Customer Service English Essentials

1. Course Introduction: Hello there. My name is Luke and I am an English teacher from America, and I've been teaching English since 2011, so quite awhile. And since then I've helped thousands and thousands of students improve their English. I've started to English learning companies and I've actually taught many teachers as well how to teach English better. So in this course, this customer service English course, we're going to focus on customer service situations. And we're going to talk about how we can express the things that you as a customer service person would need to express in order to communicate what you need to communicate, how likely that's what this course is about. We're going to go over cases in this course. That means for each lesson, I'm going to present a situation, a case, because that will help us really focus on the right phrases, the phrases, the expressions that we can use. For that case. That doesn't mean that the expressions can only be used for each case. But it will help us to focus, to focus the expressions that we're learning. You will see my face throughout the course, for the entire course in every lesson. And beside me there will be a blackboard that I will be. 2. About This Course: Welcome to the first lesson of this course about customer service English. And this first lesson, I really want to just talk about the basic structure of this course, how the course is laid out, why I've made it that way. And also how you can use the lessons in this course to actually improve your ability to communicate with your customers. First, the structure. So let's talk about how the course is arranged. In each lesson, we're going to talk about a case. A case is a specific example that we're going to use. Why are we doing that? We're doing that so that we can focus the expressions that we learn around something. If I just teach you a list of expressions, then they have no foundation, they have no basis. There'll be easy to forget. We're going to connect each one of them to a specific case so that you can see how the expressions are used. You can have a real feeling for how you might use them in your job. Now the cases that we're going to talk about, our specific, but the expressions that we learned can be used in lots of other situations. And you can take the expressions and adjust them according to your need, according to your job, you can change the information. You can fit them to the issues that you deal with on a daily basis. Okay? So that's the structure of the course. That's how we're going to do it. Now, how should you learn from this course? How should you study? How should you review? I'm going to be writing things down, notes, the expressions we talk about on this blackboard. So you'll see me looking down sometimes. That's because i'm, I'm actually writing things down and I will do that throughout the course. I would recommend that you write down what I write down, or at least your understanding of what I write down. Because if you just listen, it may be harder for you to remember how a specific expression is used. And when it comes to expressions, they often have to be said exactly as I say them. Sometimes they cannot be adjusted, sometimes they can't, or certain parts of them cannot. So I would recommend taking notes based on what I write down and maybe review the lesson 2 times, watch it twice. Maybe you watch it the first time and take notes carefully. And then the second time when you watch it, watch it more casually. Watch it to try to get the big picture by watching something 2 times, you can really get the information very well. Next, after each lesson, if you feel like you understand the expressions that you've learned, try to fit them into your own case, fit them into your job. Make several examples of each one so that when you need it, it's there. One problem with learning something new is that when you learn it, you understand it a 100 percent. But when you're in that real situation and someone is shouting at you or whatever, it's suddenly very hard to remember that thing that you learned. Well, you have to actually practice using it several times so that when you need it, it appears in your mind. So try making your own examples. Your own examples which are very similar to my examples, but which better fit your specific job, your specific situation. Okay, that would be my recommendation for going through this course carefully k. So I hope you can keep these things in mind as you go through the course. And I will see you in the next lesson, which is really the first lesson. 3. Part 1: The Greeting: In the first lesson of this course, we're going to go over the basics, how to do a correct greeting. And we're going to talk about some different ways to give greetings. And if you're doing customer service over the phone, in particular, how to find out what issue the customer has. Now, you could also use the expressions we're going to talk about today to do customer service face to face. So it's useful for both things. But we're going to look at the case of a phone service provider. A service provider is the type of company who will give phone service to people. So for example, in America we have T-Mobile, We have, we have AT and T We have Verizon. We have lots of companies that provide service. They're called service providers. If you see ISP, that stands for Internet Service Providers. Anyway, the case is, I'll just read it. You work for a phone service provider called spork. I don't think that's a real company. Don't look it up. I made up the name sparked, by the way, is a kind of spoon fork combination thing. So I thought it was a funny name. A customer is calling with an issue. At the start of the call, you need to greet them and get some important information, integrate them, and let them know that you're ready to hear their issue. So what do we need to do here? We need to we need to tell them who you are, need to get basic information, and we need to ask about their issue, okay? So these are the things that we need to do right at the beginning, right at the beginning. So what's the difference between hello and high? Is there a difference? Well, yeah, hello feels a little bit more formal, whereas high feels a little bit more casual. Now it really depends on the situation you're in. Saying high at the beginning of a customer service call is usually okay. Saying hello is usually okay saying hello, there is even more bright. It feels warmer. So this one feels very friendly. It is a bit casual, but the feeling is warm. Now a lot of that comes down to your voice. If I say Hello, my name is Luke. Okay. That sounds serious, but if I say Hello, my voice, the tone of my voice communicates friendliness, whether I choose this one or this one. But this one, hello there feels more friendly than hello. If I say them the same way, okay, Hi. Sometimes is a little too casual, so you have to be careful with high. And hay is pretty much definitely too casual. Generally, if you don't know somebody, you don't want to use the word Hey as a greeting. You say, Hey, they will feel offended. Probably most people would feel uncomfortable if someone who just met them or it's talking to them for the first time. Said, Hey, usually it's something we say to our friends. I like hello there as a greeting, hello is fine, hi is generally fine. So a simple way to begin the colon, this situation then would be, thank you for calling spork. My name is Luke. That's pretty much the basic one. Okay. If your work for any company, often the very beginning of the call will be your name and thanking them for calling. Thank you for calling. My name is Luke. My name is Luke. You can add there. Thank you for calling. If you want to write there. My name is Luke. Thank you for calling. I am a spork specialist or My name is Luke spork specialist. Thank you for calling. That would be okay. You can move the order around for those. This is just an alternate way of saying an alternate means a different way of saying it. If you want to say something more about yourself, for example, your title as Luke, I'm a manager. My name is Luke and the receptionist. Now, sometimes that's necessary. Sometimes it is not. It really depends on the situation. If you want to let them know who you are little more about you, maybe the second one would be better. And then you can add perhaps, thank you for calling. Maybe at the end or maybe right here. Here. Okay, So the pieces are kind of flexible. You can add and remove things, but within each piece, you can't really change it. Okay? Like for example, this, thank you for calling. There isn't really a more common way to say that those words have to be in that order. Maybe you didn't mention your name earlier on and you want to say it later. Okay, that's pretty easy. If you ever want to mention your name later. When you didn't say before, you might say just to let you know, just to let you know, this is a way to mention things after you would normally mentioned them. Oh, by the way, my name is Luke, just to let you know. My name is Luke. Okay. By the way here and just to let you know, these are very similar and you can use this phrase. And by the way, to introduce a lots of other things. It's not just for your name, it's to bring up information that you want to connect to this situation when actually it may not be related to what we're talking about. You didn't ask me my name. You didn't ask me about this. I want to say it just to let you know. Oh, just to let you know. By the way. Oh, by the way, my name is Luke. Okay. And you can do that in a conversation to pay if you're having a conversation with somebody, didn't tell them your name. By the way, my name is Luke. What's your name? Oh, nice to meet you, Steve, whatever. Now, the second one, this one is more specific. It's specific for jobs related to helping people. Could be used if you work in a coffee shop, could be used if you're talking to customers on the phone. Right at the beginning, I'm Luke and I'll be helping you today. This gives it a feeling of it being a problem which I'm determined to help you fix or maybe whatever it is that you need. I'm determined to help you with it, whatever it is. Okay. We've added this, it's become a normal thing to say, but generally, only for customer service situations. I'll be helping you today. I'll be helping you. Maybe that grammar sounds a little weird, but this is the most common way to express it. 4. Part 1: Gettiing Details: We've talked about the greeting now, but we need to get into getting basic details from the customer. So how can we do that in a way which is friendly? How can we do that in a way which makes the customer feel comfortable to give up their personal information. Some people feel a little uncomfortable doing that. Okay, So here are a couple of very common ways that we can could I have your first and last name of very basic. Now, could I have is a polite way to ask for anything? You're going to a restaurant. Could I please have a salad? Okay. Could I have your first and last name? Could I have your e-mail, please? Could I have very common, very polite. It's a very important expression to know. Now, we could add here if we wanted to write here the word, just if you want to make it by five, that put it there, right here, not here, right here. We can add the word just to make it even more polite sounding. Could I just have your first and last name? Could I just have your date of births? Sometimes that's written. D, o. Be good to just have your date of birth. That means when you were born. If you want to let them know exactly why you're asking though, right? That's very important. Sometimes people want to know, why do you need my date of birth? You can say just for verification. Just to confirm your information, whatever the reason is. You can say just and then either two or four. When would you say to when would you say for? I would say for if it's followed by a noun just for verification. Just for verification purposes. That's common to just for confirmation purposes. Okay. Just two would be followed by a verb. Just to confirm. Just to verify your information, verify and confirm our verbs. Okay. So just to just four. And then the reason could you provide Could you provide your phone number or your username, or your full name, or your date of birth, or whenever you need. Okay. Could you provide that means give me could you say give me Could you give me your phone number? Yeah. It's okay. Okay. This one sounds better. This one feels a little bit more polite. We're going to be talking a lot in this course about how things feel. You can be very direct. Give me your phone number, give me your date of birth. But the question is, how does that make people feel? If I say, could I please have your phone number just for verification purposes? Could I have your phone number? Could I get your phone number? That's okay. If you'd begin just for verification purposes, could I? Just for verification purposes, could you provide your phone number, please? Could you provide your username, please? Sounds way better than Give me your phone number. Okay, so we're going to be talking a lot about how the way we express creates a good feeling or a bad feeling in the mind of the person you're speaking with. Okay. So these both would create probably a good feeling. And again, if you say, give me here in this whole sentence, I think it's okay because we've said the reason. So that's all right. 5. Part 1: The Account Holder: Let's just talk about before we talk about how to ask the customer what their issue is, let's just talk about a couple more phrases we can use to confirm information. Now if somebody calls with a problem about their service provider, Let's say we might want to make sure that we're talking to the person who actually has the information of the account. We're actually speaking to the owner. We want to make sure that or we want to if we're talking to someone else, make sure that we know we are. So let's say the owner of this account is someone who doesn't speak English well, and they've put their friend on the phone to speak for them to help them resolve their issue. Make a question that's specific to what you want to know. In this case, we want to know if the person we're talking to is the owner of the account or the holder of the account. So what we say is, am I speaking with the account holder? Am I speaking with the account holder? You could say, is this the account holder if you want to, but this is more polite actually. Am I speaking with the account holder? Am I speaking with the owner of the account? We could also add owner. Now, in our situation, the person calling in fact is not the owner of the account, it's that person's friend. And hopefully they'll say that. No, actually, this is her good friend 0. Now, in that situation, most of the time, you still need to confirm that she's there. Right? You need to get her approval. You need to get her approval. Right. So we might say, could you put her on the phone for a moment? Could you put her on now you don't have to say on the phone. You could just say could you put her on for a moment, but we could then add Could you put her on the phone for a moment or could you put her on the line for a moment? You can also use line. That's okay. That's okay. Could you just put her on the line for a moment? I need to make sure she's there. I need to confirm that she is okay with me talking to you. When he puts her on the line, then you can ask the same question. Am I speaking with the account holder? She might say yes. Is it okay if I talk with your friend about the reason you're calling? Yes. Okay. Thank you. You can put him back on the line. You can put him back on the line or put him back on the phone. We use back because he was talking to me before. Right. So we can say back. Alright. So that's how we would deal with that situation. What can I call you is when they don't give their name or they have a very long name. And I'm not sure how to say it, right. For example, if I see on the profile that the name is maybe Enrique, But I don't know how to say that. In fact, I'm not even sure if I said that just then correctly. I want to ask what can I call you to hear that person say their name so that then I can try to copy the sound. Okay, this is a common situation for people who have difficult names. So you use what can I call you after you then say it? After you say it is is it Enrique? Is that right? Am I saying that correctly? Then you can say am I saying that correctly? Am I? Am I saying that correctly? Okay. And then maybe the answer is yes. Maybe the answer is no, but that's how you confirm that you've got the right name or if they didn't give you a name and they want to be called something else. They can give you that name. What can I call you? It's actually quite, quite polite. Okay. And what is your name and what is your name? Before in the situation in which the girl asked her friend to call me to explain the issue that she is having with her service provider. I am a Customer Service Representative. For that's complicated. I don't know what his name is. I use n as a way to sort of begin what I want to know and is a very common way in customer service situations to say something new. And actually I'm not adding to anything. I'm not using and how it's normally used in a sentence. But it is a very common way to begin a request or a question like this. So you can actually use and when you're beginning a request or when you want to ask a specific question and what is your name? What is your name or what can I call you? I would be okay too. Oh, my name is Steve Robinson. Steve Robinson. Steve Robinson or okay. Steve. What's your issue now we'll talk about how to get the person who is calling or the person you're talking to to explain what they're having a problem with or explain why they're calling. 6. Part 1: "What are you calling about?": So we've got the greeting out of the way. We've made sure we're talking to the right person. Hopefully we know how to pronounce that person's name correctly. Now we need to know the reason they're calling. Okay. Now, we could ask very directly, what is the purpose of your call? Very simple. Why are you calling? What are you calling about? You could say those very simple, basic things. It's okay. You have to work extra hard to use your friendly tone so that, that direct way of speaking sounds nice. What are you calling about? Now? The simplest and most basic way to ask anybody what you can do for them is to say, How can I help you? Is how can I help you to direct? Is it too straight? No, it's actually fine. So that's okay. You can generally always use How can I help you? Okay? How can I help you today? As I mentioned before. But let's talk about some other common expressions we can use to get the other person. In this case, Steve, who is the friend of the woman who has the account with this phone service provider, the one I represent as a customer service representative. So we can get Steve to explain what the problem is, why he's calling. So so what can I help you with today? Very simple, very straight. Notice that we begin with. So this is similar to an, a very nice way to begin a new point. I often use this, you'll notice throughout this course to begin a new point. It's so useful. I love, so I love, so it's a very also modern. So maybe some people who are a little older won't use it so much, but so is really common in modern English. It's quite polite. It actually doesn't really have a meaning. It's like a marker to say that you're going to begin a new topic, right? You've got the information you need, you know who you're talking to. We need to shift now, change topics. Okay? So you can use, so you could also use others. You could say, okay, Oops, not AK. Okay. Sometimes sound very good because it sounds like you don't know what you want to say. So I would say, Okay, works. So works sometimes like we talked about earlier and works, but so is pretty good. So what can I help you with today? Very common. Again, we don't have to add today. You could say, What can I help you with? And you could say, How can I help you? Very simple. So what are you calling about? What are you calling about? Could we say, what is the purpose of your call? What is the purpose of your call? What is the reason for your call? Of course, we could. Could you please describe the reason for your call? Could you please Describe or explain the reason or purpose for your call. Actually, we would say the purpose of your call or the reason for your call. Now, if we're very sure that this person has a problem, then instead of saying reason for your call, why not just say issue directly? Generally, you want to avoid using the word problem because the word problem has a connotation. Connotation is a feeling that something has connected to it. It's not exactly the meaning of that, but what people feel or think when they hear it or when they see it. So problem has a stronger negative connotation. And if we say, what's your problem, or could you tell me about your problem, then we're sort of assuming that it's a very bad thing. But if we say could you please describe your issue? What it feels like is, I don't know how bad the problem is. I don't even know if there is a big problem at all or any problem. Maybe you have a question regardless, we can call it an issue. Just a question can be an issue. Right? And a question doesn't mean that we, this company did anything wrong or you are having a terrible experience. Not at all. Issue is way better than problem. In general. An issue can just be a simple question, a simple request, but it can also cover problems. So that's why issue is a great word and problem is not so good in general because of that negative connotation, would you mind describing that's B, by the way, you'll get used to my handwriting if you can't read it now. You will be able to as we go along, you'll get used to it. Would you mind describing your issue? Very polite way of asking the same question. Again. We are assuming this person has some kind of question or problem or whatever so issue is, alright, Please tell me a little more about about then you can say either your issue the issue you're having, the issue the issue you're having. I can't read that either, but I'll say it very clearly. Tell me more about the issue you're having. Or again, we could say, Please tell me a little more about the reason for your call, the purpose of your call. Okay. So these are the most common ways to actually get somebody to tell you something. If you're not talking to somebody on the phone, then you would just say, could you tell me a little more about your issue? Okay. If they're not calling, you wouldn't say call your talking to someone face to face. So please tell me a little more about your issue. I'm listening. And you could say that too. By the way, I'm listening. I'm listening. That's a good way to let them know that you're really paying attention to whatever issue they might be having. Okay, So now you should feel pretty comfortable with greetings. You should know how to confirm information and make sure you're talking to the right person. And now you should also know how to ask other people what issue they're having. In the next lesson, we'll learn about how we can ask follow-up questions, follow-up questions to get even more details about a particular issue. So I'll see you in the next lesson. 7. Part 2: Time Details: In the last lesson, we talked about how to begin a conversation with a customer, how to politely do that. And in this lesson, we're going to talk about how to get more information from the customer or whoever you're talking with so that you can find out how you can help them, right? Sometimes you need more information in order to completely understand whatever issue someone may be having, right? That happens in all kinds of situations in life. Now, we're going to look at as we did before, a case. Remember we're doing a case so that we can focus the expressions that we learned around something very clear. But again, as I mentioned before, you can absolutely use the expressions, the things that we learned in this lesson in many, many other ways. You can adjust them, you can change the details, of course. Okay, so let's just read the case first and make sure you understand it. You work for a small company that prepares documents for visa applications. A customer has bought your service, which includes a review of documents to ensure that the application to be sent to the visa Agency is complete and there are no errors. Okay. Pretty simple. The customer's application, however, was declined. You need more information on their case. Okay, So this is a common type of of Business. I've actually used this type of company before. A visa application is when you want to go to another country or you want to immigrate. Immigrate. Immigration is about moving to another country, okay? So this company will help you check everything to make sure it's right. Now. If the application is declined, decline means refuse. If they decline it. That means that the company who was supposed to check everything didn't do their job, right? Or maybe everything was correct and the application was declined for some other reason. Okay. So this is the situation. And in this case, we work at the agency or the company that checks the documents. Okay. That checks the documents. That's our job. So obviously they're calling and they're quite unhappy, but we need to make sure we completely understand what's going on. So let's now do a couple of things. We'll talk about some basic, first, we'll talk about some of the basic expressions that we use. Some of the simple and very, very common expressions that we use to get more information. And then we'll go more in depth. Wu in-depth means. And an Hawaiian like that. Ou in depth means. We want to make sure we get all of the details. And there are maybe some special cases where we need really a lot of information. So we'll look at some expressions that we can use to get that information too. So let's start with the basic, the basic expressions. One of the most basic and important questions that you may need to ask someone in this. Type of case is how long how long it has been since a particular thing happened, or in some cases, if somebody has been having an issue, How long have you been having this issue or how long? How long has this issue been going on? This is called the present perfect tense, and we use it when we're talking about something that began in the past, but is also continuing, is still happening. We start in the past. It's still going on. How long have you been how long have you been living in New York City? How long have you had this issue? How long have you been having this issue? It's okay. How long has this issue been going on? That one's very common. Now, this one though, this one's a little different because this is a thing that happened in the past. So we can say, how long has it been since? Now, we're talking about a specific point in time. How long has it been since you received the notice? What notice? What is a notice? A notice is something that tells you something that you didn't know before. That's what I notice is. Now, a notice might tell you in this case that the application was declined. Lots of different types of notices. Okay. We need to know this information because if you received a notice two months ago and you're just calling now to tell us that you were declined. Well, maybe what I will do to help You will be different than if this happened yesterday, right? So that's basic information. How long, how long? This is a really, really important beginning of a question to get that basic detail about time, okay? The other one, when of course you know how to use when probably. But it really is a polite and common way to ask people about a time point. A time point. This one, how long can be used to talk about something that happened before and is still going on. This one cannot generally be used that way. It's used only for saying when something began, when something happened, when something ended. Okay. When did you actually send the application? After we reviewed it. So let me just explain how we use this and then I can talk about other places where we might use it as well. When did you actually send the application? Now this is important because if we reviewed your application, okay, we didn't send it for you. We reviewed it for you to make sure everything is right. That's our job. Our business is to make sure everything is correct. And then you send it two months later to maybe the government or the agency that will check your visa may be in the time between when we checked it and you sent it, maybe the rules changed. And if you had sent it the next day, it would have been okay. So actually, that would be the customer's fault. That would be on the customer. So I need to know that. Right. So this one we're talking about a point in time. When did you do that? When were you there? When did you go when did this begin? Okay. When did you notice it? Often. When we're talking about cases like this, we say notice. If we're talking about a technical problem, maybe it's that the issue started two months ago, but I didn't notice it until a week ago. So we often say notice, that's different than this. Notice. This notice is a verb. When did you actually notice the issue? Very common. Actually. Actually do we need to use the word actually here? We really don't, but I think it helps to make it a little bit more clear and make sure that the person who hears this question really understand it. Okay. So when did you actually actually send the application? If I say, when did you send the application, it's the same meaning, but the focus is not as strong on the sending of the application actually helps me too, make it a little stronger. And you can use that word actually in lots of similar cases when you want to focus on the action, what did you actually do that? When did you actually see it? And you can use that with other questions. Why did you actually, where did you actually, when did you actually, who did you actually also very common. Okay, So these are the questions that we will use usually to figure out when the time something happened or if it started in the past, how long it has been going on. 8. Part 2: Getting More Details: To really understand something we need to get the simple details. So we've talked about time, we've talked about when something happened. Very important. But we also need to know some specific information about, for example, numbers or specific words written somewhere, or maybe exactly what the customer is seeing on some thing. Okay. So here are some examples. What are you seeing on the notice itself? What are you seeing now? Why do we say what are you seeing on the notice instead of what do you see on the notice? The reason that will say it like this is that we want to encourage them to actually be reading it. Ing means it's a continuing action, something is going on. What are you seeing, sort of pushes them or encourages them to pick up the notice and read it exactly, right to read it verbatim for beta means read it exactly. Read it exactly. You could ask that. What exactly do you see written on the notice itself? Okay. Specifically, which office did you receive the notice from? Maybe there are five offices around, let's