focal Project via Flickr Creative Commons License.
Leadership: Care Sooner to Retain Employees & Customers

Here’s a true story — quite common actually — to illustrate what businesses and leaders do wrong.

The Story

A longtime customer of a well-known home security company was having repeated trouble with her system. She had to reboot it constantly to make it work. Technical support at the company determined that the problem was a glitch in their current system and that an upgrade at her end would fix the problem. Yet, they refused to waive the fee for the upgrade even though it was their problem.

The customer thought at that point it was worth looking at other home security companies and see what they had to offer. She found one with great ratings, reliability, and service, and she took her business there. THEN, she received more than one call from her original security company offering her the free upgrade to bring her back as a customer. She said no and told them to stop calling her.

Why Do Leaders & Businesses Do This?

Why not care sooner? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to offer this longtime customer the free upgrade to fix their current system that was causing the trouble?

Reasons They Don’t Care Sooner

Greed. They want to squeeze every dollar they can out of a customer. When they realize that didn’t work, they back pedal.

Arrogance. They think they are the best product/service in the business and that everyone will stay.

Mistrust. They think people are trying to cheat them.

Shortage thinking. They believe that if you give an inch, they will lose. Maybe this is also part of a legacy of that old myth that nice guys finish last. By the way, they don’t!

Care Sooner About Employees or They Will Leave!

Now let’s look at why leaders and businesses don’t care sooner about their employees. Interestingly enough, the list is quite similar. It’s greed that drives them not to invest in employee development and of course, employees leave.

Arrogance brings them to think that employees should be grateful just to have a job. If an employee asks for more, they label them as whiny or entitled. When underrepresented employees raise the issue of diversity, equity, and inclusion, many leaders tell them why things are the way they are. These are horrible mistakes and now employers are struggling to attract and keep the best talent.

Summary

If you wait until employees or customers leave before you care, then you’re not leading for greatness. Be more aware of what employees and customers experience. Awareness, empathy, and proactive steps retain employees and customers!

From my professional experience to your success,Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

Related Posts:Courageously Care For Employees, Teammates, and Customers!Use Leadership Gratitude to Engage & Retain Employees & Lead Morale!

©2022 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email [email protected] for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.

Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.

Get more inspiration and actionable tips for high engagement results!

Buy Kate Nasser’s new book Leading Morale (Amazon.com).

Tags: business, care, culture, customer experience, emotional intelligence, empathy, employee experience, Growth, inspiration, interpersonal skills, Leadership, leading morale, Mindset, people skills, Soft Skills, sooner, success, vision

When you want to end a circular conversation with an upset customer, I want you to say:

“We realize this is frustrating for you.” {Then explain why you can’t honor the request and offer the next steps.}

Example: “We realize this is frustrating for you, and I’d like to explain. Not only is an unplanned stop not feasible with scheduling, but regulation also doesn’t allow it. We’re regulated by the State of Washington and the Utility Transportation Commission and must abide by planned routes. What we can do is pick up your recycling on June 19th.”

“We won’t be able to _______.”

Example: “We don’t negotiate our fees. We won’t be able to work together on this. I hope you find the perfect facilitator for your retreat and that the event is a complete success.”

“I respect your opinion.” {Then explain why you can’t honor the request.}  

Example: “I respect your opinion. Our company policy is not to pay claims involving consumer error. We have a responsibility to the company to uphold the integrity of our products. As long as a product performs as expected and has no defects, we cannot accept responsibility and provide financial assistance.”

“We cannot _______” {Then explain why you can’t honor the request.}  

Example: “We cannot refill your expired contact lens prescription. The FDA regulates us, and the FDA does not allow us to refill expired contact lenses. To purchase contact lenses, you must see an optometrist annually. Can I schedule an appointment for you now, or do you prefer to call us back?”

“To prevent this from happening in the future, I’d like to________:

Example: “To prevent this from happening in the future, I’d like to give you some tips on how to care for your Flex band. When we disconnect, I’ll send you our care instructions.”

“I agree _______, regrettably that’s not possible because________”

Example: “I agree that we need to get someone to look at your lawn as quickly as possible. Regrettably, all our Technicians and Managers are out serving other customers now, and the schedule for the remainder of the day is full. We can book a technician for you tomorrow at 8:00 am. Will that work?”

