How your business interacts with customers or clients can have a huge impact on their success and reputation of your business. Because of this, it’s vital that the management of your company trains every staff member, including all customer service representatives, on how to have successful telephone conversations with those who work with your business.
To help you in doing this, here are three things you should teach your employees about speaking with customers or clients on the phone.
Use Their Name
While telephone conversations can often be impersonal, one thing you can do to make them more personal is to use the name of their person you’re speaking to.
According to SkillsYouNeed.com, the trick here is knowing how to naturally use the person’s name without making it feel like you’re abusing it. If you’re able to find the balance here, you can make your callers feel valued and personally cared for by your business.
As a part of this, make sure you get the proper spelling and pronunciation for each person’s name that you’re speaking with. If this means having to ask them for clarification, do it. It’s better to take the time to get the name right than to use the wrong name or pronunciation and then have to face an uphill battle to build up your rapport again.
Work On Your Tone
If your employees spend a lot of time on the phone each day, it’s only natural that they won’t necessarily be happy and smiling for every moment of it. However, having a positive and friendly tone of voice can have a big impact on how your clients or customers feel after getting off the phone with customer service.
To address this, Susan Ward, a contributor to The Balance Small Business, recommends that you train your employees on how to have a positive tone of voice and use positive vocabulary for every phone conversation. By doing something as simple as smiling while talking, a positive tone can be conveyed without sounding over-the-top or forced.
Learn To De-escalate
In many cases, customers or clients will be calling your employees about issues they’re having. As a result, these conversations may include people who aren’t very happy at the moment.
While it can be easy to allow your own emotions to be upset, Andreas Rivera, a contributor to Business News Daily, suggests that you teach your employees how to de-escalate conversations when the customer or client is angry or upset. Some of these strategies include things like being understanding and reassuring as well as maintaining a calm voice.
If you want to improve the customer service for your business, consider using the tips mentioned above to train your employees on how to speak with customers or clients on the phone.