say it's the United States. Remember, someone applied for a visa and they got declined. Well, where did the letter that says you've got declined? Where did it come from? There are five possible locations in America. I need to know because maybe the action I will take to help you depends on which location you got it from. So which office did you receive the notice from? Could we say which office did you get the notice from? Yeah. It's all right. Communicates the idea but received just sounds more polite again. Again, a lot of what we're talking about in this course is how things feel. So receive feels more, more polite, little bit more respectful, and get sounds a little bit sharp. The reason that we use which office instead of just where is because we want the specific location. Okay, we want to know maybe the even the address. The reason that we will use which office instead of where is that we really want it to be as specific as possible. Could you add the word specific? Let me write that again So it's more clears the specific which specific office did you get the notice from? Way more clear than saying Where did you get it from? Because that could be oh, I got it from my mailbox. Okay. Well, I don't want to know that. Of course it came in the mail. You could say specifically which which specific. So if you say specific first, you have to say specifically. But if you say after which, then you would say specific specifically. Which office did you get it from? Which specific office? Okay. Could you tell me the number on the top left corner? This phrase is probably one of the best for getting basic information. Okay. Could you tell me what the notice says that works for that. Could you tell me which specific office you've got the notice from? Could you tell me the model number? For example, if there's a problem with some piece of hardware or some thing that you bought the model, maybe it's a model number. Could you tell me your username? Could you tell me anything that you need to know? This one is really the one that works for pretty much every situation that I can think of at the moment. Could you tell me the number on the top left corner? I'm saying top-left corner because sometimes these forms, these papers that you get from some agency, especially if it's related to immigration, it's very complicated. So these things might have numbers all over the place. We need to be very clear. Top-left corner, the middle, top, the bottom, top right, bottom right, bottom left. If you say could you tell me the number on the back, but there are lots of numbers on the back. You know what, Some people don't know what you mean. One of the most common things that customers complain about when they call customer service is that they're confused. They don't understand a lack of good communication, right? So not only should you use words like specifically in order to get clear answers for yourself. You need to be very specific in the details that you provide to the person you're talking with. You need to say specifically where something is located. After saying, could you be as specific as you can use location if that's related to the situation, use dates be as specific as you can so that the customer or the person you're talking with doesn't feel frustrated. It's very easy to get frustrated, especially if you don't understand something. It's important to remember that maybe you talk to customers all day so you're very comfortable with all this stuff. But the customer maybe has never talked to anybody about this kind of thing before in their entire life. So you have to keep that in mind and being very specific helps to make them feel like, Oh, okay, I know exactly what you're talking about. There it is. I see it. The number is 7, 1, 1, 1, 1, whatever. Okay. 9. Part 2: Confirming Information: So we've talked about how to find out the time something happened. We've talked about some basic questions we can use to get more information, specific information. Now how about confirming something that we think is true? Well, because maybe you're looking at information about this particular person, this particular customer, and you know, most of the information you need, but it's possible that it's not totally accurate. Accurate. That means that maybe the information is not right. Or at least you want to make sure that the information you have is right before you proceed, before you go on to the next step, proceed means go on to the next step. Okay. So proceed means so we say my records, that means what I'm looking at. It's a very simple way to express it. You could say, your profile says, but sometimes that makes people feel uncomfortable. They might feel like, Oh well you just looking at my profile. What profile? So my records say you have something. My records say or show both are okay. Doesn't really matter that you sent the application on October 5th. Just say right up front, what it is that you think is true, then confirm. Is that correct? Is that right? Is that true? Is not something I would recommend saying. I wouldn't recommend saying, is that true? Because that makes the person you're talking to feel like almost you're accusing them of lying. They could understand it that way. So I would avoid saying is that true? Is that true? Feels a little bit like an accusation. It can. So I would recommend saying is that correct? Is that right? These two are very positive statements, okay? Now, this one is a very simple formula for making sure information is correct. Very simple formula. Let's just go over it one more time. My records say my records show. Then you say the thing that you think is true, then you say, is that correct? Is that correct? Okay. Now, if you want to you can add at the beginning. I just want to make sure I just want to make sure that I have the right date for your application or whatever information you want to make sure about. That's a good expression you can use to make them feel comfortable. Okay. You just want to confirm something. I see sort of like a little introduction. Very comfortable if we want to make things even simpler and combine both the confirmation question and the thing we think we know, we can say it like this. Could I just confirm? Could I just noticed that we always use just this may be kind of an American thing, but it's really, really common. So first you say, Could I just confirm that you Then you say the detail, this one is even simpler than the one we just talked about, the one we just learned. So what's a spousal visa? Spell her visa is basically when you have a husband or wife wants to become either a citizen or wants to live in your country for awhile, or get a green card, for example, it's called a spousal spousal visa. I mentioned this one because I had to go through this process of getting a spousal visa for my for my wife, and it was not fun. Lots of paperwork. Okay. Just here just adds a feeling of friendliness and it's very common, especially in America when you're doing sales, when you're talking with customers in lots of different situations. Okay, So this one, even simpler than the one we talked about before. 10. Part 2: In-depth Questions: So we should have a pretty good understanding of the simpler questions that we can ask about time to confirm something, and also the basic questions to get more specific details. Now sometimes we need to ask more in-depth questions and sometimes those questions can be a little personal. So that might mean that if we ask it directly, the customer will feel a little uncomfortable. Or maybe if we ask it, they have to go and ask another person something, or they need to actually go and look up some information on their computer or something like that. It's more in depth. Okay. So let's say let's say that the notice came that the visa was declined. Okay. Now, we need to get more information. Before we do that, we need to show a little sympathy that this happened. Okay. I'm sorry to hear. It was declined. Very common expression of sympathy. Sympathy. Sympathy means showing, doing some action, showing that you understand how someone feels and you kind of feel their pain. Sorry to hear that it was declined that your application was declined. If I may. What when, where, who whatever you need to ask here you can ask. But because of this beginning, it's probably going to be something that's a little bit more in depth than the simpler questions that we talked about earlier on, okay, if I may suggest that we might say something that will make the other person feel inconvenienced, perhaps uncomfortable, if we're talking in a room and one person is giving a presentation and we want to stop them and say something. We can say, if I make if I may, and then we can ask a question or make a point. So it's a great expression for interrupting. It's also a great expression for asking permission to say something or ask something a little more in depth. So you can say whatever question you need to ask here, whatever you need to say, okay. Here's another one. You may be able to reapply, but I have a few questions about your forms. If that's okay. Your forms are maybe the things that make up your application. An application often has many forms. Maybe there's a form about your personal details between maybe you and your husband or you and your wife. Maybe there's a form about people who know you, who wrote that you are actually married, for example, that's one of the things you have to do if you get a spousal visa. So forms are the specific things. I have a few questions about your forms. If that's okay. Again, we're asking for permission. This is very similar to, if I may, but instead we're saying it at the very end. Okay, So both of these are okay. This one will say the topic about your forms. This one will say the topic. And then after we say the sentence or after they say, Yeah, okay, Then we can say the specific question. That question that's a little bit more in depth or maybe we'll ask them to go find their forms, check under the bed, open a drawer or something like that, that might inconvenience them. Okay. So these are very common, very polite, and this one especially requests them to say yes before you actually ask the question, if that's okay. Yeah. That's okay. All right. My question is okay or I need to know or could you tell me whatever it is? Now, we've talked about a couple of ways to ask for permission to ask more in-depth questions or get more in depth information. Now I'd like to talk about a few expressions we can use as a way to sort of introduce the idea of talking about something more deeply. To say, I don't know enough now. And you don't actually have to ask a question here. We'll look at a couple examples. The first one, I'd like to better understand your issue before we look at your options. So this is not an actual question, right? But after this, we will ask a couple of questions. This sentence is kind of like preparing the person who's on the other end of the phone or preparing the person you're talking with could be face to face, preparing them for more in-depth questions. So it's a polite thing to do. It's a sort of introduction to what's going to happen next. And that doesn't really serve a purpose. Does it really get the information? No, but it may help to make the other person feel comfortable to make them feel like you're a professional. Respect them, okay, So that's actually a really important thing to do to make sure that they want to answer questions, to let them know that you are a professional who values their feelings, their emotions, and who really wants to help them. I'd like to better understand the issue before we look at your options. So there may be several options. This is to kind of let them know. Actually, it's not over. There might be some things we can do. This means that you can probably help them. In this case, the visa was declined. So what can we do? Well, we might reapply or we might maybe correct something and let the agency know, whatever. Okay. I don't know. I don't work for an agency. I just need to ask a few more questions to better understand what's going on, what's going on. This is basically admitting that you don't completely understand. Okay. You can add after this, what's going on with your case. It's basically saying I'm not sure and that's okay. That's okay. If you don't know, just say you don't know, let them know you don't know. And then there are going to open up and they're going to clearly explain what is going on. Okay? After the person that you're talking with explains what's going on, explains the issue. It can be a very good idea to let them know that you understand what they said, to acknowledge, to acknowledge. That's a it's an L by the way, that you really got it, right, but it's not enough. You need still more details. You have a few more in depth questions, right? Still good idea to let them know. You got it. Based on what you've told me. There are a few things we could try. That means I'm not sure I have the answer. But you've explained the issue. You've explained what's going on. You've told me what's on the notice, for example. I understand. So if I didn't understand, I wouldn't say based on now let's talk about what we might do. But first, I have a couple of questions, have a few questions for you. So based on what you've told me, there are a few things we could try, but I'll need a bit or a little same thing. A bit, little doesn't matter, it's the same thing. A little more information. First, we're just preparing the customer for some more in-depth questions. But in this one, the difference is that we're first acknowledging that we understand what they said. Otherwise, we could not say based on what, based on means. Okay, so it's a good way to sort of connect what they said to the solutions, to the questions. It makes them feel like, Oh, you were really listening to me. Okay. You could say, of course, I got it. I see, I completely understand. We'll talk more about those phrases later on in the course. Here. We're connecting the two in one simple sentence. Okay, so hopefully now you have a pretty clear idea of how to use questions to get more information in a very polite way, whether it's basic information, information about time or more in depth information. To practice this, try to make your own examples, fit them into your situation, your job. These expressions, these sentences can be used in lots of different ways. So you have to practice using them in order for them to become habits. So that when you need to express something, when you need to ask something, it just pops up into your head. Okay, so good luck with that, and I'll see you in the next lesson. 11. Part 3: Phrases to Explain: In the last lesson, we talked about how we can ask follow-up questions to get information about specific issues. In this lesson, we're going to be talking about how we can explain something in detail, especially to explain a service. We're going to be talking about it in several different parts. First, we're going to talk about the case. I'm going to explain what the case is. As I mentioned, we're going to look at a case, one case in each, in each lesson. Then we're going to focus on how we can explain clearly. We'll talk about some key words, some vocabulary. I'm just going to write vocab for short. Then we're going to talk about how we can answer a question and then explain more. So if somebody asks you a question and you need to confirm that that's correct or say that it is not correct. We'll talk about how to do that too, and we'll look at quite a few examples. Let's first look at the case for this lesson. So you work for a company that bundles internet services and TV services together. To bundle means to put things together, okay. A new customer wants to upgrade, but isn't sure whether or not to get them more expensive package, they could maybe make a choice. Should I get this? Should I get that? A package is a set of things together, okay, so maybe that includes TV and Internet. Maybe the Internet is different speeds and you can choose the different options. You need to explain some of the features and we'll talk about how to do that. But before we do it, let's just go through a couple of important vocabulary words. So some words we should keep in mind when we're talking about services and we're explaining those in detail. Well, we need to know premium. Premium usually means it's the best one, or at least very high. Maybe it's more expensive than the other things that we're trying to sell. So if you buy something that's premium, you're often paying more than most other people. If you bind, for example, a premium phone and you're buying a phone, that's one very good quality probably, but also generally more expensive. Okay. So that's what premium, that's what premium generally means. It can be used in other ways, but that's how we're going to use it here. Okay. Package. Again, package, you probably know as a box filled with some things. Okay. In this case, if we're talking about a phone service plan and Internet service plan. If we're talking about something that we pay for every month, then the things that are included in that the things that we have selected are part of a package. Okay. And you could say, I bought these as a package deal. I bought these as a package deal. That means maybe it was cheaper because I bought things together. So when we talk about the services we pay for and we want to explain services to others. We might be explaining in terms of packages, okay, so that's how that's used. Now, installation will see that one later. Comes from the word install. And install means to put something in and set it up so that it's working correctly. You would install programs in your computer, maybe an application in your computer. You install those so that they can be used on your computer. Well, installation might mean, for example, somebody coming to your house and setting up some hardware or some appliance so that it works correctly. Installation of a dishwasher, installation of a washer and dryer set, installation of a microwave, things like that. Okay. Things like that. We might be talking about a modem or a router. When we're talking about the Internet, the thing that's going to be installed, a modem or a router. Router is the thing that the blinks and you can look at it and say, oh, and my internet is working. We can say that for the modem as well. It's working, my Internet is working. You'll look at that thing in your house and it may broadcast. The router will broadcast the Internet around your house, your Wi-Fi, okay? If something is included, that means it's not free, but we don't have to pay extra for it. Sometimes you will say it's free, it is included for free. You can say both. It is included for free. It is free. It is included. For example, if you rent an apartment and you don't have to pay for utilities, like gas and water. You can say my utilities are included in my rent. That means they're part of the rent. So whenever you're paying for this service, if the installation of the router is included, that means we don't have to pay an extra phi. Now, if it's not free, if it isn't included, then we probably have to pay and installation fee. And the last one I want to talk about is the word plan, PLA and plan. What phone plan are you on? What Internet plan are you on? What membership plan are you on when you're talking about things that you pay for every month, you're going to be talking about plans. Plans. Yeah, that's a different way of using the word plan, but that's how we can use it here. Okay, so now we're going to explain to a customer who can't really decide which package or plan to choose are going to explain what they get if they pick the, the premium one, the more expensive one, the one which is better. What are the benefits? We usually start this with width. And then you can say what it's called. Okay? It's a really, really good way to simply explain something. Start with with the, with this plan. With that plan, then the next part of it is you get, so if you can just remember that with that you get that the data with the name you get, then say, the benefits, very simple. Very simple with the, with the TV Plus internet premium package. Okay. With the TV Plus Internet, this is the name here. This is the type of package. It is premium package. You get. This is, these are going to be the, the benefits now, the fastest internet service. And we could go on to say here how fast it is, 300 megabytes a second or whatever the speed is, which is 300 megabytes a second, as well as 80 channels. And what is 80 channels? What does that mean? Well, that's then about the TV part. So this is TV Plus Internet. Plus means this and this. Now you could say TV and Internet, but maybe it's called in your company, TV Plus internet, so you have to call it that. But the TV Plus internet premium package, you get the fastest internet, which is 300 megabytes a second, as well as 80 channels. 80 channels. Okay? And maybe that's a lot. I don't really watch much TV to be totally honest with you. And the installation is of course, included. Remember, included means you don't need to pay extra. So we very clearly said the benefits of this package, the person who hears a say this cannot be confused. There's no way to misunderstand it because this is a very clear structure or formula for explaining a specific package. Very clear, okay? Of course is optional. You could leave this here or you could not say it. If you say it, it sort of means you probably already knew that customer. But I'm just telling you just so I can make sure that you know it. Okay. So you can leave it out. You could put it in. I don't think it really matters, but I think it's a nice touch. It makes it sound more premium to make the benefits of, let's say the premium plan even more clear, you can compare it to another plan and talk about something the other plan doesn't have. Okay. So if the premium plan comes with free installation and that's the one that we're trying to sell. Say that's the one that we perhaps want the customer to choose, then we can immediately follow the explanation with the one that maybe doesn't have that. The internet only package doesn't have free installation. The Internet only. Internet only means you're not getting TV, you're not getting these 80 channels. You know, some people don't really want a TV package. Maybe they just watch things on the Internet. That's, I think more and more common. But obviously you want them to sign up for the more premium package. The Internet only package doesn't have free installation, the premium package does. So again, just to be clear, you say with the premium plan, you get. 80 channels and installation is included with the Internet only plan. You don't get free installation. Installation is not free or it doesn't have free installation. Using has and doesn't have are both really good for explaining the benefits or downsides of particular services that you want to offer. This one has this, this one doesn't have that. So sometimes it's good to focus on the negative. They're missing things. So it doesn't have as a great phrase, I great little phrase for doing that naturally. Now, includes does not always mean something is free. Sometimes we can use the word includes, just as in the previous example we said comes with, right? So if a package comes with something, those are the features, those are the benefits we can use includes in the same way. If we use it like this, it doesn't mean necessarily that it's free. It doesn't necessarily mean that because we are paying for the package, right? So you're not getting something extra. So it's used a little differently. Now this word basically to begin is just for the effect of introducing something, okay? It doesn't really have an important meaning in this example. Basically, the summer promotional package. Summer promotional, promotional means you're doing it for a limited time. And often you will see that phrasing. Limited time only, for a limited time only. Okay, So basically the summer promotional package just in the summer includes free installation and a free router. Okay. So this includes is the same as comes with, comes with, just like before we said, it comes with the fastest internet speed, and it also comes with 80 channels. Well, those aren't free. Includes this one is free, free installation and a free router. Remember, a router is the thing that broadcasts Wi-Fi around your house. Okay, so that's the best deal we have going right now. If you want to push somebody towards something, let them know that this is the best deal or the best value right now. What does that mean, the best deal, the best value? Well, that means that you're getting the most for your money. That's what it means. When somebody says the best deal or the best value, the money you're spending is getting you maybe more than it would get you normally. Okay, So it's the best deal. I think best deal is more common than best value, but you will hear both of them and you can use either one. It doesn't really matter. So that's the best deal or value we have going right now. This phrase, going right now does make it feel like it's going to end. So this might make the person who's considering whether or not to get this, this might make them think, Hmm, maybe I should, because it's going to end soon. It is a summer promotional package. It can give the customer a feeling of urgency. So if you want to give that feeling of urgency like, ooh, I need to get it right now. I need to pay right now. This is a good phrase to use. This is a good deal we have going right now. And this calling it something that's seasonal or related to the season that you're in, makes it feel like they need to buy it. Now. Now you don't have maybe a choice about this one because that's what it is. Maybe that's what it's called, but you do have a choice to say this one or not, and this one can enforce this one or this one feel even more urgent. 12. Part 3: Answering Questions: So far we've talked about some simple phrases we can use to explain a package or explain a service, those basic phrases, now let's focus on answering some questions in conversation because it is a conversation that you're having with the customer. Let's say, for example, they explain to you what they think a particular plan or package means. Okay, Let's say they say, so if I choose internet and TV together, that's the best deal. And you want to say yes, yes, because you're trying to push them to buy that one, maybe. Okay. So you want to enforce it? Here's how we can do that. Well, the answer to the question you can say yes, but absolutely is a good word to use when you want to make it sound even stronger. Okay, There's no doubt. Absolutely. It's a great way to say yes with confidence. Yes with confidence is absolutely. Absolutely. And when you bundle it with the TV package, you're paying less per month for each. The wording is a little complicated. So let's just talk about what that means. Well, let's say if you just bought TV by itself, that would be $75 a month. And if you bought internet just by itself, just alone, it would be twenty-five dollars per month. Twenty-five dollars per month. Okay. So that's totally a $100, but if you buy them together, it's only $90 per month. That is what that means. Okay. If you say you're paying less per month for each, that means because you buy them together, you get a discount on both of them. That's what it means. Less per month for each. It's sort of enforcing the customer's idea that this is the best deal, that this is the right choice. Now let's look at a simple way that we can explain or help the customer understand that there is a service or thing that we use to offer, which we now do not. When I say offer. When I say offer, we use to offer. I mean, we use to provide that as an option. Now we do not. We often use the word offer. We don't offer that anymore. We can offer that. What do we offer? We offer high-speed Internet. Oh, okay. I see. All right. So the customer thinks maybe we have landline landline, landline service. That means in the old style of phone where you have a thing that you're holding in your hand and it has a wire connected to the wall, has called landline, a landline phone. Maybe this company, the company I worked for, maybe we used to have that. We don't anymore. Now we're just internet and Tv, that's all we offer. Okay? Now the tricky thing is if we just say we don't have that anymore, it can sound a little too direct, so we have to be careful with how we say it. Also, it's important to let them know that if there is an alternative way to, for example, make a phone call, they can do that on our new service. Well, if you have high-speed Internet, you can make video calls and that's unlimited. Isn't that better than making a phone call? Maybe, maybe, maybe the customer once that maybe they don't. We can say it is a kind of compensation for not having the thing that they expected us to have. Okay. Well, actually, we don't offer landline plans anymore. Okay, we stopped doing that. Again, this word offer. This word offer is a great way to say that we have or do not have something. It's a service that's provided or not provided. We don't offer landline plans anymore. We used to. That's what this means. We use to at one time, we only offer TV and high-speed Internet. And you could add we only offer TV and high-speed Internet packages or plans. Okay. Or you could say that we've pivoted. Pivoted means we've made a change in the type of company we are. It's to make a pivot. We've pivoted a little. We don't offer landline plans anymore. Now. We offer only high-speed internet and TV packages. Now it's important I think to say however here, if there's no, however, there is a chance that the customer may feel a little disappointed. We don't have that anymore. Now, maybe it's okay, maybe that's fine. But if there is a however possible use, however, it's a kind of compensation. It's a kind of compensation. However, you can do video calls with unlimited high-speed Internet. You can do video calls. You can call your grandkids on Skype. You can call your grandkids on FaceTime or whatever service people use for video calls. Okay. So that's how we can make sure the customer knows we'd no longer have something, we no longer offer something or imaginary customer is still thinking about which plan to choose. And maybe we're talking about the basic plan. Basic means, not premium, pretty simple, no extra features perhaps. And maybe the internet speed is a little slower, whatever. Okay. So they say I'm the basic plan looks like a pretty good deal. It's pretty cheap, but are there any extra fees? I can repeat what they said as a question to make sure that they know I understood clearly what they said. Extra fees. They don't have to answer the question. It's just a nice way to confirm that you heard because if they say no right away, then you know, you miss her. But now in some cases, if it's really bad news, you might want to say, sorry about that. I don't think this is bad enough because I think most people would expect to pay an installation fee. Right? But sometimes if it's bad news, say I'm sorry about that, or you could add, unfortunately. But I think the key thing here. Is to begin bad news by using well, repeat to confirm as a question. And then if you can say some good news first and then say, but it's always good to throw in a little good news before saying the bad news, I say bad news, it's not really bad news, is it? But saying something positive first, the basic plan includes a free modem. But then say that if you just say extra fees, yes. There's a thirty-five dollar installation fee. Well, it's okay. I think that's fine. It's all right to say that. But if you can, you really want them to get this one. If you can add a little good news and then say the bad news, the fee. I think it will be a little more comfortable for them to hear. I think there'll be more likely to see it as an okay thing, to see it as maybe a good deal. Another way of giving some bad news is to say, unfortunately not, unfortunately not, it's a nice and polite way to do it. So maybe we're talking with the person who expects there to be, let's say, network security tools, maybe some tools to make sure that you're safe online. And they heard, maybe we have these tools are service has these tools. Let's not really focused on exactly what those tools are. But unfortunately, we have this Pro package, but they're not buying that one or they're not really considering that one. So we can say, unfortunately not could say does the package, I'm getting the basic package, the Internet package, come with the network security tools. Unfortunately not unfortunately not the network security tools only come only come with the pro Internet package. Maybe we're saying that as a way to push them toward that. Maybe were saying that just to let them know that they don't get that with whatever they chose with the basic plan. It's a great way to give bad news. And again, I do this. I use these air quotes as a way to say, is it really bad news? Well, not really, but I think it's a simple way to explain what I mean. Unfortunately, not unfortunately not. Finally, let's look at how we can resolve any concerns that a customer may have about a service and then provide an alternative if we're still trying to maybe push them to one plan or one service or another. So they might say, I watch a lot of videos on YouTube, on the Internet, and sometimes I watch movies. Is the basic plan fast enough for that? The basic plan fast enough for that. Definitely. This is similar to saying absolutely, but it's more like saying for sure, For sure. Absolutely. Definitely. It's very similar, actually, the 100 megabytes per second, megabytes per second plan, which is the basic plan, is fast enough for watching videos, fast enough for watching videos. Now I have made sure to resolve the concern. Okay. They were worried maybe the basic plan was not fast enough for videos. I've now let them know that it is okay. Okay. And I've said definitely to start it, to give them a feeling of comfort. But now I want to add another case to this. I want to suggest that maybe they like to play video games, in which case, maybe that isn't fast enough. But, but if you do a lot of gaming, you may consider upgrading. You may consider upgrading. They didn't ask me about gaming. But if I want to introduce another possible use for the Internet that they might have that they didn't think of. I can mention gaming and then I can suggest a package that would fit gaming better. So this is a really useful way to resolve a concern, introduce an alternative. An alternative means another choice, okay? May consider. You may consider is a very indirect way to say, I think this would be a good choice for you if this is true for you, if what's true? If you do a lot of gaming and may consider as really indirect. So it's a cool way to suggest an alternative, even if you weren't asked about anything related to gaming or anything related to faster Internet, but you're still answering the question, honestly. Yeah, it is fast enough. This is fast enough for videos. 