Learning for life – how psychology is fundamental in a customer service phone call

As an intern with LiveseySolar I was really appreciative to have the chance to accompany Rod Solar to a training last week. As it is a major issue in my studies I am very interested in the process of training. In this post I’ll relate some of my experiences to give you a feeling for what it’s like to be a trainee at one of these events.

As it was the first time that I would be taking part in a training related to customer service phone calls, I didn’t know what to expect. I thought maybe the training would be focused on the exact sequence of the different parts of a customer service adviser’s phone call with the possibility to discuss every incident that might happen during the call.

The training turned out to be much more than that. We were given the chance to dig deeper into fascinating questions about how people behave, how they think and how they make their decisions.

At first sight it might not be obvious how these psychological aspects relate to customer services training. Understanding what motivates human beings to take certain steps is crucial, however, especially when it comes to such a highly important aspect of peoples’ lives like their health, or finances, or legal matters.

If you want the phone call to result in an appointment, a customer services advisor has to take up several roles at the same time. In order to understand the caller’s needs in that particular situation, the psychology discussed in the training helps build up the ideal base for the ongoing call.

A further message conveyed in the training was, that it is the job of the customer advisor to lead the conversation. This is vital for the sequence of the different steps during the call as well as it is vital for the customers to feel as if they are in very competent hands.

Illustrated with catchy diagrams and providing the opportunity to try new aspects of the call soon after learning about it, the training was extraordinary and personally profitable.

All in all I have not only learned a huge amount of things about the skills needed as a customer services advisor, but I have picked up many details relating to human actions and human reactions – the details of life.