Introduction

Course topics

Module 1: Overview

    Understanding customer service

        The challenges of help desk technical support

        The importance of identifying your own attitudes about customer service

    Understanding your customer

        Customer expectations

        Understanding and appreciating your customer from their perspective

        The difference between being accountable and being responsible

        What signals are you sending?

        Activity: Can you hear a smile?

Module 2: Identifying and improving your communication style

    About communication

        It’s how you say it

        Identifying communication styles

        Activity: Identify a colleague's primary communication style

        Communication differences between technical and non-technical professionals

        Real-world examples

        Activity: Logic and emotion

        Differentiating person style preferences

        Relating to the non-technical customer

        Activity: Analogies/metaphors

    Active listening

        Seven reasons for active listening

        Blocks to listening

        Becoming a better listener

        Empathy and interactions with customers

        Generating empathy

        Using empathy statements: Summary and examples

Module 3: Managing customer expectations over the phone

    Understanding customer expectations

        About customer expectations

        Managing and delivering against customer expectations

        Making sense of words

        Simplifying the message

        Clarifying the complicated

Module 4: Opening and closing the call

    Setting the proper tone

    Tip: Seven steps to a successful call

    Tip: Paraphrasing

    Using questions to diagnose technical issues

    Troubleshooting

    Activity: Listing troubleshooting questions by category

    Closing the call

Module 5: Keeping customers informed

    The importance of keeping your customer informed

Tip: Plan of attack

Putting the customer on hold

Transferring the call

Activity: Using positive language

Delivering solutions diplomatically

Creative problem solving

Tip: Delivering bad news

Module 6: Special circumstances—dealing with angry and impatient customers

    Dealing with a difficult situation

    Activity: Responding to a difficult customer

    Tips: Dealing with anger/impatience

    Managing the out-of-control customer

    Benefits of effective phone communication

    Benefits of customer-centrism

Course Summary

As a help desk professional providing technical support, you need to interact with customers to address their technical issues, concerns, challenges and problems. In order to best service these customers, the 30 Bird Telephone Skills for Help Desk Professionals course will help develop interpersonal skills that will enable you to do so in a professional manner. Your technical expertise will no doubt be useful; however, having additional "people" skills will enable you to appropriately interact and serve the customer.
In this workshop, you will be able to apply practical skills and principles to over-the-phone customer service for customers experiencing technical issues.

Upon the successful completion of this course, candidates can expect to gain knowledge and understanding in the following areas:

• About the challenges of help desk technical support, the importance of identifying your own attitudes about customer service, how to understand and appreciate the customer's perspective, about customer expectations for interaction, the difference between being accountable and being responsible, and to identify any unhelpful signals that you might be sending
• How to identify your default communication style, communication differences between technical and non-technical professionals, from real-world examples, to identify and work with logic and emotion, to differentiate personal style preferences, to relate to the non-technical customer, how to actively listen to customers, seven ways to better listening, and how to employ empathy in your interaction with customers
• About customer expectations, how to clarify complicated descriptions of problems and the importance of doing so, and how to focus on results
• How to open the call by setting the proper tone, seven steps to a successful call, to use paraphrasing as a tool, to use questions to diagnose technical issues, the appropriate protocol for troubleshooting technical issues, and how to close the call
• Tips for keeping customers informed, an effective procedure for putting customer on hold and transferring calls, how to use positive language when relating to the customer, how to deliver solutions diplomatically—good news and bad news, and creative problem solving
• Tips for dealing with angry and/or impatience, and specific steps to take when doing so; how to deal with anger or impatience; and the benefits of effective phone communication and customer-centrism

This workshop helps candidates understand and learn the skills and techniques to achieve successful customer interaction. It covers some of the same topics as the 30 Bird Customer Service for Help Desk Professionals course, but it focuses more specifically on the telephone skills required to interact with customers effectively.

About the series

Professional skills—such as the ability to manage work schedules and communicate effectively with customers—are personal and interpersonal proficiencies that don’t depend on technical knowledge but are crucial for successful and efficient functioning of any organization. 30 Bird Media is thrilled to announce our brand new line of engaging, relevant, and straight-to-the-point professional development courseware. From the very start we knew it was important not to simply force this new and different content into our existing IT-specific format. Each professional development course comprises an Instructor Guide, a PowerPoint slide deck highlighting important points, and a Student Guide. Taken together, these training tools empower you to teach these concepts effectively in any classroom or workshop setting.

For more information and access to the PowerPoint files, please contact your 30 Bird sales representative or call (888) 330-9071.