English Learning Guide

Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 4
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

Name: Cohort: Date:

Training program: Instructor:

INTERACTION WITH CLIENTS (TAKING PHONE CALLS/COMPLAINTS/TAKING MESSAGES/REQUESTING

AND GIVING DETAILED INFORMATION)

This workshop attempts to help you improve your basic interaction with others at your workplace,
sharing personal information, identifying formal and informal communication, and asking and
giving information on phone calls your coworkers and you will learn about customer service,
offering and describing products and services, and how to interact with others at your workplace.
Objective: from the development of these activities you will be able to interact with customers, asking
and giving detailed information while taking phone calls.

1. Work in small groups and discuss the following situations.

- Have you ever worked in customer service? If so, describe this experience. Ask your
partners about their experience.
-I worked selling raffle books, but consumers are very difficult to convince.
- Give a couple of examples related to customer complaints.
-That the items are very expensive
-

- How do you think you could help a customer who is complaining about a delay in a
product’s delivery?

2. Skills practice: do the following activities to practice the learn vocabulary and English
structures
2.1. Listening practice: listening of a customer´s complaint about services

Check out the following vocabulary before the video:

Deal-with/ store/ ship/fix/ sales manager/ package/delay/ deliver/ customer support/ loyal/ warehouse/
sales receipt/ item/ order/ dispatch-sent

2.1.1. Watch the video about dealing with difficult customers at

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WftgJjk_ggA 1 Identify why the customers are
complaining and describe each case.

Case 1: ______________________________________________________________________

Case 2: ______________________________________________________________________
English Learning Guide
Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 4
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

Case 3:
_______________________________________________________________________

1 GC-F -005 V. 01
Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WftgJjk_ggA Used by SENA for academic purposes exclusively.
2.1.2. Now watch a second video about LAST approach at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnpMqQnt8WY 2 -
what is the definition they give for customer service?
- what kind of companies or businesses do you use customer service? - mention at
least 2 problems that might bring customer complaints - what is the word LAST to
mean?
- Identify the principals, vocabulary and expressions for each one of the words related to
the LAST approach.

2.2. Speaking practice: performs roleplays to simulate interaction regarding customer service,
asking for and giving detailed information
- Prepare a dialogue in which your customer complains about your products or services.
Take into account: ask detailed questions, offer solutions to your customer.

2.3. Reading practice: read about expressions on how to interact with a customer (taking
phone calls and messages) and picking up detailed information.
- Work in groups. Do the reading at home and present your topics, using some visual aids,
explain the vocabulary and give some examples to fully comprehend both, how to take
phone calls and how to take messages. Share in class.

Reading 1: Time Management Tips for Incoming Phone Calls

BY SUSAN WARD
Updated February 26, 2018

Inbound phone calls can eat up a lot of time and seriously decrease your productivity by pulling
you away from other tasks. But just as there are ways of handling outgoing phone calls that will
improve your time management, there are ways of handling inbound phone calls to cut down on
the amount of time you burn up speaking on the phone - without being rude to the person who's
called you. These phone answering tips will help.

- Answer Your Phone With a Proper Business Phone Greeting: For instance, when
answering the phone say something such as, "Cypress Technologies. Susan speaking. How
may I help you?"
- Think and Prioritize as You Speak: is the call best handled right now or later? Some calls
are easily answered. Others involve more complex and time-consuming answers. If that's

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English Learning Guide
Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 4
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

the case, ask when it would be convenient to call her

back later to discuss it.
- Use Paraphrasing and Summarizing to Keep Phone Calls on Track: If you're speaking to
someone on the phone who seems to want to chat or stray from the point, say something
such as, "So what I hear you saying is..." or "So the key points are..." or "Is (insert
summary).