13. Part 3: Overview of Phrases: Okay, So we've spent some time talking about the basic vocabulary we need to explain a service or a package. We've talked about some of the phrases we can use to actually introduce what's inside of a package or a service. And we've talked about how we can answer questions to resolve concerns or to introduce new features that are related to the questions that a customer may ask. So you should feel pretty comfortable and you should be able to use the phrases that we've learned so far in your own cases. Can now, I just want to, at the end of this section, I want to talk about when to review some of the things that we've actually discussed very quickly. Basically, basically as a way to begin explaining something. And it doesn't have a very strong meaning here, okay, It's just a way to begin naturally with something. You get something very simple structure for bringing in the features or the things that are included in a particular service. Same It comes with, it comes with, it's basically the same thing or it includes. Now remember, includes can be something for free or it can be something that's part of a package just the same as it comes with. Okay. Doesn't have is when we want to mention that something has been left out, something is not included, something is not part of a package. And that helps us focus on maybe the benefits of one and the reasons that another may not be the best fit for a particular customer. We don't offer this. We only offer this only means we have just this don't offer means we use to provide it perhaps, but now we don't or we just don't have it. If we add any more, it definitely means that we used to have it and now we don't we don't offer that anymore. Okay. At the moment, we only is a good way to follow. We don't offer this anymore at the moment. We only offer this. We can also use at the moment when we want to talk about a special promotion, maybe a summer promotion or a special deal, okay. Simple way to say that we don't offer something in a very comfortable way is unfortunately not unfortunately not. Instead of saying no, which is very direct, absolutely is the same as yes. And if we say definitely, it means yes, but it can also mean For sure, Okay, so hopefully these are all very clear. If not, go back through the lesson, again, try to fit these into your own cases, the phrases that we learn, so that when you're in those situations, you can actually use them to make the customer feel comfortable or maybe pushed them toward a particular service that you want them to choose. So in the next lesson, we're going to go on and talk about the steps in a process. So sometimes customers feel confused about things and we need to walk them through steps. We'll learn that in the next lesson and I'll see you there. 14. Part 4: Explaining Steps: In the last lesson, we talked about explaining a service which is something that you may or may not need to do. In customer service. Some jobs may require it, and some jobs may not know. In this lesson, we're going to focus on a walk-through. This is how to explain a task or process step-by-step. Now this is a very, very important skill to be able to explain in detail clearly without any confusion how to do something. So we're going to focus on this. In this lesson. I'm going to read the case and then I'm going to give you a couple tips and then we'll get started with the lesson. Okay, so here it is. Your work for a company that sells scanners. Scanner is something that can copy an image and either put it on your computer or eventually printed out. Okay. You work for a company that sells scanners. One customer calls to complain that he doesn't know how to set up his computer with the scanner, right? That means how to link the scanner and his computer. You need to talk the customer through the setup process. Ok. Now notice I said here, talk through, but here it's walk-through. Well, that's because it doesn't really matter. You can say out, talk you through it. I'll walk you through it and really both are. Okay. Now, one thing I wanted to just mention before we go through a couple of tips to keep in mind for doing a walk-through. By the way, we can say a walk-through, but we can't say a talk through. I know that's a little weird, but one thing I'd like you to keep in mind, we're going to talk about a scanner, which is a physical thing. But a lot of the phrases we're going to talk about can be used in lots of different situations, lots of different cases. So just keep that in mind and always be thinking about how you can use these phrases in your own cases, in your own job, and your own daily life, when you need to explain steps clearly, okay, So some things I'd like you to remember anytime you're trying to explain something step-by-step. One, in particular for customer service. You see it every day. They don't they don't see the issue every day. So you have to keep that in mind. Because to you that particular task may be very easy and very simple. But maybe that's because you've seen it so many times, you're very comfortable with it. Maybe the person who's calling and needs help has no idea what this is, what the task is, and they have no idea even how to begin doing it. So it's very important to keep that, to keep that in mind. Okay. Another thing to keep in mind is that you are on the phone. Now if they were there with you in person, it would be a lot easier and you could probably do a lot of the things yourself. So you may not need a lot of the phrases from this lesson. But if you are on the phone, you have to remember that you are on the phone. And that means you have to be extra, extra clear, very, very specific. More so than if you were giving somebody instructions face to face and you could use your hands, you could point at things you can't do that you have to use your words. Use the words you know, be very, very clear, very important. Okay? Tiny steps. So that's a T. Tiny steps. Tiny steps don't combine to be, oops, combine. Now, why? Well, if you combine steps and you say do this and then do this and then do that in one explanation. Some people, particularly those who are not savvy and I don't understand, for example, technology or whatever it is that you deal with. If they don't have an understanding of that and you combine steps, they're going to feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. And if they feel overwhelmed, they're going to get frustrated. And if they get frustrated, they're going to complain. If they complain, you might get impatient. And that can lead to a lot of bad things. So tiny steps break each thing down into a little piece that makes it easier. That prevents them from being overwhelmed. And it helps to move along at a regular pace instead of needing to explain things many times. Okay, confirm completion. That means usually before going on to the next step, always make sure that the last one was done correctly. Did you do that? Is that done? Are you finished with that? Okay, that's pretty simple. We don't really need to go over many phrases for that. Last. And this is more of a personal thing that you may want to remember is patients. The power of patients. If you are patient, no matter what, even if they get upset briefly, they will probably come down again if you are patient and calm, okay? If they see that you are in control mentally, then it really helps to make them feel comfortable. And this is speaking as a customer. Now. As a customer, if I'm dealing with somebody who is very patiently explaining the steps and doesn't get impatient. I feel safe. And I know that I'm not going to get lost, and I know that my issue is going to get resolved, whatever it may be. All right. Now, let's actually get into the walkthrough. Let's start going through the steps for getting this computer setup for the scanner. So we've read the case, we know the situation. Let's just imagine here that we're on the phone, okay, so we need to be extra clear. And because of that, we don't know where they are. Maybe they're just finishing making their coffee, the customer. So we need to say this at the beginning. Let me know when you're ready. Now sometimes more informally, we might say Ready when you are. Ready when you are. But I think this one is better. I think this one is more polite. Okay. You could say, are you ready to get started? Are you ready to get started? Yep, I'm ready to get started. Okay. Let's begin. When we're actually getting started, we probably want to use first just to make it clear that this is the first thing. Now make sure the scanner is plugged in is sometimes to say that this is obvious and it's not even really a first step, it's so obvious. But maybe you still have to say it to confirm that it is plugged in. You can see the orange indicator light. An indicator light is a small light that just shows that something is working. Maybe it's blinking, blink. Maybe it's a little light that's blinking, bing, bing, bing. Okay, so first make sure, make sure this can avoid someone who actually knows a little bit about this. This can avoid them feeling insulted, right? If you say something that's obvious, then using make sure is sort of like saying, I know that you know this, but I have to say this at the beginning anyway. So just tell me if you have already plugged it in. Okay. Make sure the scanner is plugged in. That means plugged into the wall and you can see the orange indicator light. Okay, that's how we can start. One way to really break down steps is to ask little questions to confirm that they see something due. You see, do you see? So maybe you're helping somebody with their profile on a website and you would ask, Do do you see a tab that says that the data do you see do you see maybe a button along the left side or the right side? You should see a tab that says something, Okay. You should see a row of three buttons along the front. That is not a question. Okay, So that one's a little bit different, but they're about the same. I think this one is better because it's in question form, so it forces them to answer. If I say you should see, they'll probably say yep, I see that. Yep, I see that. Okay. That's step is complete. Okay. But this is better because it has to be answered. Has to be answered. Okay? So then we can tell them what to do. Then you would say push, push the second button from the left, third from the left, forth from the left. Hopefully there aren't that many buttons. Hopefully you can start using from the right at that 0.2 from the right. Third from the right. The right, by the way, means all the way to one side or the other second from the left, if there are 1234567 buttons, this, this is the button all the way to the left. Second from the left, third from the left. Okay, This is the third from the right. This is the second from the right, and this is the one farthest to the right. Farthest to the right. Second. Third, okay, this one, well, luckily we have a better way to say that one. This one is the middle button. If there are more than this, then maybe. Customer deserves to be confused because that's too many buttons, that's too many buttons. So anyway, that's how you explain which button it is. All the way to the left, all the way to the right, second, third, middle. Okay, now sometimes events have to come before other events. So if one event is turn it on, That's one of the steps in the process. We need to make sure that another thing goes before that. That can be a very important thing. So just use before, before you turn it on, you'll need to install the wizard on your computer. We can say wizard. Sometimes we use the word tool. Different systems have different words. Whatever wizard tool, let's say it's let's say it's the same thing. Okay. Have you already done that? We can confirm. Maybe they have already done that. Have you already installed the scanner tool? Have you ever installed the scanner wizard? Again, wizard and tool. It's a little application that can help you use the scanner. Scanner tool scanner at wizard scanner, maybe application. Application. Okay. So have you already installed the scanner tool and they say, no, I haven't. Okay, then we begin to do that. To do that, go to go to, for example, Google Chrome, go to your browser and type in dot dot dot, dot dot.com. Then find the blah, blah, blah, tab on the right side. Okay, so we go through the steps of how to install it. But before we do that, we need to explain that this is the thing that has to happen before you push the on button. This is a way to confirm the order of things using before you do a certain action and confirming whether or not that action has already happened, using this one, have you already to get the application, go to, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, dot com slash downloads, and choose the option that matches the model number. Now maybe you're thinking, wait, you said makes sure that each step is separate. Don't combine steps. Yeah, that's true. Now we could say it like that if we feel like we're talking with somebody who's pretty sharp and can easily get the steps. But if we're talking to somebody who perhaps, maybe is a little slower in either understanding or following steps. Then we might say, to get the application go to Data, Data.com, forward slash downloads, then confirm that they've done that before saying the next thing. Okay. Have you done that? Or in this case specifically, has the page loaded or in this case specifically, are you there for a website? We say are you there? We use location words when we're talking about websites. Are you there? Have you done that? Has the page loaded? That means has the page finished, okay. If they say yes, then we say, okay, choose the option that matches the model number. Maybe this scanner is. Modal number GR to 31, whatever. And then you would select that one and download the application for that one or that version. That version, sometimes there are different applications for different scanners or different versions of an application for different kinds of products that you might buy. For example, I'm using a digital pen and a board. That's Wacom. It's the one I use and you need to download different versions of the application or different versions of the software for different, for different boards. There is one very general word that we can use to talk about readiness. Obviously we can use ready, but that would be at the beginning. Ready. But I like all set. I'll set very general. So I've asked you to go to the website. I can hear that you're doing it. Okay. I'll set if you say yes, it means the website has loaded. The page has loaded. Okay, you are there. So now we can move on to the next step. Just a few questions that you can use to ask the person you're talking with, whether or not they're ready to go to the next step in the process. You can ask directly, Are you ready for the next step? Are you ready for the next step or without Ru, cancel that and say, ready to move on. It's very important that if you say this one, you have to use the question tone. Because if you say ready to move on, It means that you are ready to move on. But you're actually asking them if they're ready. So you have to go like this with your voice. Ready to move on. Ready to move on. Shall we proceed? Shall we proceed? This is a very polite one, by the way. Very polite. I think more polite than any of the other ones. Can we continue? I would say that this one is more direct. Little more direct. This one shall is a very polite phrase. Shall we is always, always very polite. Once a step is complete, we can use the phrase now that we have to sort of mark that the step is complete to say, we've done that. What have we done? Well, we've installed the application, we've installed the tool. Okay. I begin with, okay, just because it's a very friendly way to begin, there's no real meaning here. Not much anyway, okay, now that we have that installed, now that we have that installed, okay, that was the task we had before. In the previous step, let's push the large button on the left side of the scanner along the front and wait for the green light. Okay, Now, is this more than one step together? Well, I think waiting for a green light is not an action Exactly. You're not, you're not doing anything other than pushing the button. And so I think it's just fine if we put this together with the instruction to push the large button. What if there are no other buttons on the scanner on the left? What if there's only one row of buttons on the front? And that's and that's all should we still say along the left side of the scanner or on the left side. So on the left side of the scanner, along the front, should we still say that? I think so. Again, remember, you are on the phone. So be as specific as you can. Whether you're talking about the position of something, whether you're talking about the total number of things that someone might see. Whether you're talking about the details of our particular service or words on something, whatever it may be, whatever it may be, be as specific as you can. What about this? Okay. Let's push am I there with you? Am I pushing it? No. But this is an interesting way to help establish connection. A connection with the person who's calling, who maybe is having a problem. If you say, let's do this, let's do that. Let us, it means we're doing it together. And it feels like using that language feels like we are now sort of on the same team. And it's a way to one, make a connection, maybe show empathy, and also give the customer the feeling that you are almost looking over their shoulder. And that is a comfortable feeling. Okay, So we can use this. Lets you certainly don't have to, but it's a very, very comforting thing to use. Okay, So we use this one when we want to mark the completion of the previous task. Then we say for the next instruction, then at the next action we use, let's say that we feel connected, they feel connected to us. And notice that I always by the way, say, let's go on. Because it's you and me. We're together in this course, right? I'm, I'm technically, I'm sitting here in a studio talking to a camera. But in a way because you're watching this, you're here with me. And that even though maybe I don't know you personally, it kind of makes us feel connected and when I'm talking to the camera, I don't feel I'm talking to the camera. I I feel like I'm talking to you. And that creates a connection, right? Okay. So let's push the large button on the left side of the scanner along the front and wait for the green lights. Wait for the green light. Okay. We could say if we wanted to make it separate. Do you see a green light after we actually wait for a little while, but I think this is even more clear. Okay, because then we know what we're looking for after we push the button. 15. Part 4: Confirming Completion: So far in our walkthrough, we've helped the customer download something and we've also made sure that it's installed and we've also confirmed that it is and we've actually turned the scanner on. Okay, So that part is successful. Now we're going to get into some steps that are a little bit more complicated. And one really useful phrase that we can use to talk about the purpose of each step and also to confirm that the last thing happened correctly. So we say if it's connected correctly. So it's really a way to say this is the purpose of this step. If you're not seeing the thing I'm about to say, that means we need to go back to the previous step and perhaps do something else or do it again or whatever. So if it's connected correctly, you should see an icon appear in your computer's settings in the toolbar at the top, right. Okay, So actually this is an icon. It's a little picture of something that's called an icon and it's honest screen. So icons we usually use on a digital screen, we don't as often use the word icon to talk about physical things, not as often. Okay, so you should see this, this is what we talked about previously when we said, you will see a light, you will see a light. You should see an icon up here. It's there. It wasn't there before. Now it is in your computer's settings. And again, we want to be very specific. So we should say where it is in the toolbar. If I know what kind of computer you're using, then I'll say in the toolbar at the top right, sometimes I'll say in the top right, both are generally okay when you're talking about the position, a screen at the top right, in the top-right toolbar. It usually is the part of your computer where you have little icons that maybe show your Wi-Fi status and Bluetooth status, things like that. Okay. Can you let me know if or when you see that? Now we could just stop here. You should see this at the top right, if everything is connected correctly. But we also need to give an action. We need to give them something to do. Because we want to move the process along. We want to go to the next step as soon as possible, right? And sometimes they, for whatever reason, might not say, Oh yes, I see the icon, it appeared. So just to put the ball in their court, you can ask a question like this. Can you let me know if you see that or can you let me know when you see that? See the icon? It's kind of an obvious question, but it does help to move things along. Putting the ball in someone's CT. put it's a phrase, put the ball in their court. What it means is the next thing has to come from them. They need to know that. They need to tell you when they see that thing that they're waiting for. Because if you don't tell them that clearly, there is a small chance that they will just sit there and say what next, then you need to say, Oh, do you see the icon? Yes. But you didn't ask. So this is a good question to sort of add on to put the ball in their court. That means they need to take the next action. Always a good idea to put the ball in their court. Just very quickly. Let me mention when we can say if, but not when. So in this case we can use either if or when. But sometimes we can only use if. If you're dealing with somebody who is maybe looking at a let's say they're looking at a warranty paper, the agreement that they signed for something, and you need to know whether or not there is a particular number on that agreement, okay? Because you need to confirm which type of agreement it is and you want them to look at the top left of that agreement, that piece of paper that they've got. Okay. In this case, you can say, let me know if you see the code JR to 31 in the top left corner. Okay, so now this one can use if, but not when. That's what I would call a branch point. Because if the answer is yes, the next instruction will be this way. If the answer is no, the next instruction will be this way. And we might go another direction. So it's a branch, branch. Oops, excuse me, be RA and CH. So this one without when, but with if is a great way to confirm information. We talked about that a little bit before in a previous lesson, but I just want to remind you of how important that phrase can be. Because if the answer is yes, it will go this way. If the answer is no, it may go this way. 16. Part 4: Troubleshooting: So we're trying to get this scanner setup and we're waiting to see if this icon appears in the toolbar. Okay, when it appears, we can go on to the next step. However, if it doesn't, we need to do something else. So if we want to explain the step beforehand, this is actually not very common. If you don't see that you will need to restart your computer. This is the kind of thing you'll see in written instructions when you're not actually talking to somebody and you're reading the manual, if you don't see the icon appear in your toolbar, you will need to restart your computer, okay? In this case though, it's going to be different. We're not going to say this. We're going to confirm that they don't see the icon. Or in the other example I gave that they don't see the number, the code in the top-left corner. You still don't see it. Or in the case of the form, you don't see that number. Okay. You still don't see it, then they'll say That's right. I don't or no, I don't. Okay. No problem. Now, we should say, okay, no problem as a way to sort of comfort them so that they know that it's a common thing that happens. They don't need to worry too much. Don't stress out about it. Okay, no problem. Let's again, we use let's because it feels like we're doing it together. Let's try restarting that should solve it. Or if it's a common issue that usually resolves the issue, that usually resolves the issue, let them know that it's something that happens frequently. So long as maybe they're clear that it's their computers issue, maybe not your products issue. Okay. Let's let's try restarting. You could add restarting your computer. Sometimes people will say rebooting, but restarting is fine. This is an important one to say to make them feel like they don't need to worry. But we can also use, in that case, in that case, we need to restart. Sometimes this does happen. Don't worry. Don't have to add that, but you can Don't worry. Okay. Or it's fairly normal? It's fairly common. It's fairly normal. In that case, is a common phrase we use when we want to say, because this is true, because you don't see the icon in the toolbar which you should see, then we need to take some other action. No, I don't see the code at the top left. That's the code I said now I forget. I don't see the code at the top left. Okay. In that case, can you turn the page over and let me know if you see another code at the bottom right. Oh, yeah, I see that. Okay. Can you tell me what that is, please? Okay. In that case, because of what you just said, because of what's happening. Now, we use this phrase, in that case, it's useful in all kinds of situations in life because this is true at this time. Let us take this action. In that case, I really like to use it. I use it quite often, okay. In that case, we need to restart. Sometimes this does happen, don't worry. But maybe the icon does appear. The thing that should happen does happen. Can you see the icon? Do you see the icon? Can you confirm that you see the icon? Yes, I see it. Oh good, Good, That's great. Click on it and choose Preferences. Click on the icon and choose preferences. Sometimes, depending on the computer, it's a right-click. Sometimes people are on a laptop. Maybe there is no right-click. Often you can just say click on it and choose preferences. Now when you say this word preferences, make sure you focus on it. It's important too, when you're speaking English to stress words that are important in the sentence. Whenever you're explaining something to anybody, you generally want to stress or focus on words that are important to your meaning. Things that you really want to communicate or get across, slow down the important words, stretch them out and increase the volume of your voice. So instead of saying, click on it and choose preferences from the drop-down menu, don't say that. Say click on it. Action and choose Preferences. Okay? We don't have to focus on Choose, we don't have to focus on drop-down menu. Drop-down menu is a menu that goes when you click on something on a computer. Okay, we don't have to focus on those things because they're not as important as the thing you have to click on, which is the word preferences. Click on it and choose preferences from the drop-down menu. Preferences, preferences. I'm saying it in a slower way and I'm saying in a little bit louder than the other parts of the sentence. That is just a small point, but it really can help to make what you're saying more clear to reduce the possibility of misunderstandings, okay? Then if I want to add something simple, I can say you can configure or change or adjust. Means basically set the preferences that you want. You can configure your quality settings here, okay? So after, after you've done this thing, I can give you some extra information about this thing. What does this thing do? What does clicking on preferences do? Well, it allows you to configure your quality settings. The last step is to let the customer know what they should see if they have done everything correctly up to this point, if we are actually done. Okay, So I can say, If you see, as I said before, if you see a little green dot, little green dots, little green dots beside the Scan button. It means the scanner is set up correctly. I could also ask, do you see a little green dots beside the Scan button? