Home / Non-Accredited / Sales, Marketing & Customer Care / Call Centre and Customer Service Training (2 days)
Quick Look Course Summary:Call Centre and Customer Service Training (2 days)
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Next Public Course Date:
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Length: 2 day(s)
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Price (at your venue): 1 Person R 10,326 EX VAT 3 Person R 7,594 EX VAT 10 Person R 5,537 EX VAT
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Certification Type:Non-Accredited
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Locations & Venues: Off-site or in-house. We train in all major city centres throughout South Africa.
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Call Centre and Customer Service Training (2 days)
Agents who handle every call with a clear structure, sound confident on the phone and keep their composure with difficult callers.
A contact centre is often the only part of your business a customer ever speaks to, so every call either protects the brand or damages it. This two-day call centre training builds the skills that make the difference on the floor: clear telephone communication, accurate call handling, confident inbound and outbound selling, and the composure to manage difficult callers without escalating.
Day one is about the call itself: voice, tone and pace, call strategy and call control, questioning techniques, screening and redirecting calls, taking accurate messages, working with scripts, and telephone selling for inbound and outbound teams – including getting past the gatekeeper and closing. Agents also learn the contact-centre measures they are judged on and how to improve their own numbers. Day two is about the customer: service attitude when the caller cannot see you, email and chat service, handling objections and delivering bad news, de-escalating angry callers, knowing when to escalate, and managing stress through high call volumes.
Delegates practise on role-play calls throughout, using your products and call types where you share them, so the skills carry over to the next shift.
Why this course
For your organisation
- Higher first-call resolution and fewer repeat calls
- Fewer escalations reaching team leaders and managers
- Better conversion on inbound and outbound sales calls
- Agents who understand and own their performance measures
- A consistent brand voice on every call
For your delegates
- A clear structure for every type of call
- Voice and questioning techniques to use on the next shift
- Scripts that sound natural rather than read
- Ways to stay calm with difficult callers and through busy periods
What delegates will be able to do
- Open and close calls with a consistent, professional greeting and tone
- Control pace, tone and pitch to sound clear and confident on the telephone
- Use open, closed and redirecting questions to find the reason for the call
- Screen, redirect and transfer calls correctly and take accurate messages
- Adapt a call script to your own voice without losing the key points
- Handle objections and close on inbound and outbound sales calls
- Explain the measures you are judged on and set personal improvement goals
- De-escalate angry callers and deliver bad news without losing the customer
- Write clear, courteous email and chat responses
- Manage your own stress through high call volumes
Who should attend
Call centre and contact centre agents, senior agents, help-desk and customer service staff, and aspiring team leaders in inbound, outbound and blended centres. There are no prerequisites, so it suits new agents during onboarding as well as experienced agents who need to lift their quality scores. Team leaders and managers who run the floor should also look at the Call Centre Management Course.
Course outline
Day 1 – The professional call
Call centre fundamentals
- The contact centre's role in the customer experience
- Inbound and outbound calls: different goals, different skills
- Why customers call: buying motives and service needs
- Building a call strategy
Telephone etiquette and voice
- Preparing before you take or make a call
- Tone, pace, pitch, pronunciation and clarity
- Professional greetings and organisational standards
- Building rapport without seeing the customer
- Active listening on the telephone
Questioning and call control
- Open and closed questions
- Redirecting a call that has gone off track
- Keeping control of the call without sounding abrupt
- Call screening, caller identification and correct transfers
- Taking accurate messages
Scripts and structure
- Using a script and making it your own
- Structuring answers with STAR: situation, task, action, result
- Self-assessment of a recorded call
- Practice calls with feedback
Selling on the telephone
- Prospecting and qualifying on outbound calls
- Getting past the gatekeeper
- Persuasion and telephone selling techniques
- Recognising the moment to close, and closing techniques
- After the sale: keeping the relationship
Measures and goals
- Common contact centre measures: first-call resolution, handle time, service level and quality scores
- Reading your own performance breakdown
- Setting SMART personal goals
- Staying motivated across a long shift
Day 2 – Service, difficult callers and resilience
Customer service in a contact centre
- Internal and external customers
- What customers expect when they phone a business
- Service attitude when the customer cannot see you
- Meeting the need and going the extra mile within policy
Email and chat service
- Strengths and limits of written channels
- Tone, structure and netiquette
- Templates that still sound personal
- Avoiding email ping-pong
Objections, bad news and negotiation
- Handling objections calmly
- Delivering bad news clearly and with empathy
- Resetting expectations
- Negotiating a workable outcome within policy
Difficult and angry callers
- De-escalating anger
- Finding common ground and setting limits
- Managing your own emotions
- When to escalate: abuse, insults and threats
- Role-plays on difficult calls
Stress and resilience on the floor
- Recognising stress and fatigue early
- Resetting between calls
- Healthy routines for shift work
- Asking your team leader for support
Quality, feedback and action plan
- Call quality checklists and self-review
- Using coaching and mentoring feedback
- Ten service actions for your own call centre
- Personal action plan and evaluation
How it is delivered
Two days, 08:30-16:00. In person at your offices or contact centre anywhere in South Africa, at a BOTI venue, or live online. One delegate or a group of up to 20; sessions can be split across shifts on request. Workbook, practice call scenarios and a personal action plan included. We deliver it at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and anywhere else in South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online for teams in different places.
What our clients say
“The sessions … were exceptionally well-organized and seamlessly integrated into our schedule. We were highly impressed by the calibre of the training and the deep expertise demonstrated by the facilitator.”
“All training programmes were delivered in a highly professional manner, with effective coordination and strict adherence to our scheduling requirements. The facilitators demonstrated a commendable level of expertise, and the quality of delivery consistently met our expectations.”
“…the general feedback received was that the course was very informative and participative. The training and the facilitator was of a high quality. We highly recommend BOTI for training services.”
Frequently asked questions
Can you train at our contact centre?
Yes. Most groups are trained at the client's premises anywhere in South Africa; we can also host it at a BOTI venue or deliver it live online.
How many agents can attend?
From one delegate to groups of 20. The price per delegate drops as the group grows – see the price table, or ask us for a quote.
Is it accredited?
No – it is a non-accredited short course and delegates receive a BOTI certificate of attendance.
Can you use our scripts and call types?
Yes. Send us your scripts, common call reasons and quality scorecard beforehand and the facilitator builds the practice calls around them.
Is there a course for call centre managers?
Yes – the one-day Call Centre Management Course covers staffing, service levels, motivating and monitoring agents, and reporting to executives. Many clients book it for team leaders alongside this course for agents.
Can you run this course in Johannesburg, Cape Town or Durban?
Yes. We train on site at your offices in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town and across South Africa, at a BOTI venue in Johannesburg, or live online so a team spread over several offices can attend together.