Total Success

A different type of training

 

For more information:

 email us: tsuccess@dircon.co.uk

call us on (+44) 020 8269 1177 or fax us on (+44) 020 8305 0555

 

Thank you for visiting Total Success Training

 

Special offer for this month only - all open courses - £295 per person + VAT - click HERE for the dates and details

 

We have a brand new website at www.totalsuccess.co.uk which contains all of our course information

 

plus

 

Special offers

A chance to win a Free Training Course

Free training resources including our new Bite-size training packs

Be included in our free draw for tickets to Chelsea Flower Show and Royal Opera House

NEWSLETTER: Dealing With Difficult People

Telephone Skills and Customer Care

Telephone skills and Customer Care, Dealing with difficult people, Introduction to Selling, Telesales and Presentation Skills are some of the courses trained by  Total Success Training in London and throughout the UK. We have over  18 years experience training people on strategies to improve productivity and enhance self development. Other courses run by Total Success are Assertiveness skills and Time Management.

Our dealing with difficult people courses are one of our popular courses as it effectively demonstrates how to neutralise problem situations in the workplace.  It covers a wide range of scenarios that occur in the workplace such as; working with aggressive people, disagreeing with others, handling bullies at work, dealing with ignorant people at work and working with unreasonable people.  This course will cover mediation and will show delegates how valuable managing and mediating conflict is when managing or handling difficult staff/employee(s).  The dealing with difficult people at work course also provides useful information for working with a difficult boss/manager and guidance on how to deal with bullying in the workplace.

More and more companies are increasing their use of the telephone as the quickest and most convenient way of establishing customer contacts. Call centres and mail order are the fastest growing operational departments for UK organisations. It is essential that all employees represent their organisation in a professional and friendly way. Clear and effective communication is essential to ensure that the business is not lost. If your staff are not trained properly on telephone skills, how much business are they losing your company? 

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CLICK ON COURSES FOR FULL OPEN COURSE AGENDAS

EXECUTIVE COACHING One-to-one leadership and management coaching

Appraisal skills (one day) - updated to include new legislation

Assertiveness Skills (one day)

Assertiveness and managing conflict (one day)

Coaching for managers (one day)

Customer Service and Customer Care (one day)

Correcting poor performance and disciplinary procedures (one day) - updated to cover current legislation inc The Equality Act 2010

Dealing with difficult people (one day)

Interviewing skills (one day) - updated to cover current legislation inc The Equality Act 2010

Introduction to selling (one day)

Leadership and team building (one day)

Letter and report writing (one day) - updates include writing e-mails

Mediation Skills (one day)

Negotiation skills (one day)

Presentation skills (one day)

Presentation skills (two days)

PowerPoint Presentation skills (one day)

Advanced Presentation skills (one day)

Project planning for non-project managers (one day)

Stress Management (one day)

Telesales and Telemarketing (one day)

Telephone skills and customer care (one day)

Time Management (one day) 

Time management working with Microsoft Outlook (one day)

Time management working with Microsoft Outlook 2007 (one day) 

Management Training / New Manager (two days)

Training the trainer (one day)


We provide many free articles packed with valuable information about the topics we train. Our newsletter page contains many more. Here are some of our more recent articles

Presentation tips

Overcoming presentation fear

How to structure a presentation

Interviewing Skills

Good work through praise

Time management tips

Time management skills

Managing your e-mail

Time management and working from home

Assertiveness Self Assertion Analysis

Self Assertion Analysis

Becoming More Assertive

Dealing with difficult people

Customer Service on the telephone

Telephone skills and Customer Care

Managing your stress

Organisational stress management

Practical appraisal skills

Planning an appraisal and setting objectives

Giving feedback in an appraisal

The power of attitude in selling

Opening the call effectively

PowerPoint presentation tips and techniques

Using visual aids in PowerPoint presentations

How to use transitions in PowerPoint presentations

HOW TO DEAL WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE

To deal with the problem think first why people act the way they do:

  1. They may be frustrated in many ways for reasons not connected with you. What you hear is the expression of that frustration. They may be nice people underneath.

  2. They may be anxious. Even using the telephone causes some people anxiety.

  3. Do not take what people say to you as a personal insult. They are not attacking you but may have become very frustrated with a situation they cannot control and as a result the quality of their normal communication takes a severe dip. Do not allow yourself to take offence - difficult as that often is.

  4. Do not lose your temper. If both you and your customer end up in a shouting match (or worse) you are unlikely to solve anything - and after all that is your objective.

  5. Keep your attention on the facts relating to your meeting. Try to minimise emotional reactions.

  6. Think before you speak. Create time for yourself before you answer via a deep breath, a thoughtful expression, etc.

 

HOW TO DEAL WITH COMPLAINTS

Complaints tend to fall into two groups - the justified and the unjustified. Remember, until you know the facts you will not know which one you are dealing with.

