Certified Customer Service Professional
(3 basic units of 2 days each )
(3 elective units of 1 day each)

Overview

The Certification program for the Frontline Customer Services Professionals, comprises of seminars from the award winning Masters Series in Call Center Management, from The Call Center School, that has been voted “Industry’s Best Training Solution” for last four consecutive years at the International Call Center Management (ICCM) Conferences.

Target Audience

Fresh, young candidates looking at entry-level frontline agent positions in a call center

Course Outline

Frontline Fundamentals – Basic Units

Unit 1 : Business Essentials for Frontline Customer Service Professionals

  • Role of a Call Center
    • Towards Customers
    • Towards Management (stakeholders)
    • Towards People
  • Performance Management
    • Call Center Key Terms
    • Understanding Key Performance Indicators
    • Understanding relationships between each KPI: the trade-offs
    • Unique Environment of a Call Center – Random Call Arrival
  • Quick Overview of Call Center Technology – Essentials for the Frontline
    • Review of the technologies that deliver contacts (ACD, IVR, web, etc.)
    • What are the various tools for measuring day-to-day work
    • Tools for improving performance
    • Basic reports and what they mean

Unit 2: Customer Relationship Management – Frontline Perspective And Power of One

Each individual on the frontline can make a tremendous difference in a customer’s experience with our organization, ultimately resulting in customer satisfaction and retention, increased market share, and positive impact on the bottom line. In this session you will learn to identify opportunities to make a difference and quantify the impact any given transaction might have. In addition to the actual customer transaction, every person in the call center also contributes in a significant way to the speed of answer, staff productivity, and operational costs. In this session, you’ll also learn the impact that just one person can have on service, as well as the workload impact on the other members of the team.

Principles of CRM

  • What Customers Expect
  • Factors influencing Customer Behavior

Understanding the Value of a Customer

  • Lifetime Value: repurchase & referrals
  • Understanding the dynamics of Customer Satisfaction
  • Understanding the relationship between Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty – agent’s role in contributing towards customer Loyalty
  • Value of a Complaint

Power of One – The difference one agent can make

  • Identify the impact each individual can have on customer satisfaction.
  • Call Center Staffing Dilemma
  • Quantify the workload and occupancy implications of plus/minus one person.
  • Quantify the speed of answer implications of missing staff.
  • Sharing the Workload
  • Adherence to schedule – why
  • Adherence to process – why

Unit 3: Customer Services Skills – Enabling Excellence

Vocal Makeover: Proven Techniques for a Winning Voice

If used properly, your voice can support and enhance your verbal message. However, sometimes distracting vocal mannerisms can creep into your speech, negatively impacting your professional image. This seminar will help you become aware of the most common speaking distractions and give you specific tips and techniques for improvement so you can communicate with confidence. You’ll learn about the seven vocal elements and how you can improve each one so your voice becomes a finely-tuned instrument for telephone communications.

  • Identify effective warm-ups for your voice to maximize clarity.
  • Identify and eliminate frequent verbal mishaps and “verbal viruses.”
  • Correct volume and tempo speaking problems.
  • Find the optimal telephone voice pitch.
  • Change voice inflection to be more upbeat, energetic, and enthusiastic.

First Class Phone Manners: The Absolute Musts of Telephone Best Practices

For many organizations, the call center is the primary and perhaps the only means of communications with customers, so it’s important that we make each conversation count. It all begins with answering the phone properly (Call Opening or Greeting), making a good first impression, and then advancing the conversation into a positive lasting impression. In this session, you will learn to gain control of the call, ask effective questions, place calls on hold, transfer calls effectively, and close each call successfully. The session will also provide best practices for creating voice mail greetings and leaving professional voice mail messages.

  • Identify the components of an effective opening and what not to do.
  • Avoid the most common telephone etiquette problems and wording.
  • Practice the recommended techniques for transferring callers or putting them on hold.
  • Identify ways to effectively close the call to leave the customer with a positive impression.
  • Recognize best practices when relying upon voice mail communications.

Power Phrasing: Winning Word Choices for Effective Communications

There are two components of every telephone conversation – the vocal message and the verbal message. How we say something and the exact words we choose have a powerful impact on the outcome of the conversation. This session teaches the skill of choosing just the right word or phrase to send the best message. Learn how to say “no” in a positive manner by performing a “message makeover” and eliminating negative words and irritating phrases from your communication. You’ll learn to identify caller communication styles and select the best words and phrases to build rapport with your customers. The end result will be callers who leave with a positive impression of you and your company.

