Training Plan for Phone-Based Customer Service

This plan will help you train employees who serve customers over the phone.

It guides you through the Phone-Based Customer Service course on LinkedIn Learning. Make sure your team has access to LinkedIn Learning before you begin.

Phone-Based Customer Service focuses on essential phone skills:

  • Building rapport

  • Exceeding expectations

  • Solving problems

The course is ideal for anyone who serves customers over the phone. This includes contact center agents, customer support representatives, and office receptionists.

This training plan uses a unique approach to training videos.

It divides the lessons into short segments, spaced out over four weeks. This approach maximizes learning and application while minimizing the disruption to your regular operations.

This guide covers:

  1. Resources Required

  2. Preparation

  3. Pre-work

  4. Week 1: Kick-off

  5. Week 2: Building rapport over the phone

  6. Week 3: Exceed expectations over the phone

  7. Week 4: Solve problems over the phone

Resources Required

You'll need these resources to use this training plan.

  1. Access to Phone-Based Customer Service for all participants. (via LinkedIn Learning)

  2. The exercise files from the course.

  3. Workshop planning tool (free download).

Contact LinkedIn Learning for pricing and subscription options if you don't already have access.

Estimated time needed: 1 hour per week

  • Group activities: 30 minutes per week

  • Individual learning: 30 minutes per week

Prepare for Training

Get ready for the training by preparing yourself and your team.

Step 1: Create a training plan. Use the Workshop Planner to create an action plan.

  • Identify a goal for the training

  • Decide how to prepare your team

  • Create a plan to help the team use their new skills

Use this how-to video for more details:

Step 2: Announce the training. Tell your team about the training and what to expect. Address three questions for participants:

  1. What is the training about?

  2. Why is it important?

  3. How are employees expected to use what they learn?

Keep your announcement simple. Consider sharing it in a team meeting. Follow-it up with a short email that contains the pre-assignments.

Step 3: Schedule team meetings. You'll be meeting with your team once per week for four weeks. Each meeting should take 30 minutes.

Step 4: Share pre-work. Share the pre-work with your team. I've included that in the next section.

Pre-work

Ask participants to complete two short assignments before the first meeting.

Assignment 1: watch these videos:

  1. Phone service still matters

  2. Understand the phone's unique challenges

Assignment 2: Complete page one of the Learning Plan worksheet that's included in the course's exercise files.

This includes:

  • Discussion questions

  • Learning objectives

Week 1: Kick-off

The initial meeting should set the tone for the course. Start by reviewing the overall goal for the training that you identified on the Workshop Planner.

Next, discuss the following questions:

  1. How is this course relevant to the team?

  2. What are some opportunities to apply new phone skills?

  3. What are some unique challenges when serving customers over the phone?

It's helpful to share a few best practices for getting the most out of this course:

  1. Watch just one video at a time.

  2. Complete the activity that goes with each video.

  3. When possible, try using what you learned from the video before moving on to the next module.

Assignments for next week: Ask your team to watch the following videos and complete the activities described in each one. Videos with an activity at the end are marked with an "A."

  1. Develop the perfect phone greeting (A)

  2. Create personal connections (A)

  3. How to fill dead air (A)

  4. Manage holds and transfers

  5. Control the call with friendliness

  6. Complete the quiz at the end of Chapter 1

Week 2: Building rapport over the phone

This week's theme is building rapport with customers.

Rapport is a process of getting customers to know, like, and trust you. Start by reviewing the week one assignments.

Discussion questions:

  1. What impact does your phone greeting have on customers?

  2. What is one way that you build personal connections over the phone?

  3. How have you filled dead air?

  4. Describe one takeaway from the holds and transfers module.

  5. What is one technique you can use to move the call forward while still being friendly?

Assignments for next week: Ask your team to watch the following videos and complete the related activities.

  1. Tune out distractions

  2. Listen over the phone

  3. Use advanced communication techniques (A)

  4. Deliver moments of "wow" (A)

  5. Complete the quiz at the end of chapter 2

Week 3: Exceed expectations over the phone

The focus is understanding customer needs so you can consistently meet or exceed their expectations. Start by reviewing the week two assignments.

Discussion questions:

  1. How can you tune out distractions?

  2. What are examples of listening techniques you use to understand customers?

  3. How have you used visual references when communication with customers?

  4. What is one opportunity you've had to delight a customer?

Assignments for next week: Ask your team to watch the following videos and complete the related activities.

  1. How to express empathy (A)

  2. De-escalate angry calls

  3. Friendly follow-up (A)

  4. Stay focused while you work (A)

  5. Create your action plan (A)

Week 4: Solve problems over the phone

The final week is focused on service recovery. Start by reviewing the week three assignments.

