Phone Customer Service Foundations Course
$428 per person ex GST (Discounts Available)
Delivered via 2 x 3-Hour Sessions
ACXPA Certified: This course is officially certified by the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association.
Course Introduction
The Phone Customer Service Foundations course is a comprehensive training program delivered over two structured 3-hour sessions (six hours total), designed to help your team deliver consistently exceptional service over the phone.
It’s perfect for employees who are new to customer service, those who’ve never had formal training, or existing staff looking to refresh and deepen their skills beyond the basics.
This course goes beyond surface-level advice like “smile when you talk” — instead, it equips your team with practical, proven techniques they can immediately apply to real-world conversations.
Built around the ACXPA Phone CX Standards and informed by insights from over 50,000 evaluated phone calls, the course delivers a structured, evidence-based approach to improving empathy, clarity, and confidence in every interaction.
Over two engaging sessions, your team will learn how to master the start and close of any call, communicate with more impact, defuse tension, manage difficult customers, and apply a simple but powerful two-step method for resolving complaints effectively.
Delivered live by experienced industry professionals, this training blends expert instruction with real-world relevance to drive immediate and lasting improvements in phone performance.
If you’re ready to elevate your team’s phone interactions with the tools, structure, and confidence to handle any conversation — this is the course to get you there.
Phone Customer Service Foundations Fast Facts
Level up your team’s phone service with deeper, structured training over two powerful sessions!
This interactive, expert-led course is ideal for employees in call centres, reception, admin, and any role where handling customers over the phone is part of the job. Over two 3-hour sessions, they’ll build confidence, improve communication, and learn how to handle even the most challenging customer conversations.
Built for Online Success – Proven, Practical, and Cost-Effective
While some may prefer onsite delivery, the Phone Customer Service Foundations course has been expertly designed for live, virtual training via Zoom — combining interactive techniques with structured content to maximise engagement and outcomes.
Employees can join from the office, at home, or anywhere with an internet connection, making it perfect for hybrid or remote teams. See why online training works here.
Delivered over two short, 3-hour sessions, the format provides flexibility to fit around operational needs while improving knowledge retention through spaced learning.
This isn’t dry or passive e-learning — your team will experience live coaching, interactive scenarios, and expert facilitation from industry veterans who know how to keep participants engaged (and even entertained).
Best of all, our virtual delivery earns consistently high feedback scores. See what participants are saying here.
Prefer In-Person Delivery?
We also offer onsite training for larger teams. Contact us to discuss private delivery options.
Course Suitability
The Phone Customer Service Foundations course is suitable for any employee who interacts with customers over the phone — regardless of industry, product, or service.
Whether they're new to the role, never had formal training, or just need a fresh injection of structure and confidence, this course provides practical techniques to help them deliver consistently outstanding customer experiences.
Delivered over two engaging 3-hour sessions, employees gain the time to absorb, apply, and retain their learning between modules for maximum real-world impact.
Typical roles that will benefit from this training include:
- Call centre agents: Handling inbound customer inquiries, complaints, and support calls.
- Receptionists & office staff: Managing incoming calls for businesses, government offices, and service desks.
- Customer service teams: Providing phone-based support across various industries.
- Small business owners & employees: Improving customer interactions and professionalism over the phone.
- Healthcare & professional services: Managing patient, client, or customer calls in clinics, law firms, real estate agencies, and more.
- Retail & eCommerce support: Assisting customers with product inquiries, complaints, and order-related issues.
Course Modules
The Phone Customer Service Foundations course is delivered over two live 3-hour virtual sessions, giving employees the time and space to absorb new concepts, practise their skills, and apply them in real-world situations between modules.
From improving conversations and handling difficult situations to staying calm and professional under pressure, the course combines the most impactful elements of our top-rated training programs into one cohesive and engaging learning experience.
The content is aligned with the Australian Contact Centre Phone Quality Standards, which cover five core competencies and 18 high-impact behaviours proven to drive exceptional customer experiences.