I want you to speak or write to your customer in your assertive voice. Assertive people say what they mean, mean what they say, and aren’t mean when they say it. Be confident and consider your word final. You’ve got this!

For more help with controlling conversations with challenging customers, check out my De-escalation Academy. 

Job descriptions expect it. Social media “influencers” claim it. And we listen to those we assume are one.

An “expert”.

But who is really an expert?

What Are the Requirements to be an Expert?

Is it someone who has multiple advanced degrees and took place in hundreds of clinical trials but has never worked outside of academia adapting to real-world market conditions?

Or someone who has worked “in the field” for a few years but now touts his expertise in books and videos – but seems to talk about the same things over and over again?

What about that handyman down the street who seems to be able to fix anything he touches?

Then there’s that 20-something gal working in the fast-food joint with little supervision but always seems to get things done.

Which one of these is the expert?

Potentially, any of them are.

Do You Have an Expert Skill?

I’ve learned years ago that we should never make assumptions about people. Each of us has skills that go unnoticed by many. But that doesn’t diminish the skills. They’re there, just waiting for the right moment to come out.

We know we possess them and it gives us confidence. The confidence we sometimes are afraid to show. But it’s there.

Impostor Syndrome

Even with a wide-ranging set of skills and talents, we don’t feel like an expert. We’re afraid to speak about them. We’re hesitant to show them. And we have that little nagging feeling that we’re an impostor.

Wanna know a secret?

I thought this way too. I did. And it lasted for a while.

There was a time when I didn’t know what direction to take. During my younger years, I held many jobs. Shoe salesman, exterminator, and printer apprentice. Later I was a musician, MLM salesperson, and licensed stockbroker. After that, a short stint as a plumber’s helper led to owning my own HVAC business. What came next? A 20+ year hospitality career.

I’m clearly NOT an expert.

Experts do what they do for many years. They are laser-focused. They write papers. They have patents. They’re on television and stories are written about them. Everyone wants to interview them and pick their brain. And, nowadays, they have more social media followers than I could ever imagine.

Those are experts!

So, what about me?

As you can see, I did a little of this, and a little of that. But that’s not what experts do.

Or is it?

I’ll tell you one thing…

Put me in most situations and I’ll succeed.

I’m able to fall back on my experience in multiple industries and remember how I approached a situation.

What was the scenario?
Who was involved?
What tools did I use?
What was the plan and outcome?
Can it be replicated?
What must I do differently to get the desired outcome?

I don’t get anxious. I don’t get nervous. And I don’t worry.

I’m able to remain calm and weigh my options. My decisions come quickly because I’ve been here before. I just need to tweak things a little and it’ll work.

I can do this, I know it!

This is NOT how impostors act.

This is how experts act.

They prove their worth by their actions, not their theories.

They come up with solutions to problems.

Remember that handyman I mentioned earlier? He’s an expert. Give him a problem and he’ll have a tool for it. He’ll find a way to fix it, build it, or replace it better than it was before. He’s an expert because he has experience – and confidence in his skills. He knows what to do and is not afraid to do it.

Let’s get rid of the “impostor syndrome”. ‘Cause, we’re more of an expert than we realize.

Customer support demand is always growing larger and larger. As your customers expect more and more from your business, it’s likely that your business will be hard-pressed to deliver speed and quality service that meets their expectations. When a business runs into sinking quality issues, they naturally look to expand their support team, however this isn’t always a viable solution. 

Luckily, your business isn’t stuck between a rock and a hard place – with the proper customer support software, your support team can improve efficiency and satisfaction without increasing headcount or ballooning costs. 

Bad automation can hurt your business

Before diving into what automation can do for a support team, it’s important to differentiate the good from the bad and the ugly. There are some automation solutions and initiatives that companies invest in that actually fail to address rising support demand, and instead they end up only exacerbating the issue.

These automation tools tend to have poor routing or self-service options, and only pile up the tickets or frustrate customers. 

It’s integral to always take a demo of a solution and pick it apart. If the automation capabilities don’t meet your standards, there is a solution that will. 

How proper automation tools improve support teams 

An ideal automation solution provides a variety of tools for your support team to work with, and doesn’t focus on just one problem area. Here are 5 major elements that a great automation tool provides: 

Automatic routing

Tickets need to be instantly sent to correct teams and agents without worrying about them becoming insurmountable piles or moving down wrong workflows. A good automation tool not only prevents a support team from being overworked and overwhelmed, but it also improves the chances for positive customer experiences – as well as cutting down response and resolution times. 

