Effective Communication Skills

Overview/Description
Effective communication is essential to the success of any customer-oriented business. Each customer will have their own style of communication as well as an emotional response to contacting a support center. In order to effectively communicate, the Customer Support Specialist (CSS) must understand how to adapt to these different styles and emotions before the customer's problems can be dealt with. This course explains how to adapt to the different communication types and identifies the common emotions that customers experience when contacting the support center. It also explains how to adapt your writing skills to communicate through e-mail and to document incidents. This course helps to prepare learners interested in the HDI CSS Certification, which is targeted to individuals wishing to qualify to work in a customer support center or help desk environment.

Target Audience


Individuals interested in the Help Desk Institute's (HDI) Customer Support Specialist (CSS) certification; front line customer service and support agents seeking to acquire new skills.

Expected Duration


3.0 hours

Objectives :

Lesson Overview

  • recognize the benefits of ensuring and maintaining customer satisfaction

    • Differentiating Customers' Needs

  • apply the techniques for satisfying the psychological needs of a customer in a given scenario
  • apply the techniques for satisfying the business needs of a customer in a given scenario

    • The Call-flow Process

  • apply the call-flow process to meet the customer's needs in a given scenario

    • Communication Styles

  • recognize how to relate to the different communication styles
  • match the communication styles with their examples

    • Lesson Overview

  • recognize the benefits of writing effective e-mails and reports of customer-related incidents

    • Documenting Incidents

  • document an incident in a given scenario
  • recognize best practices for editing incident documentation

    • E-mail Etiquette

  • determine the appropriate e-mail etiquette to use in a given scenario

    • Lesson Overview

  • identify the strategies that ensure your customer interactions are positive and productive

    • Open-ended and Closed-ended Questions

  • use open-ended and closed-ended questions with a customer in a given scenario
  • match open-ended and closed-ended questions to their benefits

    • Understanding Customer Emotions

  • match the behavioral techniques that a CSS can use to understand customers' emotions with their definitions

    • Building Rapport

  • identify the purpose of each element used to build rapport with customers


    • Course Number: cust_02_a02_bs_enus