  • Describe the importance of selecting the right words to convey your message. 1
  • Avoid using negative phrases and wording and replace with more positive phrases.
  • Identify key phrases to work into speech to build confidence and rapport with each customer.
  • Identify visual words and phrases that can be used to replace body language to demonstrate interest and support.
  • Outline ways to keep a call on track and arrive at a positive outcome.

Tyrant Turnaround: Going From Difficult to Delighted Callers

Being on the frontline in a call center is a tough job, and it’s made even tougher by the occasional (or frequent) caller who is complaining, angry, or even hostile. Add to the mix other challenging callers that are just mildly annoying such as talkative, confused, or just impatient. But any of these calls can have a positive side with the satisfaction of being able to turn a difficult call into a positive customer experience for both you and the caller. This session provides “must have” techniques for dealing with all kinds of calls, from mildly irritating to very difficult. Students will learn specific vocabulary formulas and voice tone techniques to use to turn a stressful encounter into a positive interaction. Particular attention will be paid to reaching a successful outcome with every complaint call.

  • Identify caller types and how to categorize them in order to select the right phone technique.
  • Outline proven practices for handling complaints, so that these calls become a gift instead of a nuisance.
  • Describe the steps for diffusing a caller’s anger so a positive outcome can be reached.
  • Practice voice tone techniques proven to turn around an angry or hostile caller.
  • Outline steps to reduce stress after a challenging or difficult call.

Frontline Fundamentals – Electives (These are optional)

Unit 4: The Art of Up-selling: Tips for Making the Additional Sale

Selling isn’t just for sales reps anymore. As more call centers move toward up-selling and cross-selling, yesterday’s customer service agent needs to be today’s all-round service and sales representative with the knowledge and skills to develop and close sales and ensure a quality experience for each customer. This session will provide the basics of how to make the most of inbound sales opportunities, both in pure sales and service/sales environments. You’ll gain new perspectives on how up-selling can benefit the customer and learn up-selling techniques that maximize the customer relationship as well as the company’s bottom line.

  • Identify sales opportunities in the everyday service environment.
  • Identify up-sell opportunities at the end of a regular sales transaction.
  • Overcome fear and reluctance to making the additional offer.
  • Position the sale from the buyer’s perspective.
  • Select the right words to support a “relationship selling” interaction.

Unit 5 : Email Essentials: A Frontline Guide for Writing Effective Emails

An email interaction creates a lasting impression and legally binding document between your company and the customer. Poor writing skills can undermine the company’s credibility. On the other hand, effective email communications can enhance image and build customer loyalty and retention. Make sure your emails are free from grammatical errors, confusing wording, and unfriendly tones. This session will outline the steps to writing effective emails and will provide a template to follow for clear, concise communications, as well as a practical checklist of wordings and practices to avoid

  • Describe how email communications can enhance or damage a customer relationship.
  • Define the components of an effective email opening.
  • Write complete sentences in a clear, active voice and avoid sentence fragments and improper grammar.
  • Identify words and phrases that convey a personal tone.
  • Outline commonly misspelled and misused words.
  • Practice reviewing and correcting sample email messages to enhance customer communications

Unit 6 : Collections Calling: Steps and Strategies for Telephone Collections

It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it. In this session, you will learn the step-by-step process of making an effective collections call to maximize revenues as well as maintain customer satisfaction. This session will outline how to map out a plan of attack for various types of calls, how to gain control of the call from the opening, and how to successfully negotiate for a successful outcome. We’ll review the Fair Debt Standard Practices Act and its implications in the call center. Students will have opportunities to practice and critique collection techniques with several mock collections calls. You may just pay for this seminar with the next hour of collections calls using your new skills and knowledge!

  • Identify the various types of collections scenarios and what strategy to use for each.
  • Describe ways to gain control of a call from opening to close.
  • Outline the steps of successful negotiation, including key wording to navigate a successful outcome.
  • Define the critical components of the Fair Debt Standard Practices Act that apply to telephone collections.
  • Practice collection techniques to apply immediately on the job

Benefits

  • Identify opportunities to make a difference and quantify the impact any given transaction might have.
  • Help become aware of the most common speaking distractions and give specific tips and techniques for improvement so the candidate can communicate with confidence.
  • Learn to gain Control of the call, ask effective questions, place calls on hold, transfer calls effectively, and Close each call successfully
  • Learn to identify caller communication styles and select the best words and phrases to build rapport with your customers.
  • Provides “must have” techniques for dealing with all kinds of calls, from mildly irritating to very difficult.

Some significant immediate gains are:

  • Better understanding of day to day work.
  • Improved adherence to schedule – efficiency
  • Improved adherence to processes – quality
  • Better first call resolution rate
  • Superior customer experience
  • Lowering of cost per call
  • Lower rate of employee turnover – longer tenure