Course at a Glance

Course Overview

This programme equips call centre professionals with the skills they need to be excellent service representatives. BOTI addresses the common perception of poor call centre service by building real competencies: clear telephone communication, customer relationship building, confident objection handling, and the composure to manage difficult callers. The result is a team that protects your brand on every call.

For an HR or operations buyer, the return shows up in the numbers that matter on the floor: higher first-call resolution, shorter handle times where it counts, fewer escalations reaching managers, and better customer-satisfaction scores. Because the content is delivered through instructor-led sessions with practical application, delegates practise the techniques during training and apply them on shift the next day — not weeks later.

What your team can do after the course

By the end of the programme, your agents and customer-service staff will be able to:

• Handle inbound and outbound calls with a consistent, on-brand greeting and tone
• Listen actively, question effectively, and identify the real reason for each call
• De-escalate difficult and angry callers while protecting the relationship
• Handle objections, deliver bad news, and negotiate to a workable outcome
• Take accurate messages, follow organisational standards, and screen or redirect calls correctly
• Manage their own stress and stay resilient through high call volumes

Who Should Attend

This course is intended for those working in customer service and contact centre environments — agents, senior agents, and aspiring team leaders. There are no formal prerequisites, so it suits both new hires you are onboarding and experienced staff you want to upskill. HR/L&D buyers commonly book it as part of a wider customer-experience uplift for a whole team or shift.

Course Outline (31 Modules)

The full curriculum covers the end-to-end skill set of a professional contact-centre representative:

• Telephone communication and verbal techniques
• Voice control: tone, cadence and pitch
• Customer relationship building and rapport
• Active listening and questioning techniques
• Call screening: identifying the reason for the call, correct identification, and when to redirect
• Organisational standards: tonality, volume, pronunciation, annunciation, vocabulary, timeous response, choice of greeting and clarity
• Message-taking accuracy
• Phone sales, cold calling and warm calling
• Script development, delivery and pitch perfection
• Handling objections and delivering bad news
• Managing difficult and angry customers with empathy
• Negotiation techniques
• Stress management and resilience on the floor
• Mentoring, reports and performance management

Call Centre Management Training

Frontline excellence only holds when it is led well. Call centre management training is the layer that turns capable agents into a consistently high-performing team — and it is what HR and operations buyers most often add on top of agent-level skills.

BOTI’s dedicated Call Centre Management Training Course introduces the proper management of a contact-centre environment, from understanding the different roles of staff to establishing service goals and reporting to executives. Its curriculum spans seven core areas:

1. Call centre basics — roles, structure and how the centre fits the business
2. Systems — the operational tools and workflows that run a contact centre
3. Personnel supervision — how to motivate, monitor and coach operators
4. Employee controls — managing effectiveness, reducing turnover and retaining talent
5. Customer management — handling customers and resolving escalations
6. Service excellence standards — setting and achieving service levels
7. Executive reporting — communicating performance and insights upward

Why managers need their own track

Instructor-led delivery runs from one to three days with strong delegate participation and practical application of theory, so your team leaders leave able to apply each skill on shift the next day. Booking the management track alongside the agent course gives you an aligned floor — agents and leaders trained to the same service standard.

Who the management track is for

It suits anyone required to manage a call centre who wants to upgrade their skills: team leaders, shift supervisors, quality assurance leads, and operations managers. No prior learning is required, making it a practical promotion-readiness step for high-performing senior agents.

Need this delivered for your team? Request a quote or a 15-minute callback and we will scope an in-house or online schedule around your shifts.

Building a Complete Contact-Centre Capability

For most organisations the strongest results come from combining agent skills, management skills, and customer-experience standards. BOTI’s customer service and call centre cluster lets you build that stack:

• Customer Service Excellence Course — the service-standard pillar for any customer-facing team
• Call Centre Management Training Course — the leadership track for supervisors and team leaders
• Call Centre Training — focused agent skills: call handling, etiquette and query resolution
• Call Centre Training (Cape Town, 1-day) — a shorter, lower-cost option for rapid agent onboarding

A typical roll-out pairs the 2-day agent course for the whole floor with the management track for supervisors, then standardises everyone on one customer-service standard. This keeps coaching language, escalation rules and quality scoring consistent from agent to team leader.

In-house, On-site or Online — Which Fits Your Centre?

Because hybrid and multi-site contact centres are now the norm in South Africa, online delivery lets you train agents in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria — or working from home — in the same cohort, without travel cost or lost floor time.

Delivery, Certification and Funded Training

All BOTI programmes can be delivered in-house at your premises, at a BOTI venue, or online for distributed and remote teams — useful for hybrid contact centres running across sites. This call centre and customer service programme is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). For a credit-bearing route, ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications. BOTI is an accredited training provider — Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA ACC/2016/07/0045, and a QCTO Quality Partner.

Because BOTI is an accredited training provider, your investment in staff training can support your skills-development planning. As general guidance only: your Skills Development Levy (SDL) is 1% of payroll, while the B-BBEE skills-development target is calculated as 6% of the leviable amount on your scorecard — training spend on staff can contribute toward both your SDL workplace skills plan and your skills-development scorecard points.

Stronger skills-development and B-BBEE performance can also matter when you tender. Under the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (as amended, 2022 regulations), organs of state award preference points against “specific goals” — such as HDI ownership (race, gender and disability) and RDP objectives — on an 80/20 or 90/10 split, rather than on B-BBEE level alone. The Public Procurement Act 28 of 2024 further provides for set-asides and preferential mechanisms. This is general guidance, not legal or financial advice — confirm specifics with your SDF, B-BBEE verification agency or procurement advisor. We are happy to align a proposal with your annual training budget.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a call centre management course?
It is corporate training that teaches supervisors and team leaders how to run a contact centre — setting service levels, motivating and monitoring agents, managing customers and escalations, controlling turnover, and reporting performance to executives. BOTI delivers it as a 1-to-3-day instructor-led programme, separate from agent-level skills training.

How long is BOTI’s call centre training, and where is it delivered?
The core Call Centre and Customer Service course runs over 2 days. The dedicated management track runs from 1 to 3 days. Both are delivered in-house at your premises, at a BOTI venue, or online across Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria and anywhere in South Africa on request.

Is the training accredited, and can it count toward B-BBEE or SDL?
This call centre and customer service course is a practical, facilitator-led skills programme; delegates receive a BOTI certificate of completion (this is not an accredited qualification). BOTI is an accredited training provider (Services SETA 12582, MICT SETA, QCTO Quality Partner), and for a credit-bearing route you can ask about our QCTO Office Administrator (102161) or Generic Management qualifications. As general guidance, training spend on staff can support both your SDL workplace skills plan (SDL = 1% of payroll) and your B-BBEE skills-development scorecard (target = 6% of the leviable amount). Confirm details with your SDF or verification agency.

Should agents and managers attend the same course?
No — they need different skills. Agents benefit from the 2-day Call Centre and Customer Service course (communication, objection handling, difficult callers), while supervisors should take the Call Centre Management Training Course (service levels, staff motivation, retention, executive reporting). Many clients book both to align the whole floor to one service standard.

Request a Quote or a 15-Minute Callback

Ready to lift your contact-centre performance? Request a quote or a 15-minute callback and a BOTI consultant will scope an in-house or online schedule for your team — typically with a proposal back to you within 15 minutes. Ask about a free training-needs assessment for your call centre, and we will recommend the right mix of agent, management and customer-service training for your goals and budget.

BOTI — Business Optimization Training Institute
Phone: 011-882-8853 · Website: boti.co.za · Corporate training, delivered nationwide and online.