 

Action Tips

  • Take a deep breath.

  • Keep your voice enthusiastic and friendly.

  • Listen to what is being said, take notes.

  • Do not interrupt

  • Get the speaker’s name and telephone number.

  • Get the order number so the complaint can be checked.

  • Sympathise without being disloyal.

  • If the company is at fault, apologise.

  • Never give excuses (the truth is always the preferred option here)

  • If you promise something (e.g. to call back) - do it. Remember - in times of stress a    promise is sacred.

Never say or do the following:

  • You are through to the wrong department.

  • It's not my fault.

  • I didn't deal with this.

  • Will you write in (a solution is needed now. Delay will just make the situation worse).

  • We are having lots of problems you're actually the sixth one today about that.

  • Interrupt - they will start all over again.

  • Automatically accept liability.

  • Jump to conclusions.

  • Talk down to them or accuse of them automatically of misuse or making a silly mistake.

  • Lose your temper.

  • Appeal for sympathy.

 

AGGRESSION

Aggression is a symptom of both anxiety and frustration. It is a by product of insecurity. Do not confuse it with assertion.

 

Action Tips

  • Take a deep breath.

  • Speak calmly at an even pitch.

  • Keep your temper.

  • Do not respond with aggression.

  • Ask, and keep asking, for the facts.

  • Say something like, "I know this is a problem for you but I can only help if you will let me" (an empathetic assertion).

  • Encourage the talker to talk out their feelings of aggression (the longer they talk the less aggressive they will become).

  • If you cannot calm the individual arrange for a break (e.g. tell a telephone caller you will ring back. Tell a personal caller you are going to fetch a document, look up a reference number etc).

 

VAGUENESS

Vague customers will go on for a long time and say very little. Be patient and try to bring them back to the issue.

 

Action Tips

  • Maintain your patience and good humour.

  • Write down the facts as you hear them.

  • Use the facts to bring the customer back to the point.

  • Keep a smile in your voice.

  • Be business-like.

  • Don't be side-tracked.

  • Keep to the point yourself.

  • Don't lose your temper.

  • Don't be abrupt

  • Keep summarising regularly.

 

UNFRIENDLINESS

Some individuals are not fond of people. Some people confuse being business-like with unfriendliness. Don't take it personally.

 

Action Tips

  • Smile as you speak.

  • Keep your voice up and pleasant

  • Deal with the matter as quickly as possible.

  • Don't make personal remarks.

  • Get to the facts and stay with them.

  • Don't be sarcastic (e.g. Thank you for calling).

 

A PLAN FOR ACTION

Customer service is about constantly looking for ways to improve the way that your organisation does business with its clients. This may involve improving your communication skills but more and more organisations look at their practices and processes and how they can improve them. One of the ways to do this is to examine current practice, create a vision for the future and then develop models to address the gap between present and future. Our ‘feedback and retention’ checklist below allows your organisation to start to question its current operations objectively. Use this in team meetings, management meetings, as the basis for a customer survey or simply as an ongoing checklist of best practice.

 

Customer Feedback and Retention

  1. How does the organisation obtain customer feedback?

  2. If the feedback comes in the form of a phone call, who takes the phone call initially?

  3. Does the call get transferred to the proper department?

  4. If the complaint is about poor service, who handles it?

  5. How is feedback given to the people responsible for the poor service?

  6. Are managers trained in how to give negative feedback to their staff?

  7. Who is responsible for evaluating customer feedback?

  8. Does customer feedback result in changes?

  9. If so, are the changes brought to the customer's attention?

  10. How long does it take for feedback to be processed?

  11. Are there any examples of a customer complaint that changed the way we did things?

Back to TOP

OUR PREVIOUS CLIENTS INCLUDE:

 