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Okay. That means you have set up the scanner correctly. Of course, there'll be very happy. Oh, thank you so much for your help. Then you can say, My pleasure. Of course. Oh, don't worry about it. I'm happy to help. Okay. Then you can ask if they have any other questions, If they need and the other help. But basically that's it. Now if they don't see that, if they say no, I don't see the green button, then you can go back a step. Okay. Tell me what you see. Can you tell me what you see? And we can do what we did before and say, if you see this, do this, if you see this, do this, and we can solve the problem. But I don't want to get into every single little possibility. I just want to share with you the really common phrases, the expressions that we can use when we're going through a walk-through, a step-by-step for how to complete tasks. So now hopefully you can take the phrases and the things we learned in this lesson and apply them to real situations that you come across, tried to actually make examples based on the kind of customers that you deal with, the kind of situations that you may face. So that when you find yourself in those situations for real, you're actually able to use these phrases to good luck with that. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 17. Part 5: Things to Keep in Mind: In the last lesson, we talked about how to do a walk-through, how to explain tasks in a process step by step. Now in this lesson we're going to talk about communication gaps. Let me explain what that means before we talk about how to fix and solve communication gaps. Well, a communication gap is when one person says something that the other person either doesn't understand or understands incorrectly. In other words, I say something, you think you understand what I said, but actually you understand the wrong thing. Okay, that's called a communication gap. And it can happen for many different reasons. Maybe it happens because one person didn't communicate clearly. Maybe it happens because one person isn't really paying attention. Maybe it happens because of a technical issue. Maybe you're on the phone and there's some noise or you're doing a video call and there's some what's called a lag. Maybe there's some lag or a connection issue. Maybe it's related to accent. Maybe someone has a very strong accent. That's hard for you to understand. An accent is a way of speaking a particular language. Sometimes when I talk with people from Australia, I don't really understand the words that they're saying. Sometimes because they use a lot of special words that pretty much only Australians know. So anyway, let's look at the case for this lesson and then we'll talk about some ways that we can make sure we are on the same page with the customer that we're talking with, the person we're talking with, not one on the same page. That's what we want, right? We want to be on the same page. That means we have the same understanding. There's no confusion going on. We want to avoid confusion. We want to reduce confusion. And there are some ways that we can do that, and I'm going to teach you that in this lesson. So let's look at the case as we always do. Erase, erase, erase, erase. Okay. Let's look at the case. You do service for a bank that provides online banking services. Okay. One customer doesn't understand why she was charged a fee. Okay. That means money extra for withdrawing cash from her credit card. But she has a heavy accent and you cannot completely understand. Okay? Now, heavy accent, we won't focus on which accent because it depends on where you come from, what you, what you would call a heavy accent, might be what I would call very easy to understand. Okay, so it's very relative. So let's first talk about some basic, some basic tips. As we often do some things to keep in mind when we're trying to communicate with people, especially over the phone. Again, it's harder over the phone and we're using a phone call for most of our cases because if you can do a phone call, you can definitely handle situations in person. Because when you're talking to someone face to face, you have the advantage of using your facial expressions, of pointing at things. So it's going to be much, much easier. The phone call customer service situations are the most challenging. So that's why we're mostly focusing on those. Everything else is easier. Alright, so here we go. So the first thing, the first tip is to, generally speaking, generally speaking, you want to avoid placing blame. In other words, avoid saying whose fault it is. If you say, Oh, it's your connection, you have a bad connection. Do you know that? Or your accent is very strong. I can't understand you. Does that sound nice to hear? No. And does it solve any problems? No. Not really. Unless there's an action that can be taken right away. Would you mind slowing down a little bit? That's an action. But you don't have to say, I can't understand you because of your accent. Focus on the action. Focus on resolving. Focus on resolving the problem. Don't focus on what the problem is, especially if it's clearly the other person's fault. Generally, you want to focus on the action that makes the other person feel like you're working to communicate rather than just trying to figure out whose fault it is, okay? Use gentle language and ask for repetition. Okay? Gentle language means, as we have learned throughout this course, language that is less direct, because less direct language often makes people feel more comfortable. And there's a way to use gentle language to ask for repetition. That means when things are not understood, it's much better to ask someone to say something again or say something again yourself than to assume that the other person understands what you said or assume that you understand what they said. If you aren't sure, ask for repetition. There's nothing wrong with it. Or if you're not sure if they understand you, repeat yourself. It's better to be understood clearly, to be on the same page, then assuming that you are, and then creating a misunderstanding that causes frustration and inpatients, that's a really, really important thing to keep in mind. Anytime you're communicating with anybody, especially on the phone. There is no shame in repeating yourself, and there's no shame in asking for repetition. Okay? Make sure, next one, makes sure to confirm something correctly. Confirm. One way to avoid misunderstandings is to repeat what the other person said to you as you understand it, to make sure that you've got the right idea to confirm. We've talked about some ways to do that so far in this course, we have, we're going to look at a few more in this lesson. So confirming allows you to stay on the same page with the customer that you're talking with. Let's get started and talk about some actual phrases we can use to handle these kinds of misunderstandings that may come up in regular calls or conversations. 18. Part 5: Asking for Repetition: When you don't understand something for whatever reason, technical issue, accent, whatever, ultimately, does it really matter if it's not a big issue? And it's just because something was said too quickly or there was a very small technical issue, ask for repetition, but do it politely. The simplest way to do that is to say, could you please repeat the last thing you just said? You don't have to say you just said this suggested was recent, but we could say could you please repeat the last thing you said? That would be okay too. We could replace could with can. That's fine. If we wanna say, Can you, can you please repeat the last thing? We could also replace this beginning part with, would you mind? Would you mind if we say, Would you mind, then here we need to say repeating, okay, So either one is fine, but we have to change the structure of the sentence a little bit. Could you please repeat the last thing you just said? Or would you mind repeating the last thing you just said? This is definitely the simplest way to ask somebody to say something again. Okay, this is for when there's not a major problem and it's just one thing you didn't hear. The last thing. Or if there are many points, somebody said three things and you, you know that there are three. Could you repeat the first one? The first one, let's say there's a list. I have three issues, number one, number two, and number three. Okay. I got it. I completely understand. But could you please repeat the first problem? You mentioned? The first problem, the second problem. So you can use this for lots of other different kinds of misunderstandings as well, but this is really the simplest form of asking for repetition. All right, Now let's look at another one though that's quite similar. If you want to say that you didn't understand, you can definitely, you can definitely do that. You can say, I didn't, didn't quite QU IITE quite. We'll talk about that in a second. I'm going to frame this with a very ugly box that I'm making now. I didn't quite I didn't quite get the part the part about the fee. Could you say that again? I didn't quite get that. All right. So let's talk about this one here where we're saying that we didn't understand this one. We're suggesting it here, we're saying it, but we add quite, because quite helps us to make language less direct. If you say, I didn't understand you, it sounds a little bit direct and it almost sounds like you're accusing. I didn't understand you as though you're wrong. Okay. But saying I didn't quite understand makes it very gentle, very indirect. It's very nice. Sounds good. Now, if we wanted to say the same thing here, I didn't quite get that. That would be fine. Just the last thing you said. I didn't quite get that. Could you repeat the last thing you just said? Could you repeat the first thing about the whatever. Okay. Or or we could say we could name it. Because maybe there are different sections. When somebody is talking about something, it's almost like there are different sections. So you talked about the fee. She talked about being at the ATM. She talked about her card, she talked about maybe the last call she made. There are different sections and when we want to reference those sections, we say the part about, okay. So I didn't quite, quite makes it sound gentle. The part about the fee didn't quite get the part about the fee. Could you say that again? We could say it just like this. Could you repeat that, please? Could you could you please repeat that? Could you please repeat that? The reason that we'll say repeat that instead of saying the thing you just said is because we're talking about the fee. Okay. Could you repeat that? That is about the part about the fee, this thing. Okay. So both of these are okay. Both of these are very polite. Both of these sounds sound good, and you can usually use either one. The next one we'll look at feels a little more formal and we'll talk about why it feels more formal. Way to say again in a way that sounds a little less casual. Okay. But anyway, I'm sorry, I wasn't able to catch that. Now we could add quite here. If you wanted to add quite, you'd put it right there. Wasn't quite able to catch that. All right. Now, why would we say, I'm sorry if it's not our fault? Well, in normal spoken English we use, sorry. Just as a way to say, Oops, Basically, when a mistake, some sort of mistake has been made, it doesn't mean that we feel sorry. It doesn't mean that we're admitting it's our fault or anything like that. I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch you. And we often say it very quickly. We don't say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's a sort of introduction thing and it just makes it feel a little more, a little more polite. I'm sorry. I wasn't able to catch that. Okay. We could say I didn't quite catch that as well. Didn't didn't quite catch that just like that. Okay. You can really mix and match these and use them in lots of different ways depending on the effect you want to have. Okay. Now, Would you mind saying that once more? Would you mind saying that once more, this one means again, and it feels more formal than saying again. So if you want to create that impression of being quite, quite formal, you can use once more, you can replace this with again. Would you mind saying it again? Or could you repeat that? You can use any of those phrases we've talked about so far. But this has a different effect. Different effect. Now this one could be replaced with here you Here you, you may want to say if you want to, if you think that maybe it's your issue, you may want to say the reason right here. So if you have to say a reason, I mentioned before that you shouldn't have to say the reason. But if you do need to say the reason I put it here after because I'm sorry. I wasn't able to catch that because because there was some static. That's not saying it's my fault or your fault. Static is the sh sound that you hear when something is not clear on the phones called static. Okay. So there was there was some static. It's a good way to say to your fault, my fault. I don't know. Anyway, that's the reason I wasn't able to hear you. So that works well. What about when the misunderstanding is not due to accent or some technical problem, but it's due to their inability to explain clearly. Or maybe you were distracted because your coworker over there was making a funny face hand, you weren't paying attention. Hey, it happens, it happens. So what do you do when that happens? And you need them to repeat, not because you didn't hear, but because you didn't understand for whatever reason. Okay. Well, here's one way we could do it. And again, we could substitute in a lot of the phrases that we've learned so far in this lesson as well. And we can talk about how we could do that. Okay? I'm having a bit of trouble understanding. We use this ongoing it's called continuous tense ING because we're doing it now, we're experiencing it now. Instead of saying, I didn't understand you having trouble some trouble understanding. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding. This makes it feel like it's a thing that's happening in the moment that we need to correct. This makes it feel more immediate, may be more personal, Okay. Now we could say a bit of trouble or we could say some trouble. Those are exactly the same. We use these two for the same reason that we used quite before. Couldn't quite hear you. We really are using it to make what we're saying sound less direct. Okay, so a little bit less direct. I'm having a bit I'm having some, a bit of trouble understanding what you mean. Now we could say a bit of trouble understanding you. And that could be like our previous examples because of some technical issue or whatever. But what you mean is perhaps when they haven't explained it clearly, if I tried to say something and my thoughts are not well organized and I'm not able to express it, which is very common. Then you might say this, what you mean, what you mean, okay, Now that's different. That is suggesting to them that they haven't been clear, but hopefully saying it this way will not make them feel sort of upset like you're accusing them because you're very politely asking them to repeat. I'd appreciate if you could explain it again. I'd appreciate I'd appreciate if you could explain it. Again. We could use the same phrases that we talked about before. Would you mind repeating it, please? Could you please repeat that? Could you please say that again? All of those phrases are fine. It's really this part. What do you mean that's different here? And using this as a way to make it sound less direct. 19. Part 5: "Is that about right?": Okay, So we've talked about how we can ask somebody to say something again. Now let's focus on how we can confirm information to make sure that we have understood something correctly. This is something you want to do regularly, even if you're pretty sure that you did understand, right? So I want to be clear that you can use these phrases even if you're not asking them to repeat, even if it's 98% clear to you, it's still good to confirm that you understand to make sure, as I said, you're on the same page. The same page. All right, so let's talk about some ways that we can do that, some common ways. Can I just, we talked about this word. Just, it's a great little word to use in phrases like this as a way to make things sound more comfortable. Does it really have a strong meaning here? Well, kind of, but not really, it's not that important because we could say, can I confirm? Adding just here gives it a different feeling. Remember, in this course we're also talking about the feelings, the emotions that we create for the customer as a way to make them feel comfortable. Right. Okay. So can I just confirm you said that you want me to refund the charge. This part is very direct. For this part, you don't want to use any indirect language because you want to avoid any confusion here. If you use too many words to express the thing that you understand to be the case, the thing that you understand to be what they want you to do, then they might understand, they might misunderstand that. And if they misunderstand that, then it becomes a big mess. So you said that's all you say that to. You want me to and then say the action. I would recommend using this as a formula. Whenever you want to repeat something, just say it like this. You said that you want me to and then the action, it's very simple. Write that down and memorize it because it really is the simplest way to confirm an action that the customer wants you to take. Okay. Then after it you say, is that correct? Is that correct? All they have to do then is say yes. Yes. Okay. They should say after this. Yep. Yes. Yeah. That's right. That's correct. Okay. This is probably the most basic and clearest way to confirm. Another really simple way to confirm details, to confirm an issue is to state that that's what you're going to do right at the beginning. I just want to make sure I understand. Okay, It's a great phrase to use to let the customer know that you're ready to solve the issue. But before you do, you want to make sure there's no misunderstanding? Okay. Make sure. Sure. This one's suggests that you know, for sure, but you want to be a responsible person and confirm, okay. The issue is that notice I use the word VAT right before we say the issue right here. We're not saying the action that we're going to take. We're just confirming what the problem is. Okay. The issue is that you could take out that here, but I think that acts as a very good marker for where the issue is going to begin in normal conversation, regular chatting with people, we can say the issue is you weren't aware of the fee? Right? Okay. But when we're on a call like this and we were talking on the phone, more clarity is better. I suggest keeping that in as a marker. The more you make your expressions like little sections and you mark things clearly. This is the part where I say that I want to confirm. This is the part where I say I'm about to say the issue. This is the part where I mark that I'm going to begin explaining your issue. The more you can do that, the lower the probability, the lower the chance of misunderstandings. The issue is that you weren't aware of the fee, aware of something means you you didn't know about it. Now that's a K. Believe it or not. You didn't know about it? We often use aware of I wasn't aware of that. Are you aware of this? Do you know about this? Okay. You weren't aware of the fee, right? Very simple way to ask someone if you have something correct, you make a statement, then you say right. All they need to do now is say, right. It's very important here that your tone is correct. If you say Right, that's confusing. You have to say, right? Because when you say right, like that and it goes up, What you're really saying is, is that right? Right. And then they can say, right. Notice that my voice falls there or yes or yep or correct. And you could also say correct, correct. It's a great way to ask questions using only your voice. Ready, right? Hungry. Okay, here's another variation, another way to say what we just said. Let me repeat it back. Let me repeat it back to be sure I'm clear. I could say to make sure I'm clear, repeat it back means you set it to me. Now I'm going to say it to you. Okay. Let me repeat it back. You could say Allow me to repeat it back. It's a little formal. Might be too formal, but you can say it. Allow me to repeat it back. Let me repeat it back to be sure I'm clear. Sometimes we can say Are you clear? Are we clear? Means do we understand each other? I don't think it fits this situation. I'm clear. Is okay. But are we clear? Maybe it's something between business partners anyway. You were charged this fee and didn't know that a credit card withdraw would have a fee. I'm summarizing, that's all I'm doing. All I'm doing is taking this five-minute explanation of the issue. I understood it. I'm pretty sure. Okay. Maybe there were no issues with me understanding. I didn't need to ask for any repetition, but because the explanation was five minutes long, I want to give a quick summary of what I heard because that's a good way to then move on to the action and to let the customer know. I was listening carefully throughout. Actually, giving that quick summary is a very comforting thing for them. It tells them, Oh hey, they were really listening to me and they were able to understand everything that I said. Now I feel comfortable knowing that whatever solution they give me will be a solution that fits my issue, okay. If you don't do that, then they might feel really understand my problem. There's nothing more frustrating than feeling like the person you're talking with doesn't really understand one more of these beginning with, so this one feels a little more casual, little more relaxed when we want to summarize something or confirm something we often begin with. So you may notice at the end of some points that I make, I say so and then I make a clear final point. Hopefully or I summarize something or I confirm something. Okay. So you saw the fee and weren't sure why it was there? This one is very simple. This structure is very simple. So marks that I'm going to confirm something. We can use that in lots of different situations. When we're going to meet, a friend will say. So. Let's meet at seven o'clock downtown on Third Street. Right. Okay. Great. So you saw the fee, right? Maybe on your phone. What's this fee? And you weren't sure why it was there? $20 fee for my withdraw with my credit card. What's this? I'm just summarizing. Is that the situation now this is just the same as saying, Is that correct? Correct. Right. These are basically all the same, just different ways to do it. Is that the situation sometimes will say is that about right? That's okay too. There are lots of different ways we can do it. But anyway, so it's a very comfortable, very simple way to confirm information. 20. Part 5: Numbers and Names: So we've talked about how to ask the customer to repeat things that maybe we didn't hear correctly or didn't understand completely. We've also talked about how to confirm information, to confirm details using a couple of simple phrases. Now I want to just make sure we focus on basic information. Because sometimes the most difficult things to completely understand, the most common misunderstandings come from basic information, phone number, full name, or perhaps email address, things like that. So we want to generally always repeat back information to make sure that we didn't write it down incorrectly. Let's say we've asked for a phone number and we say, could you please provide your phone number? Could you please give me your phone number? All right. It's for 19 75273834197527383. This is a tip for Americans when you're speaking with an American on the phone and you repeating a number back. Never say double. Never, never say triple. Say each number. In America we do not say double or triple four. Don't do it because it will cause frustration. So always avoid using double, triple if you have several numbers in a row that are the same, okay, So just say each number 1 by 1, especially when you're talking with Americans on the phone. That's an American tip. Okay. So for 197527383. That's what I hear. Okay. So let me just repeat that back to you. Let me just repeat that back to you. That means I'm now going to confirm it. I could say so let me just confirm that number. It's for 19 let's say it's 4197527527382. So it's incorrect. Okay. Then I say Is that correct? No, it is not correct. So in this sort of situation as the customer, you want to make sure it's only this that you say and that you focus on or stress with your voice. The incorrect number, not 7382, it's 7383. So we would stress to and then stress three. And you can do that again if you're repeating it back once more. Okay. So it's 7527383. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. Okay. I got it. So that's how you can confirm the number whenever you need to correct something that you've got incorrect the first time, you want to stress the incorrect digits and then stress the correct digit. And remember, don't use double or triple if there are several consecutive numbers in a row which are the same. Similarly, with basic information, it can be difficult to correctly here, letters in names or perhaps letters in email addresses, sometimes letters in maybe usernames, okay, because if you're on the phone, D and B sound very similar. M and N M&M and sound very similar. So the very simple way to confirm this is to use as in, as in. For example, m might be Mary, M as in Mary, you say each letter and then after each letter, use as in my name is pretty. But people often think that the spelling of my name is like this PRE TTY, because pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty sound very similar, right? So I always need to spell it. And when people are listening to me on the phone, customer service people, they need to repeat it Back to make sure they got it correct. Exactly as with the phone number, we would say. Okay, let me repeat that back to you. This is very simple. You don't really need to change that. Let me just confirm that it's P as in penguin, are as in Rhino, I as in India, D as in dog, D as in dog, and Y as in yellow. So again, generally you want to choose fairly common words that most people know. Words that are quite distinct, that don't really sound like other common words. And in fact, there are some common lists of words that can be used. The military uses a specific set of words for each letter. You can learn that if you want, but a lot of people just choose common words. So I would recommend just choosing a unique, distinctive word that is associated with each letter. And just use, as in pretty simple, these sorts of basic ways to confirm our very simple, but they can avoid a lot of big problems. I'm sure, as you know, if basic information is incorrect, input incorrectly, then terrible things can happen. In this course, we're learning a lot of phrases and a lot of the phrases that we're learning can be changed and adjusted to work in all kinds of different situations. So as usual, when you're reviewing this lesson, go back and try to write down the examples and then make your own examples that fit your own situation and the kind of cases that you may deal with in your job. This is a good way to really keep the phrases that we're learning in mind. If you practice a lot, then when you need to use them, they will be there in your head. Good luck with that, and I will see you in the next lesson. 