Telephone Techniques Training
Create a consistent, professional customer telephone experience
Telephone Skills Course
Build confidence and skills for handling telephone calls more professionally.
Our comprehensive telephone training courses cover professional telephone techniques and call handling etiquette, with an emphasis on customer service. Available as a half-day or one-day programme.
- 1/2 day course
- 1 day course
- Download course PDF
- +44 (0) 1635 890450
The course provides practical call handling training, teaching participants’ telephone techniques and skills to confidently answer calls, as well as how to constructively respond to customer telephone enquiries and handle customer complaints.
KSL’s telephone skills training course is ideal for receptionist or customer support staff who make and answer calls on behalf of their organisation, thereby acting as the first point of contact for their customers and suppliers.
Key objectives of the telephone training course are to:
- Answer and make telephone calls in a professional manner
- Learn techniques to efficiently respond to a customer call
- Build rapport with the customer and satisfy their needs quickly
- Handle a customer’s concern or complaint, with empathy and understanding
The importance of professional telephone skills
- Importance of professional telephone techniques to the business
- Benefits of professional telephone etiquette
- Small group exercise and facilitated group discussion
Telephone communication challenges
- The challenges of telephone communication
- Role of non verbal communication
- Building rapport and gathering information
- Small group practical exercises, facilitated group discussion
Answering the telephone
- Telephone guidelines when handling a call
- The verbal handshake
- Putting callers on hold, transferring callers
- Group exercise, demonstration, presentation and facilitated group discussion
Communication skills to handle enquiries
- Effective listening techniques
- Questioning techniques
- Recording information
- Using positive language and taking ownership of call
- Closing the call
- Small group practical exercises, presentation and group discussion
Communicating with customers with different communication styles
- Recognising different communication challenges
- Main characteristics of communication styles
- Recognising your own communication preferences
- Adjusting to other styles of communication
- Presentation, individual questionnaire and group review, group exercises
Handling customer concerns and objections
- Pre-empting customers’ most frequent concerns
- Responding to customer concerns and objections
- Small group exercise, pairs practical activity, group review discussion
Handling customer complaints
- Handling emotional responses
- Responding to the complainant
- Escalating the complaint
- Small group exercise, facilitator tips, pairs practice session and group discussion
Reviewing the learning and next steps
- Review of learning and action planning
- Course feedback
The telephone skills training will be supported with:
- An optional participant pre-course questionnaire and/or pre-course reading on telephone techniques
- A colour printed workbook with telephone tips, techniques and space for personal notes
- An electronic communication styles questionnaire sent prior to the course
Standard UK course pricing - telephone skills
The pricing below is for delivering the telephone skills training on a weekday, for the specified number of participants. Prices exclude travel expenses and optional workbook printing. We supply a free PDF for our client to print the training materials.
Half-day course…
- 3-6 participants £625 +VAT
- 7-12 participants £650 +VAT
One-day course…
- 3-6 participants £850 +VAT
- 7-12 participants £895 +VAT
2 x Half-day courses…
Run on the same weekday.
- 6 participants £850 +VAT
- 7-12 participants £895 +VAT
- 13-24 participants £995 +VAT
Type of course: In-house
Our telephone skills course is run at the business premises of our client, on an agreed date. The minimum number of course participants is 3, read why.
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What's included
Our prices already include some tailoring of the course to your business needs, as standard. For example, we will embed your own work-based scenarios into the training, at no additional cost. Alternatively, to discuss a fully bespoke course…
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Discount pricing
Some additional discounts are available for not-for-profit organisations, the NHS and Public Sector, as well as registered charities…
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In-House Training Locations
We deliver in-house telephone skills training for companies right across the UK and have local trainers covering the following areas:
- London and the South East
- The Thames Valley – including Slough, Maidenhead, Oxford and Swindon
- Cambridge
- Norwich and East Anglia
- Leeds and Bradford
- Manchester and the North West
- Southampton and Bournemouth
- Birmingham and the Midlands
- Nottingham
- Bristol
- Cardiff and South Wales
- Exeter and the South West
- Newcastle
- Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland
Testimonials from previous attendees
The course exceeded our expectations. The way that Iain interacted and engaged with the delegates meant that they got so much out of the course. Thank you for ensuring the training was delivered smoothly and so professionally.
Very helpful and useful for the reception teams, to learn new skills and have an understanding of the importance of good telephone and general communication skills.
I found this course extremely useful. It brought up things about telephone customer service I hadn’t considered before, but were very important.
Really enjoyed this training session and will take some great/effective ideas back and use when taking future telephone calls.
Sarah’s energy and approach opened up the delegates and we had a very engaging and useful session. She managed to fit a lot in and we identified some follow-up internally.
Excellent training. Good materials and explained in a clear and precise way.