Rothschild

Thames Valley Police

National Air Traffic Control

Tesco

Luton Borough Council

Legal Services Commission

Remploy

Physiological Society

British Retail Consortium

University of East London

Amnesty International

Hyde Housing

Carbon Trust

Glaxo Smith Kline

Game Conservancy Trust

Serco

Docklands Light Railway

Suffolk County Council

Thale Translink

Tennyson Group

Goldman Sachs

Merseyside Police

Mencap

Renaissance Hotels

Berners Hotel

South East Essex College

Johnson and Johnson

Ernst and Young

Toshiba

London Borough of Greenwich

Direct Line Insurance

Rank Leisure

Epilepsy Society

Lloyds of London

Bank of America

Level 3 Communications

Abbey Life

Thistle Hotels

Tetrapak

Informa Group

Marcus Evans

Legal and General

Nationwide Building Society

Eurostar

HJ Heinnz

Halifax

Barclays Global Investors

BAE Systems

Holmes Place Health Clubs

Action Energy and the Carbon Trust

British Airways

STA Travel

Ernst and Young

London Borough of Greenwich

The Royal Society

Cancer Research

The Film Council

Pfizer

Diageo

London Chamber of Commerce

Metro Newspaper

Universal Pictures

Nestle

London Borough of Lambeth

British Gas

Age Concern

ICI

St John's Ambulance

HOME PAGE BOOKING A COURSE
-DATES&PRICES-
TRAINING PODCASTS TRAINING MATERIALS
-BUY ONLINE-
CLIENT TESTIMONIALS FREE TRAINING NEWSLETTER FAQs OUR UNIQUE SERVICES CONTACT US

 

TOTAL SUCCESS PAGES:

Site Navigation aid - Links to all our web pages are listed below

- Training Pages -

Assertiveness Skills - Assertiveness and managing conflict - Time Management - Management Training / New Manager - Sales Course / Introduction to Selling - Telesales and Telemarketing - Presentation skills - PowerPoint Presentation Skills - Appraisal skills - Interviewing Skills - Stress Management - Leadership and team building - Coaching for managers - Letter and report writing - Dealing with difficult people - Customer Service and Customer Care -Correcting poor performance and disciplinary procedures - Negotiation skills - Training the trainer - Telephone skills and customer care

- Newsletter Pages -

Presentation tips - Overcoming presentation fear - How to structure a presentation - How to master body language plus a useful presentation checklist - Asking questions in interviews - Structuring a recruitment interview - Good work through praise - Time management tips - Time management skills - Managing your e-mail - Time management and working from home - Time management links - Assertiveness Self Assertion Analysis - Assertiveness links - Self Assertion Analysis - Becoming More Assertive - Constructive criticism and disciplinary procedures - Dealing with difficult people - Dealing with difficult customers on the telephone - Customer Service on the telephone - Telephone skills and Customer Care - Managing your stress - Organisational stress management - Practical appraisal skills - Planning an appraisal and setting objectives - Giving feedback in an appraisal - The power of attitude in selling - Opening the telephone call effectively - PowerPoint presentation tips and techniques - Using visual aids in PowerPoint presentations - How to use transitions in PowerPoint presentations - Negotiating with difficult people - Planning a successful negotiation - Managing meetings - Train the trainer training - Presentation planning form - Handling conflict in appraisals - Project management - Neuro-Linguistic Programming - Management skills - Leadership Skills - Stress Management and Control - Customer Service and Customer Care - Management checklists for Training courses - Planning form for Public Speaking Presentation - Managing your e-mails - Stages of Competence in Training - Time Management and Technology - Training Stories and Anecdotes -

- NEW Newsletter Pages -

Stress Quiz: How Stressed are you? - Recognising and Combating stress - Managing Stress - Relaxation techniques for managing stress - Relaxation using simple and personal mantras - Stress and the Credit crunch - Using Humour in Presentations - Attention gaining tips for Public Speakers - How to make the best of closing your presentation - Making Powerful Presentations - Using Visual Aids in Presenting - The importance of FlipCharts in Presentations - Improving your presenting style - Vocal and Diet tips for presenters - Rate you Presentation effectiveness - Dealing with Difficult Audiences - Overcoming Presentation Anxiety - More Presentation Anxiety tips - Dealing with Difficult people at work - Tips for Dealing with difficult people - Dealing with Difficult People-the arrogant person - Dealing with Difficult People-the aggressive person - Customer Service during Christmas - Time and Stress Management - Successful Telesales - What type of leader are you? - Vocal Elements of Communication in Leadership - Managing Pressure - Handling Very Difficult Customers - Opening Negotiations Effectively - Tips and Techniques for Sales Presentations - Rules of Assertiveness - Product Demonstration Skills - Personality and Stress - Handling Objections - Methods of Overcoming Resistance - Effective Communication in Negotiations - Your Response to Stress - Dealing with conflict and aggression - Co-Presenting Tips and Techniques - Controlling the Call - Contact Strategy - Becoming Assertive in Negotiations - Situation Leadership for Coaches - What is your managerial style? - Giving Praise - How great can you delegate 1 - How great can you delegate 2 - Management superstars - Delivering effective course content - Dealing with complaints - Practical guide to punctuation - The sequence of a report - Top tips for writing effective emails - Aims and Objectives for the New Manager - Question Techniques in Group Training - Its not What you say, but How you say it! - How to overcome and channel fear - Why is project management important - Project definition and proposal - Estimating time accurately - 10 step guide for Project Planning - Project Progress Meetings - Assess your problem employee - Disciplinary Procedures Guide - Disciplinary Rules