This document provides guidance for customer service representatives in a call center. It emphasizes listening to customers, acknowledging their perspectives, and focusing on solutions rather than limitations. Representatives are advised to remain calm and thoughtful, apologize sincerely when needed, thank customers for their time, and strive for first-call resolutions to problems. Proper questioning techniques and showing empathy are also important skills.

2. What is a Call Centre?

4. Qualities in Customer Service
O Be Friendly (Smile!!)
O Show empathy where needed.
O Listen properly and carefully to customers
O Adaptable
O Be willing to go the extra mile

5. Taboos In Service
O I don’t know
O Problem
O No / Cannot
O You don’t see my point
O You should, must, need to, have to, not
allowed
O I am not in charge / We do not handle this

6. Say Me!
O Do use magic words like: Please, Sorry,
Thank you….
O Appeal by saying: Appreciate, Help,
Understand….
O Show responsibility, take ownership
O Show care & concern: Don’t worry, please
be assured, rest assured….
O To enforce regulations where needed,
hold your ground but don’t sound bossy!

7. The Traffic Light Model
O Stop before you speak rashly: Take signals
from your body (Heartbeat, Nervousness,
etc). Take a slow deep breath.
O Wait, Think & Reflect: Identify feelings,
consequences, and positive behaviors.
O Go - Take the right actions.

9. Hearing VS Listening
O Everyone wants to be heard and understood, but at one
time or another most people don't listen and fail to
understand the meaning of another person's words. It’s
a fundamental human need to have your feelings
acknowledged, whether or not someone agrees with
you. Honest to goodness listening creates an intimate
connection and makes you feel cared about.
O When you merely hear someone’s words but are not
listening to what's being said, it can lead to
misunderstandings, missed opportunities and resentments.
O Listening goes far beyond your natural hearing process. It
means paying attention to the words that are being spoken
with the intention of understanding the other person.

12. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
The first area is to allow the customer to vent their
feelings. It is unreasonable and inappropriate for us to
interrupt a customer and ask them to “calm down”
when they may have been trying to solve this problem
for days!
Conflict Management

13. Pause
•Allows the customer to express themselves and vent their emotion. Anything we say at this
point will only serve to fan the flames.
Acknowledge
•This is our chance to show empathy and to demonstrate that we are taking the customer
seriously.
Clarify
•We need to understand the detail to make sure that we fully understand the issues. We
need to do this with tact and patience. It is also worth explaining to the customer why you
need to ask these extra questions. Remember the customer may have explained this
before!
Response
•Having diffused the emotion, taken the issue seriously and understood the detail, now we are
ready to respond. Our response needs to be positive and appropriate. We also need to
ensure that we are not over promising. If you say you’re going to do something ensure you
do it-or you will have a really difficult customer to deal with.

14. O Focus on what we can do
Customers have little or no interest in your company policy and nor is it a
good use of anyone’s time to explain what we can’t do for them. Instead
explain what we are able to do and try to present this as a choice for the
customer.
O Tone
Use a tone that conveys that you are taking the customer’s issue seriously,
but then try adjusting it gradually so when you are presenting the solution
options you are upbeat and positive. Good news delivered in the wrong
tone will still sound like bad news!
O In their shoes
You probably got into customer service, because you like people. Use your
communication skills to understand the problem and user your natural
empathy to step into the customer’s shoes. Your actions at this part of the
customer journey have a massive impact on their regard for the company.

15. O Apologise
We are not accepting any liability when we apologise, but we are expressing
our sympathy that someone is upset. It needs to be sincere and well timed.
Example: I am sorry you have had that experience
O Thank
This is our opportunity to thank the customer for a couple of things.
- Giving us a chance to fix their problem
- Bringing it to our attention
- Their patience
Just like the apology we need to be sincere and appropriate. There is an
opportunity to impress the customer if this part comes in a follow up call.
Example: I am just calling to check that everything is now sorted and can I
just thank you for your patience in this.
O Be Professional
In all this as with any customer situation our emotions need to be managed.
If we respond with emotion, even if it’s juts defensive then the situation will
escalate. We must choose our attitude and empathise with the customer.

17. Asking Questions
O Use closed ended questions to decide on a course.
Probe: Use open ended questions to
probe for more information.
Suggest Options
Gain
Agreement

19. Showing Empathy
Listen for how your customers feel and why are they
feeling this way.
Show empathy by:
O Repeating or paraphrasing what your customer said.
(Show that you understand what was said. ), or
O Reflect the feelings of your customer (To communicate /
connect the feelings that the customer is experiencing),
or
O Recap by summarizing what was communicated.

20. Call Ownership
O In customer relationship management (CRM),
first call resolution is properly addressing the
customer's need the first time they call, thereby
eliminating the need for the customer to follow up with
a second call.
O Improve customer satisfaction – for every 1%
improvement in FCR, you get a 1% improvement in
customer satisfaction. FCR is highly correlated to
customer satisfaction. In fact, FCR is the highest
correlated metric to customer satisfaction of all the call
center metrics. It is also important to mention that the
absence of FCR is the biggest driver of customer
dissatisfaction.

21. In a study by the International Customer Management
Institute (ICMI) it was reported that 65 percent of all
repeat calls are the result of agent errors. An example is if
the employee:
O Doesn’t give a confident answer
O Doesn’t set the proper expectations
O Doesn’t follow through on a commitment
O Simply gives the wrong answer
Ultimately, what customers want is simply a resolution to
their issue and not just the call.

22. GEMS
Why Go the Extra Mile for Service? Online retailer Zappos, has 500
employees in a call center in Las Vegas who have all received
seven weeks of training on how to make customers happy. The
company (now a unit of Amazon) has been called "insane" and
"fanatical" for the way it will do anything to please its customers.
The stories are legendary, and are a key part of its brand:
O In 2011, Zappos sent flowers to a woman who ordered six
different pairs of shoes because her feet were damaged by
harsh medical treatments.
O Last March, a customer service rep went to a rival store to get
a specific pair of shoes for a woman staying at the Mandalay
Bay hotel in Vegas when Zappos ran out of stock.
O The same year, it overnighted a free --free! -- pair of shoes to a
best man who had arrived at a wedding shoeless.
O Oh, and Zappos employees don’t read from scripts

23. No Wrong Doors

24. Closing Positively
In normal situations, end by using such phrases:
O It has been a pleasure serving / speaking
with you.
O Have a nice day.
O Thank you for your call
O Thank you for contacting us.

25. In Difficult Situations, try these phrases:
O Thank you for your feedback.
O Thank you for telling us about this issue.
O Thank you for your understanding.
O Thank you for being patient with us.

26. Role Play
Scenario 1: An angry customer is complaining about the
food quality in the restaurant that you work in. The
customer is very unhappy with the service as well and
demands a full refund. How are you going to resolve the
issue?

27. O Scenario 2: Someone calls in about her bad experience
with your hotel reception. Her reservation was not found
and the officers at the reception were not helpful in
arranging another room for her. Further more, the room
that was eventually arranged for her was not cleaned
properly. How would you deal with this?