Different types of customer
Featured in the Call Centres: Maximising Performance training manual
By Tony Lockwood
Category: Sales Skills
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
As human beings we all display different characteristics, especially when under stress or feeling uncomfortable in a situation for whatever reason. In face-to-face situations it is easy to interpret someone’s body language and facial expression and know instinctively how they are feeling. However, within a call centre environment we have to be able to recognise different types of customer purely from the words they use and their tone of voice on the telephone. This training activity encourages participants to become more aware of the character types they may come across in their day-to-day work, and discusses the most effective ways of dealing with them. Through a series of interactive exercises, the training activity provides an opportunity to practise identifying different characters and using the appropriate language and tone in order to get the most out of the interaction.
The training activity opens with a group exercise where participants identify as many different types or ‘styles’ of customer as possible and create a master list of these. They move on to discuss what clues you get from a customer, in terms of their behaviour, which allow you to identify what ‘style’ of character they are. A ‘fun’ exercise follows, giving the participants the opportunity to practise their powers of detection of character types. In the next exercise the participants find out how to handle the various character styles and respond to different types of customer. Once the participants have an understanding of the different styles of customer, they discuss ways of working more effectively with the variety of customers they may come across. Finally, the participants have an opportunity to analyse their own behaviour when dealing with customers and consider ways of improving their handling of the different styles.
Who is it for: This training activity is intended for use by trainers to review the different customer types that participants will come across and describes techniques to deal with each.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 4 |
| Max Group Size: | 8 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:30:00 |
| No of Pages: | 26 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training activity is intended for use by trainers with all members of call centre staff. It enables experienced participants to review their present performance and more recently appointed staff to understand what they can do to improve the customer service within the call centre.
Download the training activity, Different types of customer as featured in the Fenman training manual; Call Centres: Maximising Performance