21. Part 6: The Formula: In the last lesson, we talked about avoiding communication gaps. Just very important to make sure you're on the same page with the customer you're talking to or anyone else, for that matter, you're trying to communicate with clearly. In this lesson, we're going to focus on maybe one of the main reasons that people take a course like this, which is dealing with customers who are upset and how we can communicate with those customers who are upset so that they feel better, so that they perhaps calm down. We're going to spend this lesson and actually the next couple of lessons focusing on this, because it is quite difficult, but we're going to go slowly. We're going to go through a few different steps. And we're going to cover many phrases that can help us handle customers who may be frustrated, customers who may get upset, get emotional. And hopefully by the end of this, you will have a very, very clear understanding of how you can best communicate with those customers. So we're going to talk about first the meaning of empathy. I'm going to explain that. Then we're going to go over a simple formula you can use when you're talking to someone who is upset. Then we're going to go over some very simple phrases. Then we'll go into some more in-depth expressions and look at full examples, things we might say to unhappy customers. This lesson we'll focus on empathy. Showing empathy not only about solving problems, we'll talk about that later in another lesson. How do we show empathy? Well, what is empathy? Empathy very simply is understanding how someone might feel. If you show empathy to someone, you show them through your words or your actions that you understand their feeling. That you can feel what they feel in a way. That is empathy. That's the meaning of empathy. And it's very important because if you, if you can feel empathy and show empathy, then you're able to make a real connection with people. And if someone is very upset and they see and believe that you are empathetic to them, that you are feeling what they feel. They might calm down more quickly. They might want to listen to you. They might relax a bit, and then you can move forward with solving their issue. Okay, So that's what we're going to focus on in this lesson, and that is what empathy means. Here's the case. You work for a bus company and a customer is furious. Furious means very angry is furious because the bus they took went to the wrong city. Now, put yourself in the situation or the position of that person. You really want to go somewhere, right? But the bus you'd get on which you paid for. Goes to the wrong place. How would you feel? Angry. Okay, So when you call, you're going to be upset. Probably people get upset for lots of different reasons. Sometimes people are upset for reasonable reasons. In this case, I think it's reasonable if this bus company sent me to the wrong city. I'm going to be upset. Sometimes I might be angry because I don't really understand something. Lots of different possible reasons. Regardless, it's very important in general to try to really see things from their point of view, from the customer's point of view. Are they upset for the right reason? If you resent them and think to yourself of this person is stupid for being angry. They're shouting at me. Try to remember that it's generally not personal. They're generally not angry with you. They're generally angry about the situation. They might be generally angry with your whole company, but they're probably not angry at specifically you. But that's important to keep in mind. It's important to keep in mind that they probably aren't angry with you. They're probably not angry with you personally. And if you keep that in mind, hopefully that will help keep you calm and allow you to be patient so that you can better help them and keep them calm and trying to see it there way. That means if you were in their position, how would you feel? Another way we can say this is put yourself in their shoes. This is a common expression we use in English to say, see how other people feel and ask yourself if you might feel the same way. If you were them, put put yourself in their shoes. If I were in your shoes, if I were in your shoes, I might feel that way too. I think that's important generally in customer service and in life. If you're able to put yourself in the shoes of another person, then when you maybe have a conflict that you need to resolve or a disagreement or whatever, you're able to look at it in a different way, which might help you again to stay calm and resolve whatever issue you might be having as quickly as possible. So those are the things that are, I think, important to keep in mind when you're dealing with people who are emotional. Those are the things that can help you not get emotional. Before we really get started with the expressions that we're going to learn in this lesson, I'd like to look at a formula, a structure that you can go through anytime you are going to show sympathy or empathy with someone who's upset, especially in this sort of customer service situation. You work for the bus company and you're dealing with someone who is not happy at all. Well, first, avoid excuses. So don't assume that they're wrong and you're right. Obviously. But more importantly, don't start giving reasons right away. Don't start explaining and explaining and explaining what happened right away. That sounds like an excuse. When people hear excuses, they tend to get more upset. So avoid saying, oh, it was because of this or this happened because of that. If it sounds like an excuse or a way to try to avoid responsibility as a company. Generally speaking, the customer will get more upset. Now there are some cases where you can explain what went wrong, what happened. Sure. We'll talk about that in a future lesson. But in this case, in this case, we want to generally avoid excuses. So the first step in the formula is what not to do, okay, So then the next, the next part of it is to acknowledge, acknowledge their frustration and apologize. That means you need to say something that lets them know that you know, that they're unhappy. You're not really showing empathy yet. You're just acknowledging it. It's like saying, Yeah, this is there. Okay. Don't don't show them that you're trying to avoid realizing that they're unhappy. Frustration means unhappiness, anger, and make a statement of apology. So do you need to apologize personally? Well, no. But sometimes we use apologies as a way to show a little bit of empathy, to show that we feel bad, that they're having a bad feeling. But if somebody passes away or dies, we say, Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm so sorry to hear that your great grandmother passed away. I didn't I didn't kill your great grandmother. I'm sorry that you feel bad. So sorry is not only for when we did something wrong, okay, so first acknowledged, then generally speaking, give some kind of apology. A simple apology is fine and we'll talk about how to do that, okay? Next, you want to add, add something to show empathy or make a promise to help. That's the word promise. That's an S there. Some, I make a promise to help. Okay, so first, we want to avoid making excuses from the beginning. Then we want to acknowledge that they are unhappy, that they're angry. Then we want to generally make an apology of some kind on behalf of the company, then add something to show empathy and then maybe show that we're going to take action. We're not actually going to talk about resolving issues for angry customers in this lesson, we're going to be focusing on that in a future and a future lesson, but we can at least commit or promise to help. So this is a general formula that you can follow when someone expresses an issue that they've had and shows that they are quite upset, quite frustrated. 22. Part 6: Showing Empathy: So let's now just look at some very simple expressions that we can use. Very simple expressions to either show empathy or apologize. Okay, Let's go through these. The expressions are blended together, apology and empathy statements because they're very similar and you can often use them interchangeably. Okay. So I get it now this one is quite minor. If it's a very small thing. I get it. I get it. I get it. And they're complaining about an issue that maybe happens very frequently. You could say, I get it as a way to say maybe you've heard the issue many times before or you've had it yourself and you can empathize with it, but it's usually small. Should we use this for the bus company situation? We represent the bus company. They'd been taken to the wrong city. This one is probably not appropriate. It's not strong enough. This one is for pretty minor or small things, okay? That is really unacceptable. Unacceptable on our part. That means we have done something that seems to be really, really bad. We've taken you to the wrong city on your bus, that's really not good. So we can just directly describe what kind of thing that is that's, that's unacceptable. This is one way to recognize this person's problem and acknowledge that it is a very serious problem, okay, that is really unacceptable. We could also add other words instead of really, we could say totally, absolutely, can't spell out the whole word. Absolutely completely unacceptable. You're right to be upset. Your right to be upset. Now this one again, is a way to acknowledge that the person is upset, but also to not fault them for it. To basically say, I think it's very reasonable that you're upset. It's a way to say that perhaps if you were in their shoes, you might feel the same way. Okay. I'm very sorry to hear that this is the one I mentioned before. If maybe someone you know, has a loved one that passes away, you might say, I'm very sorry to hear that. If somebody tells you that their bus took them to the wrong city, it's okay to say Well, I'm I'm really sorry to hear that. We might also say, I'm sorry that happened. Or we could say, I'm sorry, you had such a bad experience. Okay. We could say, I'm very sorry that I'm very sorry that you had such a bad such a bad experience. That would be totally okay too. That's a very natural one. This one, it's really too bad in many cases, is also quite minor. Not for a big deal. I know really makes it sound like it is. But if we say, oh, that's too bad, That's too bad. It's for small things. If you said it with the right tone of voice, then I think it would work. For example, you took me to the wrong city. I ended up in that city I was supposed to be in this city. Well, that's really that's really too bad. Let's figure out what happened. Okay, So if you showed that in your voice that you were really concerned that you acknowledged their frustration and you want to show empathy and resolve the issue as quickly as possible. You can use this one too, but I think these are a little bit better, my opinion. Okay. That must be so frustrating, that must be so frustrating. This one is a very common expression. And you hear something like this and you want to empathize, can say, that must be so frustrating, so frustrating than they might say, Yeah, it is. Then you can tell them that you're ready to help them resolve the issue. But before you do that, you acknowledge and show empathy. That must be so frustrating. Let's look at just a few more simple expressions before we get into the more detailed expressions of empathy that we can use, I want to be clear that you can mix and match the expressions according to your need. You might fit together a statement to apologize or an expression to apologize with another one that shows empathy. You may say something to acknowledge someone's issue and then follow that by an apology so you can really mix them up. The formula I mentioned is, I think a good guideline for things to include. But they they definitely don't have to be in that order. And you can certainly take things out or put them in as you need. Okay, So some more expressions to show empathy here. I can certainly understand. I can certainly understand. This doesn't mean that you understand what they said. This means that you understand the frustration they're feeling. That's what this means. Okay. If somebody tells you about something terrible that happened, you can say I yeah, I can certainly understand that you have to be careful with this with the tone of your voice. You have to be careful that the tone of your voice is genuine. Genuine, genuine. Now I think this really separates customer service people in general, people who have a very genuine tone, a very real tone. You feel like you're talking to a real person. People who have that are usually very good at doing what they do. People who sound kind of fake, like they're forcing it, maybe struggle a little bit to make the customer trust them and feel like they really empathize. Okay, So if you say this one with a very genuine tone, I think it works. However, if you feel like you're not sure how to have a genuine tone or you're not sure whether or not you do, then maybe it would be better to use the second one. I think I know how you feel. I think I know how you feel. The reason that this one is better is because if you say, I can certainly understand, it sort of assumes that you really do understand their anger when in fact, you probably don't, because maybe you haven't had the same experience and they might feel as though you're just trying to get them to stop complaining. So this one might, might, if you don't say it correctly, backfire. That means that might have the opposite effect if you don't say it with the right genuine sound. But this one, I think I know how you feel. I think I can understand how you're feeling. This is pretty much the same thing you are feeling is because it's happening right now. I think I know how you feel. I think I can understand how you're feeling. Both of these are okay. That's completely reasonable. That's completely reasonable. This one is kind of acknowledging, kind of showing empathy. It's like saying what you're feeling is the right feeling. And anybody who is in this situation would have the same feeling. I think I would feel and I like this one best. I would feel the same way. I would feel the same way in your shoes. I would feel the same way in your place. For this one, I would feel the same way. Wood is very useful because it's a hypothetical. It's not real. This hasn't happened to me. I haven't had this terrible thing happened to me before. But if it were to happen to me, I would feel the same as you. I would feel upset. Okay. I would feel the same way in your shoes. Remember we talked about being in someone else's shoes. We can also say place personally. I think this is the best simple expression for showing empathy. 23. Part 6: Full Examples: So we've looked at the basic formula we can use to show empathy and acknowledge the customer's frustration because they were sent to the wrong city. We also looked at some basic expressions we can use to apologize, to acknowledge, and to show empathy. Now we're going to look at some full examples. I am going to put all those pieces together and we're going to do a few different variations of this. And again, I want to mention that you can mix these up according to your need. So let's read through this one. We'll talk about the different pieces and then I'll explain how else we can use the expressions. I completely understand how frustrating must be, and I apologize that this happened. I think I would feel the same way if I were you. Okay. Now this one has the acknowledgment at the beginning. Then it has the topology and it has at the end a statement of empathy. Now this first one kind of shows empathy to I completely understand how frustrating that must be. Okay, so this one's actually actually quite good. It has all those pieces. Notice this one. I think I would feel the same way if I were you is a little different from the shoes, one that we talked about a moment ago, right? If I were in your shoes, basically though, it's the same it's the same expression, so it doesn't matter. I just want to show you another way that you can say that you can substitute things in here instead of saying that must be. And I apologize, you can say I completely understand how you feel and I'm really sorry that this happened. You could say I completely understand how you feel and I'm sorry, this happened. If I were you if I were in your shoes, I would feel the same way. Let's move on and talk about another full example. After the customer finishes explaining the problem, we can just say, I see, I see, we don't have to say that, but we can then listen. This is a way to say that I'm going to be very honest with you. I'm going to really empathize with you. If you want to leave that part out, that's totally fine. Some people can say that in sound natural and some can't. I see, Listen, I'm really sorry. And so that sounds fairly natural, right? But you could leave it out as well. I'm really sorry this happen. And let me just say I'm bringing in just again, just as very common. Let me just say that I can totally sympathize. I can totally sympathize. Remember, we have to be careful about this kind of expression. But in this example, we can say why we sympathize. The next one. I've had similar experiences and it can be infuriating. That means it can make you very angry. This kind of thing has happened to me before. I've had similar experiences. Okay. So sometimes when you say this one to sympathize or to say, you know how someone feels, you can use this expression, I can sympathize. It may be a good idea. It may be a good idea to mention. You've had a similar experience. You don't have to go into detail. Usually, maybe it's best if you don't, but at least saying that you have had the experience can be a good way to show show empathy. Okay. I'll do everything I can to fix this. I'll do everything I can to resolve this for you. I'll do everything I can to help you. Okay? This is a way that we can make a commitment, make a promise to help. Once we've acknowledged and made an apology and said that we feel the same way where we've had similar experiences. Then we can say, make a commitment to, to say that we're going to fix whatever problem it may be and to find some solutions. What's the difference between sympathize by the way and empathize. Sympathy is usually a statement. Empathy is more of a feeling. Sympathy is usually an action. They can be similar but showing sympathy. I can sympathize. Showing sympathy shows someone that you're sorry. Empathy really is just understanding how somebody feels, okay. So you show sympathy to people who are having a bad time. You show them sympathy, or you sympathize. Could you say empathize? I can totally empathize. Yeah. That would be okay too. You can absolutely use empathize as well. Well, sir, well miss this is a very common in natural way to begin, something like this. Okay. Missus better than ma'am. Probably better than Ms. Miss. And you hear a lady on the phone generally you can use miss well, sir, Miss let me first apologize. And you could add just here if you want to. Let me first just put it right there. Just right there. Let me first just apologize. On behalf of the company. On behalf of the company. What does that mean? That means that I'm I'm telling you this is not me obviously who caused this problem. I wasn't the driver of the bus, but I am as a representative of the company, letting you know that the company is sorry. And this is a very common thing to say. This is a very common thing to hear. Let me just apologize on behalf of the company or I would like to first apologize on behalf of the company. I think I know how you feel and this is really unacceptable. So we've shown there that we are empathetic. I think I know how you feel and this is unacceptable. That part acknowledges the frustration. Okay. I'm going to do everything I can to help you. I'm going to help you resolve this, whatever you need to say after that then, okay. So this is very similar, but we can use well here and we can say sir or miss. If you have their name, that would be okay if you know their name. But certain myths is also generally fine. When you hear bad news, you can often say, it's a shame. It's really a shame, similar to our expression, too bad that we learned earlier. It's really a shame that you had to go through that. It's really a shame that you had to. Go through that or deal. So an ordeal. An ordeal is a bad experience that you may have to go through. Something is usually a way to express something bad so you don't have to add the word or deal here, but you can to emphasize it. But if we say Here, go through that, it really suggests a negative. I've been through so many things in my life. Sometimes people say that, does that mean I've been through many happy experiences. Generally, what it means is you've struggled a lot. You've had a lot of struggle. I've been through a lot in my life. It's going to be some negative things and maybe those things made you stronger, but still those things are probably negative things struggle. Basically. I know how frustrating it can be to have travel plans disrupted. This one is really good because you're specifically saying what the issue is and sympathizing at the same time. If you just say, I know how you feel, I think I know how you feel. I think I can sympathize. I would feel the same way in your shoes. Those are very general expressions that we can use to show empathy or to express sympathy. Write this one is specific. So you can use this as a basic structure. I know how frustrating, infuriating, whatever, I know how frustrating it can be. Two, then we say the negative thing that happened. We summarize it kind of to have travel plans disrupted. We make this a little more general because actually that's what really happened. It wasn't really that the bus went to the wrong city. That wasn't the point. That wasn't the thing that made this person angry as a way to show that we really understand the issue that we really, really get why they're upset. We can give a kind of summary or overview of real frustration, which is not that the bus went to the wrong city. It's that the travel plans were disrupted. Why are they upset about going to the wrong city? Well, because they had plans in the place where they wanted to go. They don't have any plans in the place that they accidentally ended up. That's why they're upset. But maybe they didn't even say that. But because you really deeply understand their issue, you can say this to show that very useful. I know how frustrating it can be to have travel plans disrupted. Okay. It's a higher level, sort of a higher level expression. And you want to generally not just repeat what they said. You want to make that kind of summary. You want to make an expression that shows that you understand the deeper reason for their frustration. That's I think very important. Okay. I'm going to do everything I can to help you. I'm not really focusing on these end expressions here because we are going to focus on that in a future lesson. We're going to learn more expressions for how to say that we're going to take action. So we're not really going to focus on, on that, but I hope this is clear. This one is really useful. It's a very useful way. It's a very useful way to show you understand how someone feels. Saying that something is a shame or two bad is kind of like an acknowledgment and apology mixed together. The last example I want to look at in this lesson is similar to the one we did before, where we made a quick summary, kind of an analysis of the real reason why the customer is angry. You're absolutely right to be upset. Acknowledgment. Okay. You had your whole trip disrupted or you had all your trip plans ruined. You're showing that you deeply understand why they're angry, even if they didn't say exactly that. That is the deeper reason. Right? Because the bus went to the wrong city, that would make anyone feel the same way. That would make anyone feel the same way. This is a really interesting way to show that their emotion is totally reasonable. If I were to be taken to the wrong city. If anyone what had been taken to the wrong city, anyone would be upset, including me, including you. So it's a great way to, it's a great way to sympathize. It's a great way to show that you understand. It's a great way to help them feel like, Hey, hey, it's not just you, you're not crazy to be angry. I would be angry too. It's a great expression. I think it's a really good way. If we want to put other things in here, we certainly can. Do. We need absolutely, you're absolutely right. No. You could say You're totally right. We could say nothing there. We could say, You are, right? Sometimes that sort of short expression can be very clear. You're right to be upset. You're correct to be upset. Okay. You're justified in being upset. Maybe maybe you had your whole trip disrupted. You had your travel plans ruined. Your have your travel plans ruined? You could express this in lots of different ways. You have to be a bit creative to do this part well And you really do have to deeply understand. So in the lesson where we talked about the unexpected fee, then we might say, Listen, I think it's very reasonable that you're upset when finances seem unstable and uncertain, it can be very scary. She didn't tell me that she actually felt that way. But I know that's the deeper reason because I really understand what's going on, right? If you want to, instead of saying the same way, you could substitute in or put in another phrase of frustration. Anyone would feel frustrated, anyone would feel angry, anyone would feel furious. Whatever you want to say. That helps to sort of reiterate your empathy. Reiterate means to focus on it more and make sure that it's very clear. Sometimes you need to say things again to make sure they're clear. You reiterate certain points, reiterate. All right, so that's it for this lesson. In order to remember the expressions that we learned, again, it's important to take notes and then very importantly tried to fit the expressions we talked about into your own situations, into examples that you make that fit the kind of situations you need to deal with in your own job, mix and match. See if you can substitute in expressions within other examples that I gave so that you can get a deeper understanding of the things that we talked about in this lesson. I know I say this after every lesson almost, but it is very important. It is the way to get it deeply inside your head. And I will continue to mention it, right. See you in the next lesson. 24. Part 6: More Empathy Phrases: In the last lesson, we talked about how we can show empathy to an angry customer. Something that you may come across very often when you deal with customers who have issues. Well, in the next lesson we're going to be talking about how we can give solutions and we'll go over lots of examples. But one thing I want to do in this very short middle lesson is give you a few more expressions that might be useful in similar situations that you can use to show empathy basically. So I want to just give you a few more useful expressions and I want to just go through them very quickly, one by one, very quickly. So let's call this a speed round. Empathy phrases, speed round, Speed round means we're going to go very fast. All right. Thank you for your patients. This is very general. When someone is waiting for something, we want to say generally, thank you for your patients. Or for example, the customer has called three or four times. They're getting very upset with each call. Thank you for your patients. Another way to say this is I really appreciate you being so patient. It's exactly the same meaning, this one, I think it's just a bit more, a bit more casual. So this one is a bit more casual, more relaxed, and this one is a bit more, bit more formal. But the meaning, the function is the same, can be used on the phone, can be used face to face, whatever the situation. All right, By the way, patient is adjective. Patients is a noun. Just so you know, I agree with you 100%, I agree with you 100%. Sometimes the customer may ask you, can you believe that this happened or isn't that ridiculous? Isn't that ridiculous? Yes, I agree with you 100%. So if someone is upset with me and they asked me a question to ask whether or not I sympathize with them, whether or not I have empathy, I might say, yeah, I agree 100%. That is a way to say, I feel the same way, right? In your shoes, in your shoes. I might feel the same way. I agree 100%. Another way to say this very simply is absolutely. Could we just say, I agree with you? And that's it. Yeah, You could, but 100% makes it sound more strong, right? It's a way to say you're absolutely right. Remember we learned, you're absolutely right to feel this way, okay? Yes. That is completely understandable. Completely understandable. If you've called five times and you still haven't resolved the issue, you still haven't got your ticket reimbursed, which is what you really want. You want your ticket to be reimbursed. That means you want it to be paid for and you've called five times, it hasn't happened yet, then you ask me, Does that make sense to you? Isn't that ridiculous? You're very upset. Yeah. It's completely understandable. Or I'm really upset. I'm furious. Hey, that is completely understandable. And here we might say, maybe, I get it, I get it. Remember we learned that expression before. You've got a point. You've got a point. Now this one is a little bit different than that is completely understandable. That's when maybe we disagree on something. And you say something and I'm going to give up something that maybe I said before or maybe I didn't notice something before. So the customer says, you guys sent me another ticket. The customer who was sent to the wrong city. I don't want another ticket. I don't want to go anywhere. I want it to be reimbursed. Then I say, you've got a point. You've absolutely got a point. Is it reasonable to give somebody another ticket when they don't really want to go anywhere, It's not very valuable. Even if we say we'll give you a free ticket for your next trip, that could be in a year or two, right? I might say, well, you've got a point. The thing that you said is reasonable, reasonable, or maybe yeah, I didn't really think about it that way before. Okay, We'll talk more about that kind of situation in a future lesson, we're going to spend some real time on dealing with unhappy customers. I think it's a very important thing to focus on in this course. You're exactly right. This is very simple. It can be used throughout any conversation when you're dealing with someone who is quite upset, right? And they feel a certain way saying You're absolutely right, You're absolutely right. Multiple times is a way to say I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm not contradicting you. I'm not telling you you're wrong. Because sometimes if somebody's very frustrated and they're telling you their issue on the phone. Maybe they talk for ten minutes. After they finish, they might feel better. But along the way to let them know that you're listening, that you empathize without saying too much. You might say, You're absolutely right. Yes. You're absolutely right. Well, you've got a point there. You've got a point. Sometimes we say you've got a point there, okay? So this one can be a good, a good way to sort of throw something in when the other person, the angry customer, is talking a lot. And hopefully after ten minutes, they will get it out of care system. What does that mean? That means after they've shouted or said something in an angry way, they might start to calm down. They might, they might feel better a little bit. Then we can use some of the other expressions that we've learned to show empathy. Thank you for taking the time to call. This one is useful at the beginning or the end of the explanation of the issue or sometimes at the very end of the call. Thank you for taking the time to call. We can hear that maybe they're upset. So we went to thank them right at the beginning to let them know that we're going to be respectful and listened carefully and tried to help them with their issue. And then say, could you tell me a little bit more about your issue? We learned that earlier in the course or after they've explained it, we might say, well, thank you for taking the time to call and I completely understand how you feel or one of the other expressions that we've, that we've learned to show, to show empathy or the very end of the phone call. Thank you for taking the time to call and I'm glad I was able to help you resolve this issue. Have a great day. So this can be used in several different places throughout the call. You may only use it once, but you can use it at these points. Okay. I'm glad you I'm glad you reached out to us. I'm glad you reached out to us to reach out to someone is to call to send an e-mail. It's a very general expression that we use to mean to communicate with someone proactively, right? But it doesn't have to be a call. Again. It could be email, could be a message. We could say, thank you for reaching out. And again, you could use this one very similar to this. I'm glad you reached out to us to tell us the issue and I'm glad we were able to resolve it for you. Thank you for reaching out to us. So it's actually very, very similar to this one. All right, so these are the other expressions which can help us show empathy, which can be used in lots and lots of other different situations when you're dealing with an angry customer, I hope that you'll find them useful and I will see you in the next lesson. 