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The Phone Customer Service Essentials training course has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is designed as a short-duration (3-hour) course designed to provide your employees with professional customer service skills that will have an immediate impact on your business.
Whether it’s for new employees, existing employees who are a little stale, or employees who have never had any professional customer service training, this course will teach the core fundamentals to assist them in delivering consistently great customer service over the phone.
The course goes beyond traditional customer service training tropes such as ‘always have a smile in your voice’ and ‘use the customer’s name 2 or 3 times in a call’.
This program has been three decades in the making and is based on the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) Contact Centre Quality Standards, leveraging the insights and assessment of more than 50,000 phone calls to identify the five core competencies and 18 behaviours directly linked to positively impacting the customer experience.
Crucially, we don’t teach scripts (they don’t work!), but we do provide your employees with a proven, reliable structure for phone calls that will enable them to consistently communicate in key moments with energy, empathy and simplicity.
In particular, your employees will learn how to master the start and the finish of any phone call and how to check for understanding, comfort and resolution throughout. They will also learn and practice a simple but powerful 2-step method for dealing with more difficult customers and situations they may encounter.
Highly Recommended!
Review of Phone Customer Service Essentials (Private Class)
This training would have to be one of the best I have attended whilst being at the City of Casey.
Simon was very engaging and made everyone feel inclusive in the meeting.
The scenarios we went through has helped me structure my calls more efficiently and personable.
I would highly recommend Simon and this training!
Customer Service Officer
City of Casey
December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials Course Fast Facts:
Built specifically for online training!
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials training course has been specifically adapted to be delivered online with trainee engagement and learning outcomes enhanced by the short bursts of interactive and engaging development methods.
At just three hours, your employees will have the capacity to focus on our session whilst still having time to practice or take on additional learning like products & services training, systems training etc or jump back on the phone and put their new skills to immediate use!
The course is delivered via Zoom which is easily accessible to anyone with an internet browser.
Course Overview (Video)
Learn more about the course directly from the course designer and facilitator, Simon Blair.
Who is this course suitable for?
The customer service skills we teach are applicable to all industries, products and services and are suitable for any employee who speaks to internal or external customers over the phone.
Whether it’s because they’ve become a little stale, have never received any formal training or you’ve got some new employees that you want to equip with the right skills, this course will ensure your employees learn the fundamental skills to deliver a great customer experience for your customers.
Typical roles suitable for this course include:
- Call centre agents (sales or service)
- Customer service staff
- Office/administration employees
- Receptionists
- Front desk
- Personal Assistants
- Warehouse/logistics employees
- Retail workers
- Complaints teams
If you are looking for our more comprehensive customer service programs, check out our Customer Service Professional (3 x 3-hour sessions) or the Customer Service Excellence courses that are longer in duration and cover more in-depth content.
Simple and Effective!
Review of Feb 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials
Simon was great at delivering the course! I have learned a few essential steps that hugely improved my confidence and the quality of my customer service. I highly recommend this course!
Ecommerce coordinator
Citystrength
What your employees will learn:
Over a 3-hour online training session, the December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials training course will teach your staff the critical skills for call handling that the most successful customer service employees in the world use to deliver superior customer experiences and efficient first contact resolution.
The skills taught are aligned to the Australian Contact Centre Quality Standards, consisting of five core competencies and 18 behaviours that are required to deliver great customer service over the phone, whether it’s in an office, contact centre or working from home.
Centred on empathy, action and energy, your employees will learn how to be more confident, efficient and effective with every customer interaction.
The training consists of powerful demonstrations and practice in the essential behaviours across four key modules:
1. How to Engage
How to create a strong first impression and impact at the start of any phone call by showing strong ownership and intent, managing expectations and building trust and confidence to set up the call for success.
2. How to Close
How to create a lasting final impression and confident finish to conversations through a simple method of strong final checks, expressions of gratitude and thanks in a warm farewell. Staff will learn how to avoid those often awkward, clunky finishes.
3. How to Educate
Participants learn how to proactively educate customers through consistent checks of understanding and comfort with key information provided. to gain verbal nods and insight to make good judgements as to what else is needed.
4. Energy & Empathy
Exploration of the critical phone communication techniques and underlying psychology behind how to acknowledge and empathise with customer concerns and objections.
They will learn how to diffuse emotion and take ownership in order to satisfy both a customer’s emotional and transactional needs.
The modules are designed to have an immediate impact – delivering improved customer service outcomes for your business and providing improved confidence for your employees when interacting with customers over the phone.
About Your Trainer
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials training course is designed and facilitated by Simon Blair, one of Australia’s leading Customer Service Trainers.
Simon has trained thousands of agents across Australia with a career spanning 30 years. He’s directly assessed over 50,000 phone calls that have enabled him to continually test and refine his training to ensure he doesn’t just teach theory, he teaches what works!
In his other role, Simon is the General Manager, Quality Insights for the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA), leading a team that measures and assesses the performances of contact centres across Australia as part of their Contact Centre Benchmarking Service.
Simon Blair lives in Melbourne and outside of work, he’s kept busy as a father of four kids, including three teenagers and a 6-year-old, and as a coach of his twin girls footy team.
He also indulges his love of music when he can as a guitarist and singer-songwriter and is a passionate supporter of the North Melbourne Football Club (yes, they do exist!).
Recent Customer Service Phone Essentials Course Testimonials
What makes the CX Skills courses stand out from the pack is the quality of our trainers who are all industry experts, not just trainers reading off PowerPoint decks.
Our trainers live and breathe in the industry and it’s the reason behind our exceptional customer testimonials and ratings, a sample of which you can read below for this particular course.
