Telephone Skills that Satisfy Customers

Contents: 
Part 1: Keeping a Positive Attitude • Why Keeping a Positive Attitude Is Important • My Successes and Achievements • I Like Myself! • Positive Self-Direction • Part 2: Answering the Telephone Brilliantly • Preparing to Answer the Telephone • Phone Answering Skills • Part 3: Asking Questions and Listening Effectively • What Customers Want When they Call • Ask Questions • Listen • Take Action • Part 4: Handling Customer Moments of Truth • Customer Focus • Moments of Truth • Part 5: Adding Value • Five Strategies for Adding Value • Communicate Positively with Others • Show the Customer Appreciation • Follow up and Follow Through • Go the Extra Mile • Create Internal Teamwork • Appendix • Appendix to Part 2 • Appendix to Part 3 • Appendix to Part 4 • Appendix to Part 2

About the Authors: 
Rick Conlow - A quick glance at his professional resume leaves you with the strong impression that effort and optimism are a winning combination. Case in point: With Rick by their side, clients have achieved double- and triple-digit improvement in their sales performance, quality, customer loyalty, and service results over the past 20-plus years and earned more than 30 quality and service awards.

In an age when optimism and going the extra mile can sound trite, Rick has made them a differentiator. His clients include organizations that lead their industries, as well as others that are less recognizable. Regardless, their goals are his goals.

Rick's life view and extensive background in sales and leadership-as a general manager, vice president, training director, program director, national sales trainer and consultant-are the foundation of his coaching, training, and consulting services. Participants in Rick's experiential "live action" programs walk away with ah-ha's, inspiration, and skills they can immediately put to use. These programs include "BEST Selling!"; "Moments of Magic!"; "Excellence in Management!"; "SuperSTAR Service and Selling!"; "The Greatest Secrets of all Time!"; and "Good Boss/Bad Boss-Which One Are You?" Rick has also authored Excellence in Management, Excellence in Supervision, Returning to Learning, and Moments of Magic.

When he's not engaging an audience or engrossed in a coaching discussion, this proud husband and father is most likely astride a weight bench or riding a motorcycle, taking on the back roads and highways of Minnesota.

Doug Watsabaugh - Doug values being a "regular person," with his feet on the ground and his head in the realities of the daily challenges his clients face. It's his caring about and experience in helping clients deal with difficult situations that distinguish him from other sales performance and leadership development consultants.

His knowledge of experiential learning and his skill in designing change processes and learning events have enabled him to measurably improve the lives of thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations in a wide variety of industries financial services, manufacturing, medical devices, consumer goods, and technology to name a few.

Before starting his own business, Doug served as the director of operations for a national training institute, was the manager of organizational development for a major chemical company, and was responsible for worldwide training and organization development for the world's third largest toy company.

He was also a partner in Performance & Human Development LLC, a California company that published high-involvement experimential activities, surveys and instruments, interactive training modules, papers, and multimedia presentations.

Dough has co-written two books with John E. Jones, Ph.D., and William L. Bearley, Ed. D.: The New Fieldbook for Trainers published by HRD Press and Lakewood Publishing, and The OUS Quality Item Pool, about organizational survey items that measure Balridge criteria. He is a member of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the Minnesota Quality Council, and The National Organization Development Network.