25. Part 6: Solutions: Reassuring: In the last few lessons of this course, we've worked on things we can say when we're dealing with difficult customers who may be angry or went to continue that in this lesson. But in this lesson we're going to be focusing on solutions. That means what we can actually do to solve a customer's problem, especially when they're a little angry, when they're a little upset. Okay. So we're going to use the same case that we used before because I want to make it feel like one coherent piece. I've used a different a different picture, but same case. The bus company let me just remind you what the case is that we're going to be talking about. Then we'll do a quick overview and then we'll get into the phrases we're going to talk about. You work for a bus company and a customer is furious, angry. This one, this face? Well, this is a little a little angry, furious because the bus they took went to the wrong city. Okay. So they, the customer feels upset whenever I say VA, in this course, I'm talking about probably the customer. Okay? Now we're going to we're going to very quickly talk about how to reassure. We're going to talk about reassuring. We're going to go over some simple phrases we can use. We've mentioned a couple before and how we can begin to say the solution to the problem. Then we're going to talk about some longer examples. We're going to do some, some longer examples where we actually lay out a solution. And of course we'll focus on all of the different words and phrases that we'll need as we go along. We'll also talk about maybe how we can use those words and phrases in other cases as well, in other situations as well. So let's get started. So after we show the customer that we understand their issue, that we empathize with them. We might want to show them that we're ready to take action. And I'm going to call that reassuring. That means you're going to say that you're actually going to do something in order to resolve the issue. And then we can focus on expressing actually how we're going to help them. So first let's, let's just learn a few simple expressions that are very common. The first one is, I think, really common in situations where you're dealing with an angry customer, I'm going to help you resolve this. Now you could say this issue, this problem. You could add something about time here. You could say as quickly as I can. You could say as quickly as possible. You could say immediately. That's very similar. Immediately. I'm going to help you resolve this immediately. Or you could if you want to add something like, don't worry, but which feels better to you. My opinion is to focus on time. To focus on efficiency and maybe focus less on something like that because we've already expressed empathy. I think it's better to focus on the idea of doing something quickly. So this is, this is a very simple one and it can be it can be adjusted, it can be changed according to the situation and according to the feeling that you want to give to the customer at first, this next one might look kind of the same. I'm going to help you resolve this. This is certainly something I can help you with, but actually it does create a different impression. And this one in some ways might be better. This one focuses on your action. This one focuses on certainty. What that means is if you say this one, the customer is going to feel like, oh, that means that you know exactly what steps to take already. And it's really just a matter of taking those steps and then it will be done, it will be resolved. So it makes me feel like you've seen the issue before. Customer service person. I'm glad to hear that. At least there's no mystery. Okay. If it's a mystery and you're not sure how to resolve it and you have to talk to many people, then the customer is going to constantly feel worried or stressed. Will my issue get resolved? Will it not? So this one might really help their state of mind and really put them at ease, put them at ease. This one, something I can help you with, focuses on you being able to take the action instead of needing to talk to many other people, maybe your manager or your supervisor, or getting approval from somewhere else, or maybe calling back the next day. This one feels like something you would say before you immediately offer a solution and say something like, I'm able to fully refund your tickets and we're going to offer you a 20 percent discount on your next trip, something like that. It's an immediate solution. This is very comforting, okay, and I think it's better than this one. This one focuses on, I'm going to add focuses just on the action. And I think this is better for the customers state of mind. The next one is very similar to the first one that we did. Don't worry. You can use that. Don't worry. I'm going to do everything I can to help. We could then add something after this to help get this sorted, for example, resolved, that's fine. You can add that if you want, you don't have to. Again, this one focuses more on your willingness to help, that you're going to do what you can. It focuses on you and your action, and it's good, is fine. But I think it is a little bit different than the one we previously did. We just talked about the difference with this one compared to the last one we did, is that maybe the process here is going to be very complicated. And sometimes it is, sometimes you need to get approval for something. Sometimes you need to talk to your supervisor and their manager and it needs to go up the chain. Some issues are. Very difficult. This would be a good one to comfort somebody when the process of resolving the issue, maybe a little more complicated when there are more factors. Factors are different things that can change the end result. So when there are more factors, this is a good one. You may have to talk with a supervisor, you may have to talk with a manager. You may need to check their trip details. And if it's this, then this is the solution. If it's that, then that is the solution. And it's not clear to you immediately what the end result will be. So that's when you might say this one. Sometimes you want to emphasize the customer's value and let them know that their concern is not something that you want to ignore, but that it's something that you really do want to fix. This one is kind of on the line between showing empathy and also reassuring the customer that you're going to take action. So we could say, we really value your business. Now this is, this is fairly common, but it kind of depends on the case for the bus company one, definitely, because they may buy tickets from this company in the future. And we want to make sure that they know that their business is important to us and that if they have a bad experience is bad for us in many different ways, of course. And we went to let them know that we want them to be happy. Okay. We could add something like that. I'll talk about it in a moment. We really value your business. This is quite formal, by the way, it's pretty formal and want to make sure we solve this in a timely way. Sometimes we can say in a timely manner. Sometimes people even say fashion in a timely fashion. I know it sounds weird. I wouldn't recommend using that one necessarily. You could say, and want to make sure we solve this very quickly. Sometimes it's a good idea to really make it feel like you and the customer are in it together. You're really there fighting for the right solution. And so this one is a good way to create that feeling. Now, let's see, let's see what we can do to resolve this. Let's see. Using let's do this, let's do that. We can do this. We will need to. Instead of you will need to. Okay. We should instead of you should. When we were talking about the scanner before issue with the scanner, customer was having trouble setting it up. We need to click on this. We need to click on it. Are we clicking on anything? No, but it creates that feeling. It's quite subtle in fact. And that if you use it correctly, creates trust, which can really help the angry customer calm down. It kind of makes it feel like the frustration is maybe distributed between you now because you're in it together. Let's, and we lats and we, let's do an action. We need to, Let's do this. We need to do. That. Now let's say that it's a really small thing in this case, maybe the customer said that they paid $40 for the ticket, but I see that they paid $38 for the ticket. There's a disagreement. So if I'm going to refund refund the ticket, I probably should refund 38, but they're saying they paid 40. Now, there could be a mistake, something like that. So this isn't the, the main problem. Maybe we've already talked about the main problem. We're going to give them a refund, but now we're looking at some of the more detailed issues. And so when you're dealing with things that are a little more detailed and you're looking at what solutions you might have to let them know that you're working on it, you're thinking about it, you're focused on it and say, Let me see, let me see what I can do here. And that often is phrased so that it sounds like you're kind of thinking and working at the same time. Hmm. Let me see what I can do here. And that can work in lots of different situations when you're actively trying to resolve usually a smaller issue. This is a great phrase. Now, can you say this for the main issue after they've complained for 10 minutes, can you say let me see what I can do. But it just seems like not enough. It seems like you're really not deeply concerned with their issue and you want to just fix it as quickly as possible. So my recommendation for this one is when you're talking about the smaller details. Hmm, let me see what I can do here. Okay. So it looks like the $2 was a fee for luggage. Luggage that I didn't notice before. Alright. So I've added that fee, so I will refund you the $40 that you paid for your ticket, okay? Okay. So we've resolved the issue. So this is part of part of the solution. We're getting closer to the solution. Finally, for these phrases we can use to reassure an angry customer, we may not be able to resolve it and we may know it right away or we may be pretty sure that we won't be able to resolve it. We may have to escalate the issue. That means maybe pass it off to someone else. We'll talk more about how to do that in a future lesson. So don't worry, but sometimes we're pretty sure we won't be able to handle it immediately. First. I'll definitely do what I can. That means. I'm going to use all of my power, all of my capacity to resolve it. But you want to prepare the customer for the possibility that that's not going to happen. Especially if you think it's not going to happen, then you use but I'll definitely do everything I can. I'll definitely do what I can. I'll definitely do everything in my power, everything in my power. Or you can say also within my power. You can say other words here, of course, you can always substitute in different words. Absolutely. Certainly. Okay. I'll definitely do what I can, but I may need I may possibility I may need to escalate the issue to a specialist. Okay. So you bring up this possibility because you don't want to shock the customer when you say, all right, I'm not sure what I can do here. I'm going to have to escalate this issue to a specialist. Sure. You know what a specialist is. They are someone who deal with specific issues, right? A person who may actually deal with how to do refunds for people who paid in cash at the bus station right there, all kinds of different specialists. But we say this may hear because we want to prepare their mind, their emotions, for the possibility of not having immediate success in resolving the issue. And sometimes that can be a really important thing to do because if things happen to suddenly they have their expectations up, they're expecting you to immediately process a refund. However, it's more complicated than that, saying this one, reassurance plus a negative possibility that may lead to future steps. You can substitute all other types of possibilities in here that might not result in solving the issue immediately. This escalate the issue is just one possibility. But again, for most of the expressions that we learn, they can fit all kinds of different situations. So you have to be able to identify which things that you can put in or substitute here to use. In your case. 26. Part 6: Solutions: Expressing Solutions: We've talked about simple phrases that we can use to reassure the upset customer, right? So that we can let them know that we're going to take action. Now let's actually talk about the solutions. Let's talk about what solutions we have to offer this upset customer, the one who has been rerouted to the wrong city, taking a bus to the wrong city, and it's our fault. It's the bus companies fault, maybe the driver, whatever. We won't focus on those details at the moment. So we need to actually give the solution. And I want to tell you about some different ways that you can do that. Some different phrases that we can use to lay out the solution or provide the answer to the problem now, okay, is a great way to begin any solution or, okay, So this is a very American thing. I should be clear. Okay, So then you say, what I can do is, so here we go. This is the structure. You can take out this and this if you want. What I can do is, but this makes it feel very friendly. Okay, so, and it's a way to mark the beginning in a very, very friendly way. Okay, this is sort of modern American English. And you could replace so with, Okay, sir. Okay, Miss or maybe they were on hold. And you are off of hold now and you say, Are you still there, Miss? Yes, I'm still here. Okay. So what I can do is this is a pretty simple structure for giving the actual solution. Okay, so what I can do is book a ticket from where you are now. I could also say your current location, same thing. Your current location book means to book means to reserve. Okay. So to give you a ticket, to provide a ticket, I could say give you provide. Those are okay. What I can do is give you a ticket, provide a ticket, book a ticket from your current location or where you are now, to your final destination. Final destination. Sometimes we say final destination, even though destination usually means the final thing, just to be extra clear. And then we will reimburse you for your original ticket. What's the difference between refund and reimburse? Well, refund is when somebody doesn't like a product that they bought or a service and you give them their money back, reimburses when they maybe have used it, they've taken the bus and then you pay for what they paid for or you pay them the amount they paid. In this case, it's used in pretty much the same way. So we could say reimburse or refund. Okay. And we will refund you for your original ticket. Does that work? Does that work? Now we ask, does that work as if to say, is this an okay solution for you? Is this something that you're happy with? Are you happy with this solution? Or are you okay with that? Are you okay with that? Sometimes we might say, Would Would that be okay? Would that work for you? Is are all Fine. I think the point here is, this is a very friendly beginning. This is a very simple way to introduce the solution. Now, here's another way that we might introduce a possible solution or lay out a solution. If it's okay with you, I will go ahead and then you say the action. It's pretty simple. If it's okay with you, I will go ahead. And after and you say the verb, the action you're going to take. And this is a structure that you can use in every case, pretty much that you need to provide a solution. And then you need to explain the solution to the customer. We say if it's okay with you, because if it's not okay with the customer, it sort of means we're giving them a little space to say it's not. Okay. If it's okay with you, suggests that if it isn't, they will say something. All right. They should say, wait, wait, wait. No, that's not okay. If it isn't. And because we say this, we're sort of leaving room for that, if that makes sense. So if it's okay with you, I will if we just say I am going to I will refund this. I will do that. Sometimes it sounds a little strong and perhaps in some cases, it's not the solution that the customer is looking for. Maybe it's not enough. So this is a really, really important part, actually, very important. Then we say, beginning with the action, what we're going to do. And it's the same as what I said in the previous example, Refund your original ticket amount. I've replaced reimburse with refund. Okay. Whatever I've added amount here, that means the amount of money in this case, I could say $40 is what I said. Right. Your original ticket amount of $40, if I want to say that, I'll say of $40. So I'll say that again. I'll go ahead I'll go ahead and refund your original ticket amount of $40, which will show up on the card you used in three to five days. Or on the card you used to purchase your tickets in three to five days. You can add that in there to purchase your tickets in three to five days. That means it's not going to be there immediately. You won't see them money come back to your credit card. Card here means credit card or debit card. Maybe I don't know if it was a credit card or a debit card. Maybe. I don't know. So I just say card here and that is okay. Now, why do we say I will go ahead. I will go ahead. Well, if you say go ahead, it means to move forward. And I'm not exactly sure why that's the common phrase, but it is a way to make whatever you're saying sound a little more casual, a little less direct, and it sounds pretty friendly. So it's a pretty common phrase in this sort of, this sort of situation. I'm gonna go ahead and do this, especially for customer service people. It's not something people use as often in daily, daily, daily life, daily conversation. Okay. Which will show up on the card you used in three to 53 to five days, then I will help you book a new ticket to your destination. And you can also add, is that okay? Does that work for you? Is that all right? Or you can say, how does that sound? How does that sound? I don't really have the room to write it down here, but that one is pretty frequent to. How does that sound? If you invite a friend to do something, you suggest a place and a time, then you say, how does that sound? Your friend might say, Yeah, sounds great or I don't really want to, I don't really want to today. Okay. So that's a pretty common way to say this. Notice for both the beginning and the end of this one, we are getting the customer to buy off on what we're suggesting. We don't want to steam roll them. That means just roll over them with the solution and give them no way to say, wait, wait, no, that's not what I want. We can't do that. We have to leave room here. We've done it at the beginning and at the end by saying, if it's okay with you, if it's alright with you. And then at the end, like we did in the previous example, saying something like, Would that be okay or is that okay or does that work for you? We leave plenty of room. We confirm and confirm and confirm because we want to make sure that the customer doesn't feel like they're being slapped in the face with the solution. They should be handed the solution gently so that they can then choose to grab it off your hand. Oh, yes, That is what I want. Thank you. If you shove it down their throat, they might not leave happier. People are kind of interesting that way. People need to feel like they have a choice. 27. Part 6: Solutions: Detailed Solutions: Alright, so we're sticking with the same solution. The person who's calling is stuck in the wrong city. They're calling for a solution. The solution we're giving is to refund that ticket and also help them book another bus ticket from where they are to the place that they actually wanted to go originally. So let's try something like this. How about this? Start this way with a question. Don't wait for them to answer it right away. Say, how about this? Then suggest the solution. The thing that you're able to do, then wait for them at the end to say whether or not it's okay. And if it is, they'll say Okay, that's fine. Or yeah, that's okay. Again, we don't want to shove the thing at them. We want to offer it and give them the option to take it. And if they choose to take it, they're not able to complain and say, Hey, I didn't get what I wanted because they chose to accept the solution. That's an important point of human psychology. How about this? I am able, I am able to book a complimentary ticket to Boston for you. Complimentary means free. It's sort of a more formal way to say free, a complimentary fruit basket in your hotel room. Whew, complimentary tickets to a basketball game, Wu a complimentary ticket to Boston for you. I'm able to book a complimentary ticket to Boston for you. Nice. That's part 1 of the solution. And the next part is there's a bus leaving at six PM. Why am I mentioning that? Well, that's the ticket I'm talking about. So i'm I'm saying the time of the bus ticket that I would like to book for you now, I need to know that it's okay. If you say it's okay, I'm going to push the button and book that ticket for you. Get on the bus very soon, leave, arrive at your city, then you'll get your refund and you'll be happy and you'll come back and you're like this company again and you won't be angry anymore. So there's a bus leaving at six PM. Would that work again, I ask Would that work? Same question. Then. Of course, we will provide a full refund. The refund is for the original ticket price and then the complimentary ticket is because we made a mistake. So often, if a company makes a big mistake, they need to do a little extra, not just refund, but do more, give a discount on a future ticket, a complimentary ticket to try to when back, when back the customer, because the customer is upset. You can even say, we would like to win you back. The customer says, I'll never book a ticket with this company again, I'm furious. You've lost my business. That's why we have this complimentary complimentary bus ticket. We're doing extra. We're going above and beyond. Above and beyond. That means more than we have to do, more than we should do even can also say. The extra mile. In fact, that's one of the things that customers will say when they're very happy about customer service or customer support, why do you, why do you love this company while they're their customer services just so good, they always go the extra mile. They always go above and beyond. These two phrases are great for when you want to express the idea of someone doing more than their job description, more than they actually have to do. Of course, as I mentioned, we can always replace pieces of these expressions with the other expressions that we learn. So we can sort of plug in. We can offer a refund, we can provide a refund. We can refund your ticket. Any one of those is okay, you can mix and match. And the best way to really get a feeling about these is to make your own examples so that they are deeply implanted in your mind. And they're easy to bring to mind when you actually need them, when you're communicating with a customer who's angry, okay, and the more you practice them, the more you work with them, these expressions, the more comfortable you're going to feel and you have to feel comfortable with these, especially when you're dealing with an angry customer, because it's easy to get upset, It's easy to get impatient. Sometimes when that happens, all of the things that you've learned just fly out of your head. So they have to be pretty deeply ingrained. Okay, Here's another example, another possible way to give the solution. I've been authorized to offer you a full refund. I've been authorized. What this means is that you of course, want to give a refund, but first you had to get approval. You had to ask somebody, maybe your supervisor or their supervisor if it was okay, maybe there's a process for that and approval process when that process is completed. And you are able to do the thing that you want to do to solve this issue that you can say, I've been authorized, it tells the customer that you had to really do some extra work for them, that you had to really work hard to solve it. That you had to go through some steps and may make them feel like, well, this person is going the extra mile. This person is really going above and beyond what they actually needed to do. I've been authorized to offer you a full refund on your original ticket amount. Okay. That's nothing new or original. I don't know why it's written like this. I'm sorry. Your original ticket amount as well as a complimentary ticket to your final stop. Remember complimentary, it's a formal way to say free and final stop instead of final destination. Just a variation, doesn't matter. It's the same thing. I think the main point here is when we want to express that we had to go through a process to approve the solution. This is the one we should probably use. And finally, I want to give you a really simple example, a really short and simple way to express or say the solution that you can provide. Would it be okay if we refund your first ticket and help you book a new one to Boston, of course, you can put in that's an oh, by the way, Boston. Final destination. That's okay. Would it be all right, This allows us to put the whole thing into one simple question. That's the nice thing about this one. The customer then only needs to say, yes, that's okay, or maybe hopefully not, no, that's unacceptable. Okay? So this is really simple, really simple, which sometimes is good. Sometimes if you've explained many things and you want to just say the solution very directly. You want to communicate simply and you just want a yes, you just want to say one question. This is the one. Okay? Now we've used the same example, the same solution for all of the examples that we talked about, all of the phrases that we talked about. That's just to help make it clear how they're used, right? I want to directly related to this situation so that it's really focused, so that it's very clear so that we don't get confused and don't get lost in all kinds of different mixed up situations and cases. And it's really up to you to take these phrases, take these expressions, and then fit them into your own situations, the kind of things that you need to deal with. And again, like I mentioned before, the best way to do that is to practice making your own examples that look kind of like mine. And play with them until you feel comfortable using them, until they feel like they're deeply embedded in your mind. All right, so practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. And I will see you in the next lesson. 28. Part 7: Ways to Say "Yes": In the last lesson, we talked about how to give solutions to a customer who is not happy, how we can present those solutions. In this lesson, we're going to focus on what we need to say. If the customer has to wait for something, especially if we're trying to find the solution, we need to talk to somebody and we need to put the customer on hold. Of course, that means they will stay on the line and wait for you to come back to tell them. Either you need to do other things to find the solution or you have the solution. What do you say when you need to ask them to wait for something? What do you say when you come back after making them wait? After they've been on hold for awhile. That's what we're going to focus on in this lesson. Okay, so I'm going to read the case. Then we're going to talk very quickly about how to say yes, just because I want to make sure that you feel comfortable with the different ways that you can, pretty basic. And then we're going to talk about the other two things. How to put someone on hold and how to after you come back, how to greet them and let them know what's going on. So let's read the case. You do customer service for an e-commerce company. That is an Internet company that sells things. Ebay, amazon, alibaba, this kind of company, e-commerce company. That means you deal with many sellers. You are not the seller. Perhaps. Perhaps the sellers are on your service on the platform. We could say, we say platform. Platform is a very popular word these days. A lot of companies are platforms. That means other people are putting the stuff on the platform and customers are buying from them and you are the ones providing the platform. Okay. So anyway, you do customer service for e-commerce company and a seller is asking why their application hasn't been processed within 24 hours. It will take some time to find the solution. And then maybe on the website, it says that it takes up to 24 hours to process that application. So that means they should hear back whether or not they can be a seller within 24 hours, within within 24 hours, but they have not said maybe there's an issue. So they're calling you. Okay. So that's the situation. That's the case that we're going to be dealing with in this lesson. That's what we're going to focus our expressions around. Now let's just very quickly, just because I want to do it at some point in this course. I wanted to just cover some different ways that we can say yes or agree, just so you have those. Okay. So this next thing is not exactly tied to this situation. I just want to go through it really quickly, just so you know. All right. So let's just very quickly go through some ways to say yes in all kinds of different situations. First one, very common. Sure. Sure. This is when you want to agree or say yes. If you ask me a question and the answer is yes, I might say Yes. Sure. But usually this one is used for agreement. Would you like a piece of chocolate? Sure. Sure. Well, I hear back from you within 24 hours. Yes. Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. Could you please tell me why my application has not been processed within 24 hours? Sure. Sure. Sure. It sounds very, very generous, but it also sounds quite casual. Okay? Yep. Yep. Now this one is very informal and you may want to avoid using this one. This one is very common to use with friends. It just means yes. You have to be careful with this one. It's pretty informal. Okay. How about okay? Okay. Now if you notice, I often use, okay, at the beginning of some expression or at the beginning of an explanation I may give. It's a good way to mark the beginning of something when you're going to start talking about something, you might say, okay, so, alright, so that's a very common thing in American English. But of course this can also be used to agree. Could you please tell me why my application hasn't been processed? Okay. I think it's because dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, maybe, maybe, for example. All right. So that can be used in either one of those situations. Absolutely. This one is very confident. It's something we've talked about before. When you're certain of something, you're very clear about something, you want to say yes. Will you help me resolve this? Absolutely, Absolutely. That means there's no way you can even imagine that I wouldn't help you. Absolutely. Okay. How about this one? Exactly. Sometimes the customer will repeat back something or explain something that is correct. You might say exactly to say that they are correct. So let me just be clear. You're going to refund my application fee because you didn't process it within 24 hours. Is that correct? Absolutely. Absolutely. Or exactly? Exactly. That means you are right. You are totally correct, of course means there's no issue with what you just said or it can be agreement. So for example, now that the application has been processed and they have been approved to sell on the platform, they might ask. So I can now start putting products up on my profile or in my store. Of course. Of course. It's sort of like saying Yes, that's right. Yes, That's That's right. There are no issues with what you just said. Of course, sometimes when things are relatively obvious, we can use, of course at the beginning of an expression. So we could say, of course, we will refund your application fee because we didn't process your application within 24 hours. That means you don't even need to ask. It's not a big deal. We made the mistake, we made the error. So obviously, we will refund your application fee. Of course. Of course, if somebody says something you really agree with you like the sound of it. You can say, of course, now definitely is very similar to absolutely, or sometimes Exactly. It means that there's no doubt about it, right? It's certain it's clear. So we can say definitely as a reaction to something. So I'm going to get my application feedback right? Definitely, definitely. There's no possibility of you not getting it back. Okay. We could also use this as in previous examples to make something sound a little stronger. We will definitely give you a refund. We will definitely get back with you within 24 hours. We will definitely help you resolve this issue. Means you don't need to worry, you don't need to fear this not happening. It is a certainty, it is absolutely going to happen. What about right? Right, as we've talked about a little bit before, is usually for quick back and forth interactions. You're going to refund the fee, right? Right. Remember question tone, right? Right. So it's a good way to ask, is that correct? Right. Right. And again, as we talked about before, we can use the word correct as a question. So that's fine. We can use it the same way. Now sometimes you might have to confirm something negative. You're not able to give me a refund for my application fee. That's right. That's correct. I'm sorry about that. So you would say I'm sorry. But you first would say that's right. That's correct. Okay. It's a good way to confirm that. You just have to make sure your voice matches the tone, matches what's happening in the conversation. If I say, write very confidently, that can sound a little bit too confident and can make the other person feel like I'm happy that we can't. But if I say that's right, right. That's correct. I'm sorry about that. Then I'm showing my my empathy. Sounds totally different. 