Click here to view all our customer testimonials.
You can also view all of our customers covering a wide range of industry sectors.
Good Theory and Practice
Review of Service Experience Essentials (Private Course)
Really enjoyable session, feel like a good use of time. The session felt like 40min as opposed to the full three hour block!
The focus on structure and technic meant that the content was well conveyed and practiced in the session.
Solutions Architect
AC3
Response from CX Skills
Thanks Carlos, glad you enjoyed the session!
Great info, needed more time for practice
Review of March 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials
We found the information very useful, and there was great examples and knowledge imparted in the training.
The changes in techniques and updates to some of the techniques I had been taught previously were appreciated.
I wished there had been more time to do role plays to practice the techniques more, so the team could have felt more comfortable with them.
However, the introduction to the trainer was too long winded. I would rather the presentation of the material follow the call flow, as for newer staff we jumped around and lot.
The material sent after the course was greatly appreciated and I have some of the pages displayed on my wall to assist me to use the techniques.
Customer Service Manager
FCF Fire and Electrical
Response from CX Skills
Thanks Michelle, agreed – as this is the ‘Essentials’ course there is only so much we can cram in. Our ‘PRO’ courses provide a lot more time to cover each skill and a lot more time to role play and build confidence in applying them. Appreciate the feedback on the intro and flow and we will take that onboard!
A crack-up 🙂
Review of Phone Customer Service Essentials (Private Class)
Simon thank you for making the training enjoyable and engaging. I have walked away with a lot of useful tips on dealing with difficult calls.
Group Admissions Support Officer
St John Of God
Response from CX Skills
Thanks Minnie, and yes Simon is know for delivering a few laughs throughout the session 🙂
There's something about Simon!
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, I am here to say yes it is possible.
Simon is the perfect training partner for the job, as we all know we are never too old or too young to learn new techniques, even though we may be set in our ways.
Simon was able to gently implement new methods in ways that felt comfortable and natural.
I believe this service would be very beneficial for all areas of customer service and the results to your business is paramount in an ever changing landscape.
Thanks once again Simon.
Admissions officer
SJOG Healthcare
Response from CX Skills
Thanks Julie for the wonderful, made us laugh! And we agree, Simon is great at putting everyone at ease and having an enjoyable training session with plenty of laughs 🙂
EFFECTIVE AND FUN
Review of Phone Customer Service Essentials (Private Class)
Simon is an engaging and experienced trainer who taps into your customer service skills. He recognises the issues on the personal level and gives advice that caters to each issue. Very helpful and glad I have the chance to attend his sessions.
GROUP ADMISSIONS OFFICER
ST JOHN OF GOOD
Response from CX Skills
Thank you Ching Shuh for kind review and glad you enjoyed the session.
More Customer Testimonials
“Thought I would let you know that it is the most outstanding Customer Service course I have ever done! From the videos to the role-plays and the general interaction with the guys. They were both professional and fun. Great work guys. Thanks! – Customer Service Training Participant, TAFE NSW
“It is difficult to come up with one part of the training that was my favourite. The whole thing I believe was one of the most inspiring training sessions that I have done in 11.5 years at Aurora. I’m excited at just how much the Five Degrees approach can improve our customer experience – Customer Service Team Leader Training Participant, Aurora Energy
“I would recommend this training as it was insightful and refreshing. Simon really made us step out of our own perspective and into the customer experience. There were things he covered that I was just wowed by. I’m so used to set scripts and pitches but Simon covered the words to say, voice volume, pauses and how to have conversations that makes the customer comfortable to build trust.” – Customer Service Training Participant, Philip Morris
“WOW OH WOW, I’ve just listened to recordings of three of the coaching sessions Simon did. I’m so excited about our upcoming Training with him. The way he delivers his feedback is awesome and he has some really powerful tips for the guys which simplify things.” – Customer Service Train-the-Trainer Participant, RACT
About CX Skills
CX Skills is a specialist training business that only delivers customer service, customer experience (CX), contact centre, workforce optimisation (WFM/WFO) and workplace wellness courses designed and facilitated exclusively by industry professionals.
We're the official training partner of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA), and we are proudly Australian-owned and operated.
We’re grateful to have been trusted by hundreds of customers, and we’re proud of the amazing customer testimonials we’ve received, so you can rest assured that when you book a training course with CX Skills, your training is in good hands.
Our Recent Customers Include:
We're grateful to the following companies who have trusted CX Skills with their training. View our full customer list here >
How and when it’s delivered
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is delivered online via Zoom and is a public course, which means there will be employees from other businesses on the course as well.
The course is delivered live at the following date and time:
- Date: Tuesday, 5th of December 2023
- Time: 13:00 to 16:00 AEDT (Melbourne, Australia)
Date or time doesn’t suit?
Pricing and Payment Options
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is just $247 per person ex GST for 3 hours of live, facilitated learning with Simon Blair.
Simply purchase your ticket at the top of this page (you can select how many tickets you’d like to purchase).
Payment can be made instantly using a credit card, or you can request an invoice (payment required in full prior to the training commencing).
Available discounts:
- Save 15% when booking for three or more staff in the same transaction (note: the discount will be applied on the final checkout page and no other discounts apply).
- Want to train your whole team or centre? We offer volume discounts for training large teams. Contact us for customised pricing and availability.
Want to Save 25% off ALL CX Skills Courses and gain access to industry best practices?
Members of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) save a massive 25% off ALL CX Skills courses for a full 12 months!
With annual memberships starting from just $35 per employee, it can be a great way to save money immediately on your training, plus, you'll gain access to a vast array of best-practice resources to improve your customer experience.
