What You Will Learn:

Participants will learn to:

• Assess callers' service expectations
• Develop question skills to elicit critical information
• Apply proven communication processes and methods
• Move calls forward to resolution
• Properly document techniques
• Execute follow-up activities
• Effectively communicate with customers through email and web chat
• Diffuse conflict and create a less-stressful, positive experience for the customer
• Maximize the productivity and effectiveness of the team
• Direct personal contributions toward team synergy and successes

Overview

Contact Center Professional Training and Certification course is designed for call center, help desk, customer service and technical support professionals. Attendees will learn best practices, skills and techniques for effective, high-quality front-line customer support.  The course presents an opportunity to learn and practice skills that build customer relationships and create a positive business image.

After the training, participants will be able to recognize customers' needs, and adapt strategies to meet those needs.  The course focuses on relationship building skills and problem resolution techniques that can be applied first and foremost to customer interactions, but also to everyday communication (and conflicts) within the team and with team leads and supervisors.

Attendees will:

• Explore the personal paradigms, attitudes and motivators that influence caller behavior
• Learn how to assess customers' preferred communications styles
• Practice steps in the contact resolution process, including effective listening, response and conflict management skills
• Apply newly-learned skills that result in quality, efficiency, and professionalism throughout customer interactions

The post-course CCCP certification exam is highly recommended for all attendees.  A formal, standardized certification exam ensures that information has been absorbed, and that every member of your contact center team uses consistent terminology, best practices, and skills.  Your contact center staff will "be on the same page" and will better understand the criteria by which their performance is to be evaluated.  Standardization also improves intra-team communications, agent-supervisor communications, and increases the productivity of coaching sessions.

Optional 3rd day on Chat and E-Mail Writing Skills, Conflict Management and Team-Building

An expanded three-day version of this course can be delivered on-site at your company location. On the additional day, participants will learn online chat and email communication writing skills, conflict management, and will participate in team-building exercises.  This final module promotes team cohesiveness through intra-team understanding, appreciation, communication, and the expression of common purpose.

Course Chapters

• Chapter 1 - Understanding the Customer
• Chapter 2 - Listening Skills
• Chapter 3 - Questioning Skills
• Chapter 4 - Professional Communication Skills
• Chapter 5 - Call Handling Techniques
• Chapter 6 - Effective Email Writing Skills
• Chapter 7 - Conflict Management Skills
• Chapter 8 - Team Building Skills

Who Should Participate

The Contact Center Professional training course is ideal for:

• Front-line contact center and help desk professionals, and team leads
• Front-line supervisors, quality assurance professionals, coaches, and mentors that lead, evaluate quality, and develop front-line contact center and help desk service professionals

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites for this introductory course.

Agenda

Day 1

Chapter 1 - Understanding the Customer

• The role of the contact center professional
  • Customer focus
  • The tactically-skilled contact center professional
• The contact center professional skill set
  • Customer service
  • Listening
  • Questioning
  • Professional communication techniques
  • Contact handling
  • Documentation
  • Writing
  • Conflict resolution
  • Time management
  • Interpersonal skills
• Understanding stakeholders
• Understanding customer needs and expectations
• Why customers contact the center

Chapter 2 - Listening Skills

• Assessing a caller's true expectations - how to listen for what a customer really wants
• Listening challenges: distractions, interference, mental drift, and more
• Personal listening styles
• Listening barriers and enablers
• How to "get around" communication barriers
• Differentiating fact from opinion
  • Strategies to use when addressing customer opinions
• Listening for what the customer is not saying

Chapter 3 - Questioning Skills

• The art of skillful questioning
• Asking the right question at the right time for the customer
• The five types of questions; how and when to use each
  • Open-ended
  • Closed-ended
  • Probing
  • Verification

Chapter 4 - Professional Communication Skills

• Using the components of communication to your advantage
  • Effectively selecting and using tone and word alternatives
    • How to use positive language and avoid negative language
    • Using tone to engage the customer
    • Techniques for improving tone
  • Using volume to convey, control, interest, and impart
  • Enhancing your conversation with inflection
  • What your pace conveys to the customer
    • Techniques for controlling your rate of speech
  • Empathy and sincerity
    • What your empathetic phases convey to the customer
    • Using proper verbiage to show empathy
• Quality assurance and quality monitoring
  • Qualities, criteria and evaluation

Day 2

Chapter 5 - Call Handling Techniques

• The four phases of the contact resolution process
• Managing the first impression
  •  The five components of a greeting
• Asking the right questions to gather accurate, needed information
  • Steps to follow in contact discovery
• Moving a call forward to resolution - the process of combining knowledge and resources
  • Steps to follow in contact resolution
• Contact closure - communicating the resolution and the reason
  • Steps to follow when closing a contact
  • Properly documenting customer contacts
    • Classification (correct classification)
    • Assigning priority attributes
  • Follow-up contacts
  • Setting realistic timeframes
• Customer hold, transfer and escalation processes
  • Steps to follow before putting a customer on hold
  • Routing the unresolved contact
  • The transfer process
    • Transfer with hold
    • Live transfer
  • The escalation process
• Call handling strategies
  • Managing customer expectations
  • How to set customer expectations for
    • Hold time
    • Timeframes
    • Delivery times
    • Call backs
    • Follow-up
    • Priority levels
    • Pricing
    • Service level
  • What to do when expectations have not been met - customer recovery
    • How to say "no" without saying no
  • How to handle specific caller behaviors - strategies
    • The confused customer
    • The blame game customer
    • The VIP customer
    • The faux VIP
    • The know-it-all customer
    • The angry customer
    • The talkative customer