Discussion questions:

  1. How can you express empathy with customers?

  2. What techniques have you used to de-escalate angry calls?

  3. How can you apply the friendly follow-up technique?

  4. What have you done to stay focused at work?

  5. What is your top takeaway from the course?

Remind participants that they can earn a certificate for their LinkedIn profile by doing the following:

  1. Watch all the videos

  2. Complete the chapter quizzes

This how-to guide provides additional help with accessing certificates.

Conclusion

It helps to go back to your original goals for this training and note the team's progress.

Your employees should show improvement in their phone skills, but it's likely they also have areas for continued growth.

Set aside time to provide each person with coaching and feedback. You can also give them weekly reminders from the Customer Service Tip of the Week.

Why Phone Skills Are in High Demand

Vinyl records, fanny packs, and the phone are all making a comeback.

When I started working in the catalog industry nearly 25 years ago, people would call and ask to be sent a catalog. It was a simple call that was easy for a customer service rep to handle quickly. 

Today, that catalog is online and nobody needs to call for it. The order gets placed online as well, eliminating the need for phone order takers. Customers can also track shipments, update billing information, and reset a password without live assistance.

Yet the phone isn't dead.

At least one source reveals phone volume is increasing, and the trend is expected to continue. And it’s a double-whammy. With the simple stuff moving to self-service, the calls are getting more complicated and taking longer to resolve.

Here's why phone skills are in high demand right now.

A confident contact center agent facing the camera.

Why phone skills are necessary

There are three things creating a need for more phone skills. Volume is increasing, calls are getting more complicated, and phone skills are no longer native.

Let's focus on that last one for a moment.

I spent a lot of time on the phone with my friends when I was a kid. This was well before texting, emailing, or even cell phones. We'd sometimes talk for hours, so communicating that way became second nature.

Things have changed. 

People entering today's workforce have rarely used the "phone app" on their phone. Texting, social media, and messaging apps have taken the place of that.

This means phone skills are far less commonplace than they used to be, but employers haven’t necessarily caught on. A recent study from Axonify revealed that 23 percent of contact center agents receive no formal training.

Meanwhile, phone volume is growing.

The 2020 Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report discovered that the phone is still the highest volume channel for contact centers. According to a survey of contact center managers conducted for the report, phone volume is expected to grow 25 percent in 2020.

The report also shared some important context about the service channels customers choose:

  • 69 percent of customers prefer self-service.

  • 63 percent of customers almost always start with self-service.

This tells us a few things about the calls customers are making:

  • They are more urgent.

  • The issues are more complex.

  • Customers might have already tried another channel.

There are some complicated feelings that go with urgency, complexity, and using multiple channels:

  • Urgency and complexity creates anxiety.

  • Channel-switching creates frustration.

Navigating these emotions while providing friendly and efficient service is a real challenge for inexperienced and untrained agents.

The phone skills agents need

I hear from a lot of customer service leaders who are searching for phone skills training. In general, there are three skills that are most in demand.

Rapport-building

Establishing rapport over the phone can be difficult without experience. You can't see each other's body language, so the words we choose and our tone of voice carry extra weight.

There are two techniques that are highly effective. The first is to imagine the customer is sitting right in front of you. This reminds you to do a few critical things:

  • Sit up straight.

  • Smile.

  • Eliminate distractions and focus on the person.

Doing all that has the effect of making you sound more positive and in tune with what the customer is saying.

The second technique is called the Five Question Technique. It works by thinking of five questions ahead of time that can help you break the ice (i.e. build rapport) and uncover hidden customer needs.

De-Escalation

Angry or upset customers pose a huge challenge over the phone. People tend to get more judgmental and less open to ideas when they're angry, which makes it much more difficult to solve their problem.

Unfortunately, de-escalation can be difficult when we can't actually see the person. People tend to fly off the handle a lot more when they aren't face-to-face with the person helping them. They can’t see our smile or our empathetic body language.

One of my favorite de-escalation techniques is the LAURA technique. It's an acronym that outlines five specific steps you can take, but it's also a persona. Think of a kind, patient, unflappable customer service rep named Laura. Try to emulate her and you'll probably do well.

Visual Communication

It's hard to get customers to see certain things when you can't just show it to them.

For example, let's say you need a customer's account number from their bill. If you're in person, you can simply ask them to hand you their bill, or you could point to the account number on the page.

That doesn't work over the phone. A different set of skills are needed to help the customer quickly see what you want them to see.

This short video explains how to use visual communication techniques.

Take Action

There's one piece of advice I often share that surprises people: don't hire a trainer.

That's right. I don't think you should hire me, or any other external trainer for that matter. (It's entirely different if you have an expert phone skills trainer in-house.) I recommend video instead.

You can read more about why here, but here are the two big reasons:

  • The training will be more effective if you do it in short bursts over time.

  • You can save 90 percent or more by not hiring me directly.

To get you started, check out my LinkedIn Learning course, Phone-Based Customer Service. You can access it with your LinkedIn Learning subscription or get a 30-day trial account.