With role-plays, live demonstrations, group interaction and expert feedback, your team will build confidence, uplift capability, and return to their roles with real-world strategies they can immediately put into practice.
At the end of the course, participants will receive a Certificate of Achievement — and more importantly, they’ll walk away with practical skills to create better customer experiences and stronger outcomes for your business.
We’ll equip your employees with the critical skills and behaviours used by the world's most successful customer service professionals to deliver exceptional experiences and achieve efficient first-contact resolution.
The training aligns with the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association (ACXPA) Phone Quality Standards, ensuring your team is equipped to consistently provide outstanding service across all customer phone interactions.
1. The Psychology of Customers
Includes an exploration of what customers want and need from any customer service interaction and why customer service is so critical for business success.
We’re often told this module can be quite inspiring, setting the tone for the training by helping participants understand the ‘why’ behind great service.
2. How to Engage
Learn how to create a strong first impression and have impact at the start of any interaction by showing strong ownership and intent, managing expectations, and building trust and confidence.
3. Better Needs Discovery
Learn and apply techniques used by the FBI for enhanced customer conversations that identify and confirm the root cause of issues and customer needs in an efficient manner.
4. How to Educate
Participants learn how to proactively educate customers through consistent checks of understanding, comfort, and suitability with key information and solutions provided.
5. How to Close any Call or Conversation
Your employees will learn how to avoid those often awkward, clunky finishes through a simple method of strong final checks, expressions of gratitude, and a warm farewell.
Dealing with frustrated customers is an inevitable part of any customer service role — and knowing how to respond can make the difference between escalation and resolution.
This session builds your team’s capability to handle difficult phone interactions with confidence. It goes beyond outdated advice like “smile while you speak” or scripted empathy lines.
Instead, your employees will gain practical insights, proven techniques, and real-world strategies across four focused modules — enabling them to listen actively, defuse tension, show genuine empathy, and guide conversations toward positive outcomes.
1. The Psychology of Complaints
We’ll teach your employees how to identify and understand the different types of difficult customers and what they need from their service experiences when they voice concerns.
This module also includes an exploration into the science behind emotions and how they impact brain chemistry and functions—empowering your employees to better manage challenging situations.
2. Empathy and Intent
Your employees will learn how to validate with empathy to diffuse emotion and take ownership to satisfy both a customer’s emotional and transactional needs with a powerful 2-step response method for handling customer concerns.
3. Handling the Most Difficult Customers
Exploration of various vocal and body language techniques used to diffuse heightened customer emotions and how to respond to more inappropriate customer behaviours while maintaining professionalism.
4. Group Practice
Putting the learning into practice with fun, engaging group role-play activities that enable participants to apply key customer service and complaint handling skills in a range of contexts and scenarios.
What Your Team Will Walk Away With:
About Your Trainer
The Customer Service Phone Foundations training course is designed and facilitated by Simon Blair , one of Australia’s leading Customer Service Trainers.
Simon is a father of 4 and lives in the Eastern Suburbs of Melbourne. His twin girls keep him busy running around following their footy careers (one is an AFLW footballer with Collingwood) and he has a great love of music.
He does land the odd corporate or private gig around town as an acoustic guitarist and singer belting out rock and pop classics.
He has great adventures with his partner Ines, loves the North Melbourne Kangaroos footy team and every now and then escapes into other worlds when playing Dungeon & Dragons with his mates. He likes to call himself a ‘cool nerd’.
Trusted by Leading Organisations Across Australia
Hundreds of businesses — from local councils to national brands — have chosen CX Skills to upskill their teams with practical, real-world customer service training.
Recent Customer Service Phone Foundations 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 a course template.
Our trainers live and breathe 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.
Valuable Experience That Changed Our Mindset!
The CX Skills – Phone Customer Service Foundation training facilitated by Simon was engaging and highly relevant, using real scenarios from our workplace to reinforce key concepts. Simon provided practical strategies to improve communication and handle customer interactions more effectively.
