We provide both short seminars and extended courses designed to perfect your operators’ communications as they deal with incoming and outgoing calls. We tailor our programs to your needs, based on a few important factors:
- The location of your call center
- The unique characteristics of your staff
- The location and nature of your clientele
- The industry or sectors you serve
- The specific services provided
- The scripted language in use
Though customized, all Anglosphere Connect courses and seminars cover certain areas of crucial, universal importance…
Pronunciation
If you change the pronunciation of a word, you change its meaning. So we examine the scripts your employees use when speaking with customers and create a pronunciation course tailored to the exact wording used. Then we examine the mechanics of proper speech, line by line, focusing on the sounds that non-native English speakers tend to get wrong. With simple, repetitive drills, we CORRECT these errors.
Idioms
Good communication depends on knowing slang, the colloquial expressions that everyday people use to speak with one another. Depending on the location and the demographic of the speaker, however, these terms and phrases could be completely different. Therefore, we teach your operators how to differentiate between not only national but regional accents. In so doing, we help them figure out what slang terms to use and which to avoid.
Culture
An English-speaker’s sense of farce, self-deprecation and sarcasm can be a stumbling block for outsiders. This is the reason why we developed lessons on wordplay that provide clear definitions and examples of symbolism, simile and metaphor, puns and double entendres, irony and sarcasm, and how all these things may be used to create satire. Together, they offer a more complete understanding of the person on the phone.
Geography
Weather in Ireland or even the UK may be relatively uniform. But if you’re talking to someone in the United States or Australasia, subtle changes in longitude, latitude and altitude can result in great changes in attitude. Displaying a sense of these differences, can go a long way toward building a real human connection between your employees and your customers.
Psychology
When a person has a problem, a technical glitch they don’t understand, it can make them feel anxious, even vulnerable. Having to rely upon a foreign voice on the phone can exacerbate these issues. This can manifest itself in irritability or even open hostility. The best response generally involves a technique called “mirroring.” Adopting just a touch of a caller’s exasperation can actually help build a better rapport. This is just one example of the deescalation techniques that Anglosphere Connect offers.