Ticket deflection

Typically the greatest threat to a support team’s success is sheer volume of tickets – the greater the amount of tickets the greater the chance of a loss of cohesion, service quality, and customer satisfaction. Failure to properly implement ticket deflection, that is solving customer problems without them needing to submit support tickets, is integral to the success of a customer service team. 

In order to adequately reduce agent involvement and deflect tickets, your software needs to be able to route specifically flagged tickets to a knowledge base, or other such self-service center, so customers can resolve issues by themselves. Deflecting routine tickets directly reduces an agent’s workload so they can prioritize more complex matters and provide greater quality service. 

Ensure SLA requirements

In the case that your business enforces certain service level agreements (SLAs), you need to be empowered by your support software to configure settings that meet those requirements. 

If you enforce service level agreements (SLAs), you can configure settings in your support software to meet these promises. 

If you can’t assign triggers, customize ticket properties, or alter routing rules to fit your agents’ work styles and needs, then your business is hamstringing your support team. But if service needs are met, then your support team is able to ensure that customers stay happy. 

Promote collaboration

Any businesses strongest assets are their teams and the people that make them great. Your employees are likely experts in their field, cornering them off into silos can only hurt performance. The more minds meet, the better the ideas (except for maybe in the case of Lost’s writers room). 

Drive collaboration within and across your teams with internal chats, multi-agent ticketing, and forums. If you make communication between different departments simple, agents can find information they need quickly and reduce time to resolve. 

Empower self-service

As I briefly touched on in the ticket deflection section, self-service is a no-brainer. Support teams can easily reduce involvement in simple tasks by providing customers the means to find resolutions on their own quickly. Key ingredients are a knowledge base, community forum, or automated chat. 

Automation increases support efficiency

The former core pillars of automation tools were only touched upon briefly, and there’s an oceanic depth to each of them. Ultimately it’s up to a business to decide which support software they will face the tide with, and some of those solutions may very well sacrifice quality in some of these core areas. 

But if your customer service team needs a ship that will get you to your destination and beyond, be sure to shop for only the very best customer support platform.

Conferences are essential to career development and business networking for all industries. Bringing together people from all over the world in the same industry to learn and share is crucial to innovation. And a dedicated event management integrated ticketing system helps you keep the event in sync throughout the process as a central hub that can control various aspects of the event and provide directions and everything needed in one place. 

And a right set of event ticketing strategies is essential when you want to boost ticket sales online for your upcoming conference planning project, whether in-person or virtual. Conference ticketing should be at the forefront of all event planning efforts:

Design your perfect event ticket.Decide on a pricing strategy.Ensure a seamless check-in process for all your essential attendees.

All of which should be essential aspects of your event marketing strategy.

This guide will discuss everything you need to know about some of the fundamental steps of event ticketing strategies for corporate events like conferences.

Understand how your event meets a key need?

In a conference setting- people will be willing to pay for an experience that helps them overcome challenges, widen their knowledge about a particular field and build powerful networking. You can learn what matters most to your audience through conversations with past attendees, researching hot topics for potential attendees through tactics like social listening, sending surveys to your target audience, and more.

Then leverage your insights by offering different items and event experiences priced based on what your audience thinks is worth buying. And don’t forget to make leveraging audience interest a quick win for all participants.

Choose the right ticketing platform

Depending on the nature of your event, you may be able to use a virtual event platform. Try to find a complete event ticketing platform that includes registration and conference ticketing tools in addition to event organization features. Each platform you explore may have different features that can benefit you in different ways. 

In addition to powerful event capabilities, your event platform must enable ticket classes, streamline event registration and improve data collection, integrate with marketing platforms such as social media and email campaign manager, offer donation options upon sign-up, and provide in-depth analytics.

By providing value for your ticket prices, offering free options, and choosing the right event platform, you can sell tickets for your conference event and keep everyone happy in the process!

Optimize your registration page

Your registration page should be part of your website domain, even if you use a third-party event registration platform. This is important because potential registrants may feel that the registration and payment process is unsafe if they should switch to a different URL. Also, make sure your sign-up page is mobile-friendly and loads quickly to optimize the user experience.