29. Part 7: Putting Them on Hold: So we've talked about a few ways we can confirm things. Now, let's look at some ways that we can actually ask someone to wait. We're not going to only talk about putting someone on hold. We'll look at a few different, a few different examples. Now, we never want to say, wait, wait, wait. Never say, wait. Only say wait. When you're describing what's happening to you. I'm waiting. I'm waiting right now. Or you're waiting in line for maybe a cup of coffee, whatever you're doing, you're describing it. Never, I would say in your life ever say to someone weight. Now, you might say, Please wait, that definitely has a different feeling, but always avoid saying Wait directly. I just want to be clear about that. Do not say weight by itself. It sounds very direct and can and usually will sound rude. Okay, so in this case, we're actually not going to put the person who has an application pending. That means it's waiting. We're not going to put them on hold. We're going to actually stay on the phone with them, but we still need to do something. We're checking something so they're on the phone and we're talking with them. And at the same time where some work, maybe to check their profile. Well, if they need to wait and you can't talk to them constantly. You can say Bear with me, bear with me. It's a very useful expression when you need somebody to wait. Very polite. Okay, let's look at the example. Please bear with me for a few minutes. I need to look at your application and confirm a few things. You don't have to say this part. If you don't want to leave that out, if you like, you could say could you please bear with me? Remember what we talked about before? If we say Would you mind we have to change this? Would you mind bearing with me? Would you mind bearing with me for a few minutes, then it's a question. Right. So we could say could you bear with me question, please bear with me. Would you mind bearing with me? Question? All of those are okay. What it means is, I hope you can be patient while I do this thing, this thing is going to help you. I need to look at your application. So I'm looking for some details. I'm looking for some things that can help us resolve this issue together, right? So very, very useful. Now, could you say this before putting somebody on hold, please bear with me for a few minutes. I need to look at your application to confirm a few things. I'll I'll just put you on hold. Is that okay? Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. That's okay. You can do that for sure. You can add that. But for this one, I wanted to give you one way that you could ask someone to wait while you stay on the phone with them. Let's look at an example that uses the word weight that allows us to actually put the customer on hold. Okay, we need to resolve a couple of things. We need to speak with the manager. That's a common a common thing. If you could please wait on hold for a couple minutes. I need to speak with my manager. Now. We could say could you please wait on hold for a couple minutes? Question mark. I need to speak with my manager, but saying if is okay too, It's very polite. Notice here we have the word please. As I mentioned, please is very important. If you could wait on hold, is okay because we use the word could, which makes it sound less direct, more gentle. But using please in front of weight, I think is very important because without it, wait, sounds very hard. It's a very hard direct sounding word. Okay. If you could please wait on the phone for a couple minutes, then we could also say I I will speak with my supervisor. Now. They might just directly say that's fine. That's fine. Okay. Sure. Or you could say Is that okay? Is that okay then of course they'll say yes, that's okay. Hopefully. Now maybe the person who's calling has called several times before and we've had to ask for their case number. Very simple. We would just say, could you tell me your case number? We learned earlier in the course how to get basic details so we get the case number and it's a little more complicated then maybe we were expecting. So we need to put this customer on hold. Here's another way to do that. Would you mind holding directly instead of saying waiting on hold? You could say waiting on hold or just holding. Very simple. Would you mind holding for a few minutes while I look into the details of your case, we could also say this case that allows you to have some time by yourself to study things carefully so that you don't make any mistakes, right? You want to be quite careful. I would imagine. Now this one has minutes here. I think it's a good idea to say minutes or about 10 minutes. If it's going to be about ten minutes, if you have a guess, if it's going to be 15 minutes and you have to do all kinds of things. Maybe you should just call them back, but try to give them a fair number. Don't just say, wait a moment. If you say Wait a moment and they wait five minutes, they might begin to get impatient. Especially if you say Wait a second. Could you please wait a second or could you please hold a second? We can say Hold. Could you please hold a second? Well, I talked to my manager and then you're gone for five minutes. That's probably not. Okay. All right. So say a few minutes. If it's only going to be, let's say 40 seconds or a minute. And you say a second, That's okay. That's okay. That sort of fits into what people understand a second to mean. When you say moment and second, they are expecting a short hold. If you say a few minutes, maybe they're expecting, I don't know, three to five minutes. And if you say specifically, could you please wait on the line or hold weight on the line or hold for about 10 minutes while I deal with this. Because they know it's very complicated, then they'll say, okay, and they're mentally prepared for that long hold. So expectations, meeting expectations and not creating false expectations is an important part of giving the customer a feeling of comfort and certainty. Giving comfort and certainty helps a customer remain patient, right? Creating false expectations, making them wait 10 minutes when they expected one is a good recipe or a good way to create impatience, frustration, and issues later on. Another way we can make sure expectations are about right, is to say something like, I just need to check into your case, which we'll take a few minutes. Could I put you on hold? Could I put you on hold? Okay. We said which will take a few minutes, which means maybe between 35, about between 35 minutes. This is the expectation we're creating for the customer. Then when we say this, we don't have to give a time because we've said how long checking into the case will take. I just need to we can say sometimes do some checking. Okay. That's okay. Sometimes people say that, but this is okay. I think too, I just need to check into your case. We use the word into because it gives us a feeling of opening a door and being careful and looking at something in detail. If we say I need to check your case, it doesn't give us a feeling about looking at details. So I wouldn't recommend using, just check, Use check into. I know it's a very subtle thing, very subtle. But those subtle things actually added up can make a big difference. Another example, let me just put you on hold. Just again, notice we use just a lot. That's a good way to make the whole thing that you're saying feel comfortable, really comfortable, less direct. Let me just put you on hold while I check whether or not your application is still pending. Is that okay? So this this one is good for when you need to say specifically what you're going to look for, I need to look into your case. I need to check your application. I need to speak with my manager. I think these are less specific. When you need to say something more specific and say exactly what you're going to check. Which is a good idea. You can use this one, okay, sometimes you want to let the customer know, hey, this is the action I'm going to take. You just need to know that and wait. Maybe that's only going to take a minute or two. We use Whether or not because that's why the customer is calling. They want to know why the application seems to have not been processed, it seems to still be pending. That means it hasn't been decided or checked, reviewed, even though it's been over 24 hours, which is longer than the promised time. Okay. So let me just put you on hold while I and this allows us to then say the action. I'm going to do that at the same time as you are on-hold. Very useful and very, very natural. While I check whether or not whether or not in any case where it's a yes or a no, you can use whether or not your application is still pending. It was pending before when you submit an application, it is now pending. That means it hasn't been decided after it's pending. It will be approved or declined. Approved or declined. Okay. And we need to check if it's this or one of these, but still is that okay? Is that all right? Do you mind something like that at the end, you always want to give the option just to make sure. So they feel like, hey, I have a choice. All right, now let's look at one more way to ask the customer if they are willing to wait on hold. Again, there are lots of other ones, but hopefully these will cover most situations that you may come across. Okay. Well, have this sorted in no time. This is sort of like a statement to reassure the customer, like we talked about in the earlier, the earlier lesson. But I need to ask you to wait while I familiarize myself with your file. Okay. We talked about the wild one. I'm going to do this action while you wait. Now, wait, suggests here hold. So we could follow by saying, can I put you on a brief hold? Can I put you on a brief hold or if we don't want to say it like this, we could put that in here, will have this sorted in no time. But I need to put you on a brief hold while I familiarize, familiarize, familiarize. It's a little tough to say myself with your file, maybe file, maybe profile may be case. Whatever it is, application in this in this situation, okay? A brief hold means a short hold. So notice that hold can be both a noun and a verb. Can be a noun and a verb can use it either way. Can you please hold? I need to put you on a hold. Do you mind holding? Do you mind holding? Okay. While I this is a good one to express your action during that hold and familiarize means I don't know anything about this. Before I give you a solution, I need to know more. That's all this means. Familiarize, but be familiarize myself with this first before I answer any questions. Okay, So this is just another way to say the same thing. Again. To really get a feeling for these, make your own examples, try to fit them into the kind of situations you face. I know I always say this, but it really is the best way to get them deeply into your mind so that they can come out whenever you need them. 30. Part 7: Coming Back From Hold: So far we've talked about different ways to say yes or to agree. And we've also talked about different ways to ask the customer to wait or different ways to put them on hold so that they feel comfortable to wait or stay on hold. Now, let's say we did put this customer on hold. Okay. They call because they're wondering why their application hasn't been either approved or decline. It's still pending. Supposed to be finished with the review process within 24 hours. But it's been over 24 hours. So we're trying to figure this out. We've asked them the customer to stay on hold. We've asked them to hold for a few minutes while we look into the case, while we figure out what's going on, when we come back, we have to say something. We can't just say, hi, I have the solution. Okay, we have to say something. So there are a couple of simple things we can say when we come back from the hold, from asking them to wait so that they feel like, Oh good. Now let's talk about what we're going to do so that it's not awkward. These are really to avoid an awkward feeling for the customer, okay, we need to know how to do this naturally. So let's go through these really quickly, really quickly. Hi, are you still there? They might have hung up. They might be getting a glass of water going to the bathroom. Right. So he just want to confirm high. Are you still there? Are you still there? You can say here instead of there if you want, you can also use their name. Hi, Mr. Jones. Are you still there? Are you still here? Okay. If you really want to make this friendly, you can cross that out and say, hi, Mr. Jones. Still there. Still hear sounds very friendly, very natural. Okay. Aye, Mr. Jones, thanks for waiting. Thanks for waiting. If you want to assume that they are still waiting, if you're wrong, then they just won't be there. So that's just the situation, but no one will hear you say that. So it doesn't matter, right? So it's okay to assume that they are there. Aye. Mr. Jones. Thanks for waiting. Then Mr. Jones will say, yeah, no problem. Yeah, It's okay. No problem is a good thing to say. When you went to let someone know that you're okay, You haven't been inconvenienced. You didn't mind waiting? It was okay. It was only three or four minutes. Hi, Mr. Jones. Thanks for waiting. Sorry for the long hold. Let's say you said could you could you wait on hold for three or four minutes? Well, I talked to my manager. Yeah, no problem. But the conversation with my manager was longer. Maybe it was 10 minutes. Luckily, this person is very patient. They're still on the other end when I come back from putting them on hold. Right. So I say Hi, Mr. Jones. Are you still there? Yeah, I'm still here. Okay. Sorry for the long hold. Acknowledged that there was a long hold. Don't try to avoid it. Just say it was there and then they'll probably say that's okay. If you try to avoid that, tried to not admit that it happened, maybe they'll feel uncomfortable. Sorry for the long haul. Okay. Or thanks again for waiting. Thanks again for wedding. Sometimes you need to put them on hold several times. The first time you said thanks for waiting. Then you have to put them on hold again to check something else. So thanks again for waiting. Thanks again for waiting. Sometimes you can say that at the end of the call. By the way, thanks again for wedding. I appreciate your patience. I appreciate your patients. If you appreciate something or you appreciate someone, then you can add your to say the thing that you appreciate. I appreciate your kindness. I appreciate your generosity. I appreciate your time. All of those things are okay. In many situations, you can use this in life. It's very common. I always say, when somebody does something nice for me, I say, Oh, thank you. I really appreciate that. I really appreciated or I really appreciate what you did for me. If it's something that they worked very hard on, for example, I appreciate your patience. I appreciate your patients. This is something we can say maybe instead of this one. Hi, Mr. Jones. Are you still there? Yes, I'm still here. Oh, great. I really appreciate your patients. And no problem. No problem. Okay, So I have a solution and this one is very simple. Thanks for being patient. Thank you for being patient. Thank you for being patient. Basically, it's the same thing. So these are all very common things to say after you come back from putting somebody on hold. So hopefully those are useful to you. Make sure to practice them by making your own examples. And I'll see you in the next lesson. 31. Part 8: Transferring Phrases: In the last lesson, we talked about how to make the customer wait. In other words, what you should say, if they need to either wait on hold or just wait for a moment while you do a particular task. In this lesson, we're going to focus on how to pass the customer off to someone. If, for example, you're not able to solve their issue immediately, or maybe if you're the wrong person for them to be speaking with. Sometimes that happens, maybe they think they're supposed to talk to a specialist who maybe can solve technical problems. And you're not that person. So you may need to pass them to somebody else. Okay. So I'm going to just review the case because the case is the same as in the previous lesson. And then I'm going to just give a couple of simple phrases we can use right at the very beginning. And then we're going to go through some real life examples that of course you can use to apply to your own situations and the kind of cases that you need to deal with. All right, so let's just review the case. Same one as before. You do customer service for an e commerce company and a seller, that means someone who is on the platform. In this case, the seller is perhaps your customer because you are the platform or the representative of the platform is the seller is asking why their application hasn't been processed within 24 hours, it will take some time to find the solution. Now, this time, the time that's being taken maybe is in them needing to talk to other people. For example, maybe they need to talk to your supervisor or maybe they need to talk to a specialist. Now, if you don't know what a specialist is, let me just explain that clearly. A specialist is someone who does something very special. They focus on one area. It's almost hard to explain without using the word special. They don't do all kinds of things. They usually just focus on one type of thing, maybe one type of issue. They are a specialist. The verb for that by the way, is specialize. Specialize. So if you're a specialist that you could probably have that in your job title. And many people would in your job title, you might be, for example, a software specialist or whatever, an account specialist, maybe. I don't know. There are lots of different ways to give people names. There are lots of different kinds of titles. I don't want to focus on that too much. So what I'd like to do is just give you a couple of simple phrases you can use when you need to pass someone to another person, when you need to pass them, the customer, to others, whoever it may be. Now of course we can use this phrase pass, can say, pass. You too. Or we could say pass you over to and that would be very common. So I need to pass you to a specialist. I need to pass you over to a specialist. That would be one way to say it. We could also say transfer. Is it okay if I transfer you to same thing here. A specialist or my manager, my supervisor, whoever it may be, transfer means to change from here to here, from this thing or person to this thing or person. Now we usually only use transfer if there's something that you're traveling on. In this case, traveling in your kind of traveling over the phone line, I guess, in a way, if you're actually in a if you're in a room with the person, then you wouldn't use transfer. If you're actually sitting in the room with someone, you're standing there and they're in front of you, then you will never use the word transfer right on the phone. You're passing them to another phone, maybe the phone of the specialist. But when you're sitting here with them and they have an issue and you want them to talk with your supervisor and your supervisor is over there. Well, then you don't need to say transfer. If you said that I'm going to pass you to my supervisor. Very strange. I'm going to transfer you to my supervisor. Even more strange in that case, you might say, I'm going to have you speak with and I have you speak with my supervisor now. Could you use that one on the phone? Yes, you could. You could say that. So that's fine. That one works on the phone and in person. So again, this one works face to face, face to face. And this one does not, and this one also does not generally, in, rarely, people might use it that way, but generally, generally not. Okay. Now for this face to face one, sometimes we could describe the actual action that we're going to do as a way to make you talk to, for example, my supervisor. So we might say something like i'm I'm going to go get my supervisor. I'm going to bring my supervisor over here to speak with you. Okay. So those work to in that case, my action is to actually walk across the room and then say, Hey, I have someone who needs to talk with you. I have someone who has a question that I can't answer. Can you come over here for a minute then the supervisor or whoever will say, okay, Sure. Please give me a second of Ababa and then comes over to where the customer is standing. So again, that's face to face stuff. So this one can generally be used for both. The other ones we talked about earlier, can be used generally only four over the phone. And this one generally can only be used face to face because there is a physical action involved. The only time when you could use these on the phone is if you're in a very small office and you're going to actually physically stand up and have whoever it may be come to the phone in that case, bring my manager, go get my manager. Okay. But usually it has to involve some physical movement. You have to get up from your chair, go get that person and bring them over and then they're going to use your phone. You're not going to just transfer them to another person's phone. Okay? So this would be, for example, for a very small company, sometimes we don't realize it, but actually the word hand HA, AND can be a verb. If we're sitting together at a dinner table, and I say, Could you hand me the salt? That means I want you to pick it up and give it to me. That's what it means. Well, sometimes when we give one thing to another person or one person in this case to another person. In a way, we're going to hand them over or hand them off. So actually this is a word, a handoff. Not that you really need to use it here, but it might be what it's called a handoff. Handoff is when one thing is handed to another, only this is a noun. So we might say, I'm going to hand you over to, for example, my supervisor. I'm going to hand you off to my supervisor. In this case for handing a customer over or off to a supervisor, there really isn't a difference. They're used in exactly the same way. There are some slight differences, some subtle differences between handover and handoff in other cases. But I don't really want to go into it because I think it's not particularly relevant to passing a customer to another person who can better help that customer with their particular issue. In this case, why wasn't my application processed within 24 hours? Very frustrating. 32. Part 8: When You Don't Know: We've learned the phrases that we need for this particular case, our e-commerce case. Now let's look at some specific examples. Some examples that include the phrases that we talked about earlier. I want to stress the importance of looking at examples. That's actually the most important part of this course, the examples, because you can learn all the phrase as you like and you can understand them. And maybe that's interesting. But if you don't deeply understand them, which means if you don't understand how to use them, then it really is just interesting. I want to in this course make sure you understand not only what certain phrases mean, but how they can be used or applied in real life type situations, how you can actually use them. So I really do hope that you're carefully paying attention to all of the examples that we go through and you're taking notes and trying to make your own examples as we go along. That really is the, I think, core value of this course. So let's get into the examples. Unfortunately, I'm not able to see why your application hasn't been approved. So I need to hand you over to our seller specialist. Usually put the name before the word specialist and you can put anything you want here. Again, whatever goes here doesn't really matter. We're not focused on that. Maybe it's called a maybe it's called a store specialist. Maybe it's called a profile specialist. I don't know. It doesn't matter. But first notice what we do in this example. Unfortunately, I'm not able to see your application. So that means we first provide the reason that we need to hand this person over, to hand the customer over. We provide that reason because if we just say I'm going to hand you over to a customer specialist, I'm going to hand you over to a seller specialist. Just say that then the customer is going to feel lost because they don't know why that's happening. Well, why are you doing that? Why don't you just solve my problem, right? Okay, so first, give the reason to make that softer, use the word, unfortunately. So here we use this to make it clear that yes, it's bad news, but I'm being honest with you. And now maybe it's because you're not the right person or maybe it's because you don't have the right access. Or maybe it's because you just don't know what to do. Regardless, it's not good news because the customer doesn't get to have their issue resolved immediately. Okay, so be honest, say the reason, then, say the action. So this is bad news warning. Unfortunately, you could say so, but unfortunately says it's bad news. You could add well here. Well, unfortunately. So unfortunately, I think well is better though. I'm not able to see why your application hasn't been improved. That means perhaps I don't have the expertise or perhaps I don't have the access. Whatever reason I can't do it. I can't solve your problem. Then. So. Then the action I will need to hand you over and we could put in our other phrases their transfer you, I need to pass you to a seller specialist. Then of course it's always a good idea just to make sure it's okay. Just to add at the end. Is that okay? Is that okay with a question mark and wait for them to say yes, because the more you can get them to agree to what you're doing, the more they're sort of part of the decision-making. If they feel like they're just being thrown around and you just say I'm gonna transfer, you could do two to two and they get transferred, can be very disorienting, very dis orienting. Disorienting sort of means you feel like you feel like you're a little lost. So where am I? I don't know what's happening. And I'm sure we've all had that bad experience as a customer where we feel like we're lost. We don't know what's going on or being transferred here and there. That happened to me actually last week and it was not fun. So I hope this example is clear. Let's look at another one. What if the customer is upset and they demand to talk to someone who's maybe above you. Well, that happens, certainly does. So they're very upset. They say, I don't think you can solve my problem. I wanted to talk to a manager or supervisor. Okay. So you agree to do that? How do you do that? Yes. I can absolutely. Let you talk to a supervisor. So say yes. Now if the answer is no, which I hope it isn't. But if it's no, then you might say, unfortunately, supervisor dadadadada. But in this case, the answer is yes. So we absolutely can. That means we're very willing. 2, that means we're almost enthusiastic to do that. So I can absolutely let you talk to a supervisor. This we say lets you just to be clear because it's been asked. That's the request. That's the thing that's being requested. Request. So don't use let usually unless there has been a request first, if you want to do something, then I say yes because I have the power to say yes. I have the yes, no power than me saying yes is letting you do that. The child wants to eat some candy and mom says, yes, she is letting her child and do that. Now you have the yes. No power perhaps. Yes, I can absolutely let you. But otherwise, generally don't use this phrase. It's been requested. So use let you. If it's not, then generally you don't want to use I will let you talk with a supervisor. If that's your suggestion, then this is a bit strange. So I want to be clear about this. This one is for when the customer is requesting to talk to somebody else, requesting to talk with a supervisor, requesting to talk with a specialist or whatever. Okay. Then add this to make sure they know that it won't happen immediately within 10 seconds, right? And it won't probably because you have to maybe go through some steps to get the supervisor on the phone to escalate escalate the case. It takes time to escalate or move up whatever is happening here to a supervisor. Right. So sometimes you could say escalate, escalate. All right. This part is the part that creates the expectation to reduce impatience. And we talked about that in the previous lesson. We want to reduce in patients by letting them know that they need to wait. We need to agree with some enthusiasm instead of resentments, some positive language. And instead of saying, Yeah, I guess that doesn't sound very, very positive. And then let because it was a request. So I hope that that's clear. Can we put in the other phrases here instead of let I can absolutely transfer you to a supervisor. I can absolutely hand you over to a supervisor. All of those are fine. You can absolutely, absolutely do that. Next example, I can't seem to find the information I need. So I'm going to pass you over to a specialist who can help you resolve this. By now, you should be comfortable with the idea that here we can put in any of the other, most of the other phrases that we've talked about, for example, transfer, okay, now this is a way to gently, very gently and very indirectly tell the customer that we don't have the answer. We can't find the answer without being too specific. Basically, what you're saying here is, I don't know. But you never want to say I don't know. Don't say I don't know. You want to say that in a way which sounds like for whatever reason, it's impossible for you to get the answer and that certainly will happen. So using seam here is a way, a great way to say what you want to say, that you just can't do it, but in a way that doesn't make them feel like you're not able because you're not smart enough or or whatever or you're not trying hard enough, right. It's just it's just the reality. I'm sorry. But you're still going to help them figure it out because maybe somebody else, a specialist will know the answer, okay, the information here we could replace with also any other thing that we need to say, I can't find the reason. I can't find exactly what's going on. Whatever you want to say there, That's fine. Okay. And then adding this part I need is this is the information that would help me resolve it for you. If it were here, I would tell you and then it would be over. Then as we did before, we just use so this action is happening after I explain what's going on. It's a similar structure to the example we looked at earlier. And again, you can put the specific name here, profile specialist, seller, specialist, whatever you want to put there. And then who? Now this part is to reassure. Remember, reassure means to provide comfort. This person can't help me, but somebody's going to, and the person that I'm going to talk to next is not just another person, the same as the person I'm talking to now, know the next person has special knowledge and that special knowledge can resolve my issue. Okay, So I add this. Who can help you resolve this as a way to comfort them, to let them know that I'm escalating it or giving it to somebody who knows more than me. Again, to reassure, to reassure. And you could put in here who can maybe help you find the answer? Who can? If you want to say something more specific, see that information, maybe whatever it may be. And then again, right at the end. Is that okay or is that all right with you? Now this adding this I think is a really nice touch for this kind of case. Because really does add a feeling of Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. To your expression. 