Customer Service Phone Essentials Course
$247 AUD per person
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.
Customer Service Phone Essentials Course Fast Facts
Built specifically for online training!
The 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.
What your employees will learn:
Over a 3-hour online training session, the 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 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 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 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 CX Benchmarking Service.
Simon Blair lives in Melbourne and outside of work, he’s kept busy as a father of 4 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.
Well Run
Simon helps make a somewhat painful process both instructive and even a little enjoyable. Clear structure to information helps make it easy to understand.
Highly Beneficial!
I found the training most beneficial as this is my first time in a call centre environment.
Simon was a fantastic trainer being down to earth and with so much experience in the field, the role play really helped consolidate the information and stepping it out in sequence.
Informative and personable
I would recommend this course even for the most seasoned customer-facing professional.
Simon’s insights and experience were communicated in an engaging way and the benefits of the suggestions were seen immediately once implemented.
Great Language Tips!
I found the language tips when communicating with customers have really helped me augment my skills. Really useful!
Two excellent sessions of Customer Service Training
I would recommend these sessions to everyone who is looking to sharpen their customer service skills.
Engaging and thorough
Simon is extreme knowledgeable and knows how to train a team with relatable material to our day to day work.
Informative, picked up a few tips!
Great trainer, informative and entertaining, made the content easy to understand. Thanks Simon!
Highly Recommended!
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!
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 contact centre, customer experience, customer service, workforce optimization and workplace wellness courses designed and facilitated exclusively by industry professionals.
We're an accredited training provider 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 Customers Include:
We're grateful to the following companies who have trusted CX Skills with their training. See the full list here >
Public and Private course delivery options
The Customer Service Phone Essentials course is delivered via Zoom and is offered both publicly (anyone can purchase a ticket) and privately (just for your employees) with the differences outlined below:
Public Courses
The Customer Service Phone Essentials course is delivered as a single three-hour public course, enabling your employees to fast-track their skills whilst still allowing them time to either learn other skills (e.g. local processes, products, services, etc.) or continue to work on the phones and put into practice their new skills immediately after the course!
The times and dates are fixed to enable you to plan ahead, and we typically run this course once a month so you can spread your team out over multiple sessions to reduce the impact on your business. If you would like to have more flexibility on the dates, times and content refer to our private options.
As the course outline is consistent, this course can also be a great default induction program to ensure all your new employees receive the same great training!
View upcoming dates at the bottom of this page!
Private Courses
Whilst the public courses can be a great way to interact with others in similar roles and are perfect for small numbers of employees, sometimes you need more flexibility with the dates and times or you’d like the benefits of training larger groups of agents within your business.
Our private courses can deliver the same course with the dates and times to suit you, and we can also include custom-built role plays, simulations and call examples based on your business.
And for larger groups (minimum of 5 employees), we offer cost-effective pricing.
Pricing and Payment Options
The public Customer Service Phone Essentials course is just $247 per person ex GST for 3 hours of live, facilitated learning with Simon Blair.
Simply select the preferred date at the bottom of this page to purchase tickets to that course.
Payment can be made instantly using a credit card, or you can request an invoice (Payment must be made prior to the course commencing).
Available discounts:
- Save 15% when booking for 3 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?
Members of the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) save 25% off all CX Skills courses for a full 12 months!
With annual memberships starting from just $197, it can be a great way to save money now on your training, plus, you'll gain access to a host of powerful membership benefits for your employees and business.
Purchase a ticket to a public Customer Service Phone Essentials Course
All the publicly available Customer Service Phone Essentials courses are listed below – click on your preferred date to purchase tickets.
Tickets can be purchased instantly with a credit card or you can request an invoice on the checkout page.
If you have larger numbers (more than 6) and would like more flexibility with dates and times, contact us for pricing and availability on a private course.
December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials
The December 2023 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is a 3-hour online course designed to teach premium customer service skills for phone-based employees.
January 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials
The January 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is a 3-hour online course designed to teach premium customer service skills for phone-based employees.
February 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials
The February 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is a 3-hour online course designed to teach premium customer service skills for phone-based employees.
March 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials
The March 2024 Customer Service Phone Essentials course is a 3-hour online course designed to teach premium customer service skills for phone-based employees.