The rule of thumb is to only ask for the information you really need in your registration form. If you are using an online ticketing platform, the system may provide a set of form templates that you can use, but consider checking whether you can customize these to exclude or add more fields or not.

When your form asks for too much information, it can lengthen attendees’ registration time, negatively impacting the user experience and causing them to cancel the ticket purchase process.

Implement Tiered Pricing

Once you’ve set your base price, you can start working from there to figure out what, more or less, you can offer to attract attendees. Half-day passes, Early Bird promotions, and VIP tickets are all great examples of rates that can work well to attract individuals to buy tickets quickly.

In a nutshell, it comes down to offering a wide variety of tickets at different prices depending on what guests are willing to pay. Let’s say an expensive VIP attendee’s ticket that lets people skip the queues and a ticket with no privileges for those who want an affordable option.

Get creative and define relevant rewards for your conference event. If a popular band performs at your event, you may be charged extra for front-row seats.

If this is your first time hosting a conference, these strategies, especially the drop levels, can be essential for engaging your first attendees when they don’t know what to expect. 

If you’ve been hosting business or educational conferences for several years, building a price for your current sales strategy is as simple as asking when previous attendees purchased their tickets in previous years. By looking at past patterns, you can tell if there’s a lull between your conference ticketing promotions and if you’ve had a particularly good week each year. It might be a good idea to introduce a promotion to increase sales during these times.

Trigger FOMO by ticket scarcity

No one likes the feeling of being left behind after a sold-out experience. FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) kicks in when consumers feel they might miss a ticket. Scarcity marketing can increase event ticket sales by a significantly bigger margin. Ticket classes, as discussed above, are an excellent scarcity tactic and reward those who buy tickets in advance. Another strategy is to display a countdown timer. 

The countdown timer can show how long it takes to complete the transaction before the attendee’s cart expires.

The countdown will motivate potential participants to buy those who are still hesitant. They are less likely to buy in advance if they have all the time in the world. Below is a chart showing how long it takes customers to purchase event tickets on popular ticketing platforms.

Launch a referral program

If your ticket sales are poor, it could mean that you, like the majority of sellers, aren’t getting enough leads. And while there’s no hard and fast rule about the average number of leads to make a sale, it’s a numbers game. This is one of the many reasons why referral programs are great for selling conference event tickets online. 

In fact, as much as 90% of population online trust customer recommendations if they come from people they know personally. And those who received that personal referral were four times more likely to purchase it after receiving the referral than if they had discovered it organically elsewhere. So not only will conference ticketing referral programs connect you to more leads, but those leads will also be more likely to convert! You can even give your speakers or special guests their own referral code while you’re there.

Contact industry organizations to help promote

You can leverage industry professionals and organizations to help promote your event. Reach out to them, tell them about your conference event, give them an email copy, and make it easy for them to advertise on your behalf. This will help showcase your event in front of thousands of more qualified people you wouldn’t usually have access to.

Other organizations to consider are regional, national, and international associations focusing on a particular aspect of your vertical.

Every organization will be different. Some will agree to publish about your upcoming conference event for free, while others may require you to become a member. 

Others may not be scheduled at all and will instead encourage your conference to become a sponsor of their organization. It’s a great way to promote the event to a wide range of professionals. It will also help you build backlinks to your event website, improving your SEO.

Leverage the brand value of your event?

If you’ve already built a strong event brand reputation and a number of loyal attendees, you can increase the perceived value of your top experiences by using a pay-as-you-go booking structure. This may include charging a nominal subscription fee for general admission, as well as premium and VIP tickets to show potential registrants that they want a rich experience with content, results- connections and valuable communities.

By taking advantage of premium tickets, you not only increase the perceived value of your entire event but also help offset the cost of creating the experience. As the perceived value of your event grows and people start buying paid tickets, that no-show rate will drop dramatically, and the total number of sign-ups for your shared experience will increase.

Final Words

Business models are driven by positive attendee experiences. However, with the breakneck pace of today’s event marketing industry, every business is having difficulty maintaining a viable clientele of happy and satisfied attendees. But with an integrated ticketing platform, every attendee touchpoint with your brand can be managed through the ticketing app. 

Author Bio: 

I am Rebekah Murray. I am working as a content strategist at EventBookings. I have 12+years of experience in the field of content writing. I am passionate about exploring and writing about events, technology, marketing, and education-related content. Find me on Twitter.