Controlling Customer Phone Calls: Can You Do It?
Customer service phone representatives have a way of taking a call and making it as short as possible without being rude to the customer. They have received special training on how to manage customer calls. If you were just recently hired on to take calls at an auto dealership, you will (or should!) receive auto dealership phone training. Such training includes all of the following.
Controlling the Call
The biggest aspect to any customer phone call is managing your time and keeping your call times down. You want to handle the call professionally, and you want to provide answers and resolutions that satisfy the customer. That requires a skill only a limited number of people have.
Controlling the call is something that cannot really be taught. You either figure it out on your own, or you have the natural ability to control calls. In training, the most you can learn on this subject is how to divert the customer's attention back to the main reason why he/she called and asking if he/she is content with the resolution, then you politely hang up.
Researching the Answer to the Customer's Question
There are generally two kinds of customers. There are the angry ones that want you to fix the problems they are experiencing or are unhappy about, and there are the customers who have questions. Try to keep the customer focused on three questions or less, and then politely redirect them to the end of the call. Angry customers may take extra time to assist, but pleasant customers may not.
Provide answers to the polite customers, and provide extra care and concern with a satisfying resolution to the angry ones. If you need to do some extra research to answer a polite customer's question, try to find the answer in the shortest amount of time possible. If you do not know the answer, place the customer on hold and ask your manager.
Redirecting the Call
Quite often, customers dial the wrong number and will have to be connected to the correct number. You will have to transfer these customers without dropping the calls. There are also customers who cannot find a contact number for the correct department or sales person that is handling their auto purchase. These are calls you will have to redirect as well. Most of these calls in an auto dealership are easy enough to redirect and connect, but you should make sure you know exactly what you are doing before you take and transfer live calls.
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