2
Taken from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnpMqQnt8WY Used by SENA for academic purposes,
exclusively.
- Close Each Call With a Summary of the Action You and the Caller Have Agreed On: for
instance, after a conversation during which you arranged a meeting with a client, you
might say, "Good. I'll meet with you at your office at (insert location) at 10 a.m. tomorrow
and we'll go over the samples together."
- Keep a Message Pad by the Phones, so You Can Jot Details During the Call: This is not
only good time management , but helps you stay focused on the call. It also saves time if
you need to find and/or review the details of a particular conversation (later).
- Give Your Clients and Customers the Email Option: many of them will use email to
contact you rather than phoning if they know what your email address is. Ensure that your
company's email address is prominent on your business cards and on your website if you
have one. If you have their email addresses, send email to your current clients and
customers, mentioning the email option and presenting it as a way to improve
communications.
- Use Technology to Manage the Time You're Spending Answering the Phone: you could
have an answering machine and voice mail. Then schedule a time to answer these phone
messages each day.
- Keep a Written Script of Frequently Asked Questions Posted by Your Phone: It saves you
time if you don't have to search for answers or think about how to answer a particular
request when answering the phone3.

Reading 2: Phone Etiquette 101: Taking a Message

With the following tips, you’ll be able to take detailed, informative messages that give the
recipient everything they need in order to return the call.

- Answer the call by the third ring: letting the phone ring beyond the third ring is not
acceptable professional phone etiquette. Answer the call before it reaches the third ring
to start the conversation on the right foot.
- Use a professional, informative greeting: as the person picking up the phone for the
company, it’s your duty to let the caller know they’ve reached the right (or wrong) place.
Answer the phone with a professional, informative greeting like this:
“Good afternoon! Thank you for calling Conversational Receptionists. My name is Tara. What can I
do for you?”
*This greeting gives the caller some important identifying information. 1) The time of day, 2) The
company name, and 3) The employee’s name.

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English Learning Guide
Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 4
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

- Gather the right information: now that the caller has requested to speak with someone
who is unavailable, it’s time to collect the right information from the caller. Taking a
message that will be useful for the recipient means gathering all the information they may
need at the time of the call. Every message you take should include:
 Caller’s name
 Caller’s business or company name
 The best phone number to return the call
 A summary of the purpose of the call

3
Adapted from https://www.thebalancesmb.com/time-management-tips-for-inbound-phone-calls Used by
SENA for academic purposes, exclusively.

 The date and time of the call

- Make sure you’ve got the correct info: Repeat the information given back to the caller to
ensure you’ve written it down correctly. This includes the spelling of the caller’s name and
company affiliation, the phone number, and the body of the message itself. Write the date
and time of the call next to the message so the recipient will have this information as well.

- Deliver the message to the recipient: Once you’ve taken down the message and ensured
what you’ve written is accurate, you can deliver the message to the recipient. Do this in
the method you’ve already agreed on with the recipient, whether that’s sending the
message via email or text, calling to notify them of the message, or holding the message
until they return. Deliver the message written or typed clearly for the recipient to ensure
they can easily decipher it and return the call later 4.

2.4. Writing practice: Write down a small instruction bullets text for your model company
about "how to offer solutions to customer complaints" you can choose between a phone
call, a letter or a customer complaint at the office. Deliver the document to your
instructor. Take into account:
- what the problem is and what department it belongs to
- give specific information related to what actions need to be implemented, giving a
coherent transition.
- add at least 5 tips to improve performance

3. Extension activities:
- For improving your conversation and keeping small talks going, watch the following video at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glBGzRw1rWw
- To deepen on how to deal with customers in 4 steps watch at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHaCMZLjCxE
- Visit this website to know more on how to speak to customers:
https://www.wikihow.com/Answer-the-Phone-at-Work

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English Learning Guide
Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 4
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

- Based on your instructor’s orientation, explore the

following website and practice the English structures. Do at least 2 activities from each topic
studied in class and deliver them to your instructor http://www.esl-
lounge.com/student/grammar-guides/grammar-preintermediate.php
- Also visit the following website to expand your knowledge on the use of connectors for your
written compositions https://sites.google.com/site/maycaingles2011/writing/linkers -
andconnectors

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Adapted from: https://www.conversational.com/phone-etiquette-101-taking-a-message/ Used by SENA for
academic purposes, exclusively.

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