It’s been a valuable experience that has already changed our mindset on the way we approach customer service.
Highly recommended!
Tailor-made Training!
I really enjoyed the energy Simon brought to the class. At the start he gave us the opportunity to express what we felt we needed refining in our service skills then proceeded to tailor our sessions to meet those needs.
It was engaging and eye-opening experience and there were a lot of “ah huh” moments for me.
Simon created a very comfortable learning space to be able to open up, express my experiences and guide me through situations without fear of judgement that I handled it wrong.
I enjoyed practicing the techniques we were taught and the challenges he set for us.
A great overall experience!
Customer Service at its Best!
Loved the real life situations, role plays, easy to understand and great examples to use in a real life situations.
This will also help with home life situations which I loved!
Compare Alternative Phone Customer Service Courses
You're currently viewing the Phone Customer Service Foundations course, but if you're looking for a more basic or advanced training option, you may be interested in our Essentials or PRO courses. Below is a quick comparison of the available options to help you choose the best fit.
Not quite the right fit? We also offer customer service training for frontline teams, reception staff, tech support, and inbound sales roles. Explore other training categories →
Public vs Private Phone Customer Service Training Options
Whether you're after flexibility or a tailored solution, we offer both public and private delivery options to suit your team’s needs.
Our public courses are ideal for individuals or small teams wanting to build their phone skills in a structured, interactive setting. Sessions include participants from multiple organisations — offering fresh perspectives, shared challenges, and valuable group learning.
For businesses with regular staff turnover, public courses also provide a convenient way to onboard new employees — ensuring consistent, high-quality service training across your workforce.
Our private courses offer a customised experience tailored exclusively to your business. You choose the schedule, shape the content, and focus on the phone service challenges that matter most to your team.
Use the comparison table below to weigh up the options. Still not sure? Contact us — we’ll help you find the right fit to uplift your team’s phone customer service performance.
| Feature | Public Course | Private Course |
|---|---|---|
| Who Attends | Open to all companies and individuals | Your team only |
| Learning Environment | Hear different perspectives and insights from others in various industries. | Training is customised to your organisation’s specific challenges and goals. |
| Dates & Times | Fixed schedule making it easy to plan ahead | Fully flexible to suit your needs |
| Content | Standardised curriculum covering core skills | Customised to your business needs |
| Delivery Method | Live online | Live online or onsite |
| Cost | $428 per person | More Cost-effective for larger groups |
| Best For | Businesses needing a hassle-free, ready-made training solution with fixed dates | Companies wanting a customised training program tailored to their team’s needs |
| Minimum Numbers | No minimum - book a single employee or the whole team! | Minimum of 4 participants |
| View Upcoming Public Courses > | Learn More About Private Training > |
Pricing and Payment Options
The Phone Customer Service Foundations course is just $428 AUD per person ex GST for six hours of expert-led training, delivered across two engaging online sessions.
Choose your preferred session dates below, then follow the prompts to complete your booking.
💳 Credit card and invoice payments are both accepted.
Lock in your training today — pick a date that works, and you're all set! 🎯
Purchase a Ticket to a Public Phone Customer Service Foundations Course
All publicly available course dates are listed below. Simply click on your preferred session to purchase tickets instantly.
💳 Secure checkout is available via credit card, or you can request an invoice during the booking process.
Have questions about this course?
Want to train your whole team or explore a customised training solution?
Speak with us directly on +61 3 9008 7287 (Mon–Fri, 8:30am–5:30pm AEST/AEDT) or send us a message.
New public course dates are published on a regular basis!
August 2025 Phone Customer Service Foundations
Online via Zoom Price: $428.00 AUD ex GSTThe August 2025 Customer Service Foundations training course teaches premium phone customer service skills delivered via 2 x 3-hour sessions.
November 2025 Phone Customer Service Foundations
Online via Zoom Price: $428.00 AUD ex GSTThe November 2025 Customer Service Foundations training course teaches premium phone customer service skills delivered via 2 x 3-hour sessions.
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