Optional Day 3

Chapter 6 - Effective Email Writing Skills

• Essential traits of a responsive customer service e-mail
• Your use of e-mail
• Component parts of e-mail
  • The heading
    • to:, cc:, or bcc:?  What recipient prefaces tell the recipients
  • Composing an effective subject line
  • Greeting alternatives
  • Techniques for writing an effective e-mail message
  • Proper closings and signatures
• Good email writing skills
  • Writing in an active voice v.s. passive voice
  • Full sentences  v.s. fragments and run-ons
  • Strong verbs that add power to your writing
  • Bullets and number, which to use and when
  • Font, color, bold, italics, and underlining and what each means
• Polite, positive, personal tone
  • Words that affect tone
  • Personalizing you email
  • Language that contributes to a positive tone
• Idiomatic expressions and how to avoid them

Chapter 7 - Conflict Management Skills

• Identifying the causes of conflict in a support center
• The value of conflict management skills
• Conflict management styles
  • Assessing your own conflict management style
  • How to choose an effective conflict management style  to achieve the desired outcome
• How to handle a complaint
  • The 12 steps of complaint handling
• Managing unruly customers
  • Procedures to be followed when encountering an unruly customer
  • Effective disengagement - procedures for handling customers who have crossed the line
    • The disconnection process
    • Transferring with warning
• Conflict resolution best practices
  • Words and phrases that exacerbate conflict
  • Winning phrases that diffuse conflict

Chapter 8 - Team Building Skills

• Assess your team's teaming IQ
  • Performing a Team SWOT Analysis - identifying the team's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats
  • Take a team quiz to asses your own teaming abilities in key team-building performance areas
• Team architecture and balance
  • The role of a team
  • Identifying your own role within the team
  • Strengths and talents each team member brings to the team
• Developing effective intra-team communications
  • Performing a communication style self-assessment
  • Communication styles within the team
  • Best practices for effective communication and interaction
  • Strategies for effectively communicating with each team member based on their personal communication styles
• Team building exercises
• Five steps to becoming a better team
• Building an action plan for developing a more successful team effort

Certification Opportunities

The Certified Contact Center Professional (CCCP) certification is officially recognized by the RCCSP Professional Education Alliance and its members.  This is an internationally-recognized certification.

The certification process consists of 3 parts:

• Class attendance
• Achieving a passing score on the online certification exam

Class Attendance: Participants will complete a two-day instructor-led course, where they will participate in hands-on learning and group exercises under the observation of a Certified RCCSP instructor.  Upon successful completion of the course, an online login and password will be sent by email with instructions for accessing the certification exam.

Certification Exam: After the course, participants will have four weeks in which to take the online certification exam.  The certification exam is comprised of 60 questions and candidates are given 90 minutes to complete the exam.  Candidates must achieve at least an 80% score in order to obtain certification.

Course Instructors

Members of our faculty have both contact center management and training delivery experience.  They are certified at “Master Trainer” level for delivery of this course.  RCCSP instructors are located throughout the USA, Caribbean, and Central America.

So that case studies and examples used in class can be presented in terms that are familiar to the attendees, your instructor may contact you in advance of the training seminar to discuss your specific organization, product or service, range of customers and experiences, and any special issues that need extra focus.

In-House Training Option

In-house, private training offers the added benefits of

• Facilitated team interaction
• A confidential environment where customer interactions, team synergies, conflicts, and front-line policies can be openly discussed
• Minimal travel time and costs; and
• Accessibility
• Cost effectiveness  

Pricing for an on-site course delivered at your location is determined based on a "Base Fee" for up to six attendees, and a per person fee for each attendee thereafter.  On-site fees are all inclusive:

• Up to 6 participants - $8,995 (2-day abbreviated course) or $12,995 (3-day course) including:
  • Instructor-led training
  • Course manuals
  • Shipping costs
  • One online certification exam administration for each attendee
  • Instructor's travel & lodging expenses in the continental USA
  • Certificates of completion
  • Certification awards
• Additional participants - $695 each.

Additional travel surcharges apply for travel outside of the continental USA and for seminars scheduled within three weeks, or paid for within three weeks, of the onsite delivery date.

The customer site must provide suitable meeting space, any desired meals or refreshments, and the following presentation supplies:

• An easel with self-stick flip chart paper, and markers
• LCD projection unit and projection screen

Request In-House Training

More Training and Certification Courses

See the complete calendar of RCCSP Professional Education Alliance Contact Center Training dates and locations.

For more IT, technical and field support training course options, see the RCCSP Help Desk, ITIL, and Support Center Calendar.