33. Part 8: When You Can't Help: Sometimes the reason you can't give an answer to a customer is not because you don't know, not because you can't find the answer, but because you're not allowed to give the answer, maybe you don't have the proper access to the answer and only certain people have permission to answer that question. Maybe people who focus on security in banking, customer service. There are lots of different examples of that. So let's look at, let's look at how we could express that. In other words, you don't have access or permission and that's why you need to hand the customer over to the specialist fee-only person. This is what you can say right away. The only person who can answer questions about pending applications is a seller specialist. This may be because the customer called the wrong number or pushed the wrong button on the phone, for example, they're talking to the wrong person. You're not allowed to answer this type of question even if you could. So the only person who can answer questions about pending applications, which is this case, is a seller specialist. You could also say Here, I am not off the rised. To answer questions about pending applications. I will need to hand you over to a specialist. Is that okay? I am not authorized. You could say unfortunately, you could say, well, unfortunately, I'm not authorized to answer questions about pending applications. The only person who can answer questions about those are specialists or seller specialists. Would you like me to transfer you? Would you like me to transfer you to the specialist team, then they'll probably say yes. Yes. Hopefully you don't have to give them just a phone number to call because that would be That's never fun. So keep this phrase in mind. The only person who can, whenever you immediately know that there's no chance for you to resolve it and you need to immediately let the customer know that fact. I think the main reason this one comes up is when they've called the wrong number, you're talking to the wrong department, not your fault. It's actually it's actually their fault. But don't say you called the wrong number, you have reached the wrong person. That's not very polite. This is a better way to say it. This is much better, just like the previous example, if the customer, or in this case, actually the seller, who is the customer, calls the wrong department. We can say this, well, this department, the one you've called, the one you're talking with now only deals with current sellers. So I would have to transfer you to a specialist. Would that be okay? Okay. To deal with something means to handle something, you could replace this with handle if you want to only handles current sellers. What does that mean? Well, it means there's a different group of people for applications, checking applications, pending applications. And this department, we only talk to people who are selling stuff right now on our platform. Remember it's an e-commerce platform. We deal with sellers who are active already, okay, So two different departments that's understandable and you could actually add that word. It's totally understandable that you called the wrong number. It's okay. Totally understandable. But this department only deals with if we use the word only here, it's actually very useful. It tells the person who's calling there are no exceptions here. No exceptions. Exceptions means maybe if you ask a couple of times, maybe I can help you. But if I say this, you're not going to ask me that. So we're not going to waste time. You're not going to waste my time. I'm not going to waste your time. This is the wrong place. Absolutely the wrong place. And if you ask me twice, it's not going to change anything, I need to be very clear about that. That's why I'm using the word only k. Is that clear? There should be no second questions. After I say this whole thing, this person who's calling about their pending application should just say, alright, Sure, thank you. And that's it. So it should be very, very clear. Current by the way, if you don't know, means now, now, okay, and all of this is the same as you've seen before. So hopefully all of this is starting to feel very comfortable. These expressions, if you notice, are all pretty much the same, really just different examples to show you how these common expressions can be used in different ways, slightly different situations. Finally, let's look at a slightly different example, same sort of situation. We need to hand over this potential seller to a specialist, but it's not going to be a transfer. We're going to give them the number. So how do we express that? I hope this is not how it works in your case because as a customer, it's very annoying when you have to write down a number and call that number. It's very annoying. Much better if you can just transfer them anyway. For pending applications. For pending applications, you'll need to speak with a specialist that's saying the same thing as we've said before. I need to transfer you to or I would need to transfer you to another department or is it okay if I hand you over to a specialist? Okay. This is all basically the same stuff. I don't really feel like I need to explain this too much. I want to talk more about this part. I'll give you that number. I'll give you that number. So I'm preparing you right now. Do you have a pen and paper handy? Handy. Do you have a pen and paper handy? Or you could if you want to take that out, just say, Do you have a pen and paper? They might say yes, just a second. If they say yes, Just a second, don't start saying the number yet. Wait until they say, Okay, I'm ready. Customer will say, Okay, I'm ready. And then you're going to tell them the number. And we've talked about how to say number is very clearly before. If we need to repeat a number that's incorrect, we can do that this way, I think is very friendly. Adding the word handy makes it even more friendly. It's not necessary, it's just for the tone. If you do need to wait while they go and get a pen and paper, you might say something like this. Do you have a pen and paper handy? Yes. Just a second? Yes, Just a second. Okay. Then you can say, Let me know when you're ready. Let me know when you're ready. That makes it very clear. If you're just silence and they say, yes, just a second. It's pretty clear but there might be some confusion. But if you say this, let me know when you're ready. The ball is in their court, that means it is now up to them. Let you know when they have the paper or there at the computer and they're ready to write it down. Then they'll say, Okay, I'm ready. Or they might say, okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Which means say the number. At the end of most other lessons I've said make sure you make your own examples. Make sure you write down examples based on the phrases and examples we talk about. But which fit your cases and your, your job and the kind of things you need to deal with, right? Well, of course you should do that, but take it a step further now. Now try to actually speak off the cuff or speak freestyle with the phrases that we've learned so far in the different cases that we've talked about. So here's what you can do with a friend if you're lucky or by yourself, which is okay, just turn on your recorder, record function on your phone or your computer and actually try these out without reading them. In other words, tried to pull them from memory and fit them creatively into the situation that you've made. So actually make a case for yourself. Write down a case maybe based on something that you've seen at work or maybe from a previous job or a job you'd like to get. Then a little role-play, even if it's with yourself, this is a great way to practice. Then when you go back and you listen to that role-play, you're able to pick out things that sound weird and improve them, hone them the phrases that we're learning here so that it becomes a habit for you and that is really, really important. So I hope that you can take your practice to the next level by doing these role-plays. That doesn't mean stop writing down your own examples. You should still do that. Take it to the next level now and try to use them. Free style, very powerful, very, very powerful way to remember. Creativity is a great memory technique. 34. Part 9: Part Overview: In the last lesson, we talked about how to hand the customer over 2, for example, a specialist, if we're not able to resolve their issue. In this lesson, we're going to focus on how we can correct misunderstandings. Now, we've previously talked about communication gaps. We're not going to talk about communication gaps. We're going to talk about when the customer thinks something about the product that is not actually true. For example, they think they should get something that actually they aren't going to get because maybe they haven't paid for that or maybe simply we don't offer that. Okay. So how can we how can we correct them in a way which doesn't sound like we're criticizing them or telling them that they're stupid, right? We don't want to give them the feeling that we think they're dumb and don't understand the product, we need to be polite. So I'm going to give you the case. I'm going to read through the case and explain what it means. Then we're going to look at some simple phrases, are going to look at some simple phrases that we can use to correct a misunderstanding. Again, this is not a communication gap. Misunderstanding. This type of understanding is one in which the customer doesn't fully understand the product that they've paid for, for example, among other things. Okay, so we're gonna go through some simple phrases. Then we'll go through some more in-depth examples to apply some of the phrases that we talk about. But let's first just read through the case. Alright. You work for a company that provides home cleaning services. If you know what a maid is, a maid cleans the home. There are lots of different ways to describe this kind of person, but we provide that service, not ourselves personally. We are the customer service representative. Right? We don't do the home cleaning. Maybe we send people out or if it's a larger company than perhaps it's a platform and anybody can be on it like the previous e-commerce example, okay, Anyway, one customer has purchased the Plus package, maybe that's the name of the package which includes two home cleanings per week and is charged monthly. That means every month it will be charged if something is monthly charged and it's automatic, we say it's recurring. These are called recurring payments. That means it's automatically build. For example, if your credit card is connected to the account every month, maybe on the third of the month, it takes out that amount of money. Let's say it's I don't know, $75 a month, whatever. Just takes it out automatically for whatever that is. Okay. So it's charged monthly. She thinks that if she doesn't use cleanings in a given month. So a given month here means whatever month it may be. Sometimes we use a given day, a given month, a given person to mean it doesn't matter which one. That's what it means. It doesn't matter which one. Anyone you choose any month, January, March, July, whatever. Okay. She thinks that if she doesn't use cleanings in a given month, she can use them in later months. This is incorrect for that she would need the premium package. Okay. So we have the Plus package and the premium package, two different packages, okay? The benefit, one of the benefits of the premium packages, let's say you go on vacation and you don't use your two cleanings. You don't use your two cleanings per week to home cleanings per week. All right. Because you're gone for a whole month. Well, if you have the premium package, then maybe later in later months, you can use those cleanings, those sessions that you didn't use when you were on vacation. However, with the Plus package, because it's perhaps cheaper, then you can't do that. You will lose those cleaning sessions. You will lose those cleanings. By the way, I'm saying sessions here. Sometimes we use session. Okay. I hope that's clear. That's the situation that customer believes that they can on the Plus package use those cleanings later? They cannot. I made this have I made this case to complex? I feel like I'm spending too much time explaining the case. It should be simpler. Okay, so maybe this one's a little more complicated, but I wanted to give you a feeling for what a more complicated case might look like. Because it is complicated things which may cause customers to be confused. Sometimes a customer buys something, they think they're getting a, in fact they're getting B. And that's a common thing that happens. And your job is to make it clear in a respectful way. Now let's look at the phrases we can use to do that. 35. Part 9: Correcting Gently: In fact, the phrases that we use to correct people are pretty simple. So actually we can go through these pretty quickly. I think. Let's assume that the customer has just said the thing that's incorrect. The thing that they think is true about our service or about what they purchased, which is not true. Okay. Well, not quite is a great way to say you're wrong. Never say you're wrong. That's terrible. I would recommend never saying you're wrong ever in life unless you're looking in a mirror, for example. And you're being brutally honest with yourself. But generally speaking, that would be extremely direct and extremely blunt. And especially for this kind of thing, we don't want to be overly blood. So let's say not quite the same thing, same meaning. Well, it's slightly different, but it's definitely softer. It's definitely more more gentle. It's definitely less direct. Not quite really means that if this is the right answer, you're here, You're very close. And maybe that's not true. Sometimes, sometimes we need to say a little white lie. Now I'm not encouraging you to lie, but sometimes I my writing to last letter second. So a white lie is when you say a little lie to be nice to somebody. Okay. Well, I wouldn't say that this is a lie because you are saying the truth. They're not correct, but they also are not very close to the truth, but that's a detail. What's not focus on that. So not quite feels like you're very close to the right answer. Almost. You could. In fact, if you want to say almost, almost or that's almost right. I don't know if it would work in this case, but I think in many cases you could use this one. Maybe you could use this one. I think here after the customer says, so I can use my cleanings later in the year when I want to write. Not quite. Then you would say the correction and we'll look at some examples later on in this lesson. In fact, this is a great way to correct it is a little bit formal. So you want to be careful when using this one, for example, with friends, because if you use it with friends, they might think you're being too formal. They might think you're being too serious, right? But if you use, In fact, when you're talking with the customer or in a meeting as a way to correct something that's incorrect. You're being very polite, being very respectful. You could actually put these two together. So they say, well, I thought I could use my cleanings later. Not quite in fact. And then. Say what it is. If you just remember that from this lesson, that's enough. I think you could use this, you could, we'll talk about more examples, but you could use just this every time and always sound very polite. So keep that in mind. Not quite. In fact, blah, blah, blah, whatever the truth is. But let's look at a couple more. Well, actually, well actually not act surely, but actually actually, well, actually, now here we could not say Not quite well, actually, that doesn't work. We can't put those together because well is the beginning of something, well is the beginning of an expression. So we would have to say, well, in fact, we could say that if we want to, well, in fact, well actually this one you could use in less formal situations. You could use well actually with your friends without sounding too serious or two to formal, that would not be a big problem. Again, this one would probably sound a little bit formal, but it's a very common way to begin saying, here's the truth actually means, what is the truth? I'm going to tell you the truth. This is what is going on. In fact, this is the reality. This is the reality. Okay? So basically the same, these two. The feeling a little bit different. The feeling that something has is sometimes called its connotation. Okay, so formal, more formal connotation, slightly more casual connotation, but definitely good enough to use. In this case. Definitely, it's totally okay. Sometimes before we say what is actually the case or what is actually correct, we'll make a statement like this. And it's just a way to announce that this person is incorrect. You have a misunderstanding. But again, do it in a way which is quite, quite polite. That's not exactly how it works. That means what that means is they've explained to you how it works. What does that mean, how it works? Maybe how the package overall that they purchased functions, the features of the package, right? That's what they've explained. They've explained how paying this much money means this thing, which is not right. So this is usually only used after an explanation if they just make a statement like, I want to get a free cleaning or something like that. Maybe wouldn't work as well. I suppose you could say it, but usually this will follow an incorrect explanation of how something works or what features, for example, something has, what services are available to someone. Then say actually, then say, in fact, sometimes there are maybe three options or three different types, three different products that are similar. Say, well, we have to, in this case, we have the plus and the premium. And let's say there's a basic two. So let's say there are three. Let's say it's basic plus premium. Those are the three packages for home cleaning services that you can buy with this company. Okay. And what happened was you believed that when you purchase your Plus package, you are actually getting the services included in the premium, the premium package. So you have a misunderstanding. You're right in thinking that that's something that we offer. But you're not right in thinking that it's the Plus package which offers that thing or those services. Okay? So we might say you might be thinking of you might be thinking of as a way to take what was said and place it somewhere else. By the way, that can be a great method or tool or tip for doing sales. If somebody says, I'm really trying to get faster internet because I play games a lot. So I might say then you might be thinking of not our basic internet package. You might be thinking of are maybe high-speed Internet package or professional Internet package. Are you interested in that? And then maybe that's a way to move them toward that as a way to push them to buy it, right? Or maybe pushed them to upgrade. So this might be a way to say, not only are you incorrect, very politely, not only are you incorrect, that the Plus plan that you got doesn't have the feature that you think you got, which is the ability to use cleanings anytime even if you don't use them in a month. But you're right in one way because that is something that we offer. It's just that we don't offer it in this package. Hey, are you interested in upgrading to the higher package, to the premium, to the premium package. So this can be if you're doing sales or irresponsible for that kind of thing, away of, we say, killing two birds with one stone, with going to write down now one stone. And that means one thing. One expression allows you to accomplish two things. Well, that's what it means here. Now it's a win-win. Okay, So hopefully, hopefully these expressions are clear. Now of course there are, there are more, but I think the ones that we went over are really important to know. You can express to anyone who has wrong politely that they're wrong without them feeling bad. 36. Part 9: Clarifying Service Features: Okay, now let's look at some of our more specific examples for using expressions to correct a misunderstanding. We can begin, unfortunately, now, that can be used in any situation where you need to present some bad news. Okay, so this is bad news. They're wrong. It's bad news. Unfortunately. Unfortunately, the Plus package doesn't quite work that way. So we talked about this expression and how we use it. Then we can begin with the explanation. Then we should explain how it does work. If you've said it doesn't work that way, then how does it work? You don't want to just say it doesn't work that way and stop because that can cause frustration. You need to be clear. You need to have a path. You need to have a path forward. Never just stop and say you're wrong, and then have nowhere to go. Make sure you know what's going to happen next. Either you're going to push them toward the premium package or you're going to let them know that they should be happy with their current package. Because maybe it's a very good price. For example. Unfortunately, the Plus package doesn't quite work that way. Cleanings can't roll over each month. And then you could add in the Plus package. But we've already said Plus package, so we don't have to say in the Plus package, okay, cleanings can't roll over. Now to roll over means well, it means many things, but in this case, roll over means unused things can be used later on. A lot of services use this term either as one word or two words to mean basically, things never expire. What is, what is a cleaning here? What does the cleaning? Well, let's say a cleaning is, is what many companies would call a credit. So for example, I buy books every month from, from another service and they give me one credit. Basically, they give me a credit every month. If I forget to use my credit, I can use it the next month. So the next month I have two credits because the credits roll over. Well, cleanings here are our credits. And because the price for this package is relatively low, maybe if we allowed cleanings to roll over, then maybe we would lose money. Maybe it wouldn't be good, right? Maybe because we have to pay for the people who are cleaning. We have to pay them to clean your house. It's going to be very expensive. That's why we're able to offer such a great price. And you can explain this kind of stuff, not in maybe too much detail, but you want to make it reasonable. So after you save this beginning part, whatever explanation you need to give, give it, be clear, be specific, maybe use some of the phrases that we learned earlier in the course, for example, about describing a service, okay, That sort of thing. You can use those things, those expressions to clarify why the package doesn't have that. And maybe, maybe you have a paper that you can read that says the features of the package to make it clear, one thing I want to add here is when you're explaining the reasons after you might say something like the Plus plan. Oh, I wrote package, sorry, same thing. Package is our best value. Is our best value. What does that mean? That is, when the amount of money that you spend actually getting you the most. So if you spend more, sometimes, you're getting some really good things, but it still might not be the best value. But if you're spending this amount of money and what you're getting is really good for that amount of money. Whether you're buying clothes or buying a package for home cleanings, the best value is the one that is maybe a reasonable price and you get good things for that price. Considering that price, Let's look at our well actually example and this is the one that I would most recommend when you're trying to push for an upgrade. So again, when you're doing more of a sales slash customer service role or just a sales? A sales a sales role. Okay. They're trying to get them to upgrade upgrade, to go to the higher level. Well, actually we only offer rollover cleanings for members on the premium plan. So this is a way to make them feel like, Oh, I don't have something that I could have. Maybe. Would you be interested in upgrading? Would you like to upgrade? Would you care to upgrade? Okay. Or if you can hear in their voice that they are quite frustrated that they're not getting what they want. You might even more confidently say, I would really recommend upgrading. At which point they might say Yes, I'd like to upgrade. I want to be able to roll over my cleanings. Here, rollover is used as an adjective and that's why it's one word. Maybe you're wondering why before I wrote it as two words, now I'm writing it as one word. That's because for a lot of phrasal verbs, if they're used as a noun or an adjective, then we say them as one word, workout, rollover, take-off. And then if they're used more as an action, as a verb, then we'll make them two separate words. I'm going to go work out. Your plan doesn't rollover or doesn't allow your cleanings to roll over. Two words. After we took off two words. Let's look at my personal favorite example. Of course all of the examples in this lesson are good and totally fine. Otherwise, we wouldn't do them as examples. In this course. All the examples are useful. So let's go over it and then I'll explain why I like it. Not quite. If you don't use all eight cleanings in a given month, they will actually expire. So. Basically, this one is, as we talked about before, when we want to give the impression of you might be wrong, but you're not very wrong. And I'm not trying to slap you in the face and say, No, you're wrong in a rude way. So it's simple and yet a very soft. If you don't use all eight cleanings in a given month, this is universal. This means any month we talked about that they will actually expire and expire. This is a useful word. It means to run out. It means to become invalid. If something is no longer able to be used, we often say it expires. We can sometimes use it for food. We can use it for maybe memberships, we can use it for a password. A lots of different things. We use the word expire, the noun form by the way is exploration. Maybe you know that expiration date we sometimes say, anyway, why do I like this one best? Often when we need to say things that are very polite, we have to say more, right? We have to use more words to make the person we're talking with feel comfortable. I like this one because it's simple. It's very simple. It's pretty short, and yet it is, sounds very polite. It sounds very natural. This simple expression not quite is, I think, a beautiful phrase for telling someone they're wrong. I think it's really almost poetic. That's just my personal opinion. Okay. And this one in a given month makes it very, very clear. There's no possibility for misunderstanding. Extremely clear that it doesn't matter if we're talking about the beginning of the year, the end of the year, next month. It doesn't matter, this is always true. So this will reduce the possibility with this simple phrase of many follow-up questions and having to say, well in June of a lot, but if you're in December, well, a little mini mini questions that I might have to answer and that could cause more confusion. This makes it clear. Any month doesn't matter, and yet it's quite simple. They will actually expire. We've used this one before in the examples we talked about, means in fact. In fact, and here I think it helps to give a little bit of force and clarity to the policy. So sometimes when we want to state a policy, we can say it will actually, and it adds a little force to it. It adds a little clarity to it. And then say what will happen if whatever this is about happens in this case, it will expire. Just my personal favorite. I like how this one sounds. I like to read it. Sounds good. Our last example is a little bit more detailed. And for this one, we're going to try to correct the customer about their misunderstanding, but we're not going to try to push them necessarily one way or the other. We're just going to state the facts and allow them to either stay with their current package, the Plus package or upgrade. We're not really trying to push them. In this one. You might be thinking of our premium package. Now that is a way that you could begin to push the premium package if you want to, you could use that expression. You might be thinking of our premium package, but this one is just a simple statement of the facts. That one is actually a bit more expensive. So I'm stating outright directly without trying to hide or be sneaky, that if you want that you need to pay more. I'm being very direct here. I'm being very honest. And yet it is still polite that one is actually a bit more expensive, but you would never lose. Cleanings. Means that if you're a premium member, you maybe can use cleanings that you didn't use the previous month, they never expire. So this is obviously one benefit. So you could use this if you were trying to push them one way or the other, but it doesn't sound that way. It just sounds like you're saying what it is, okay. As long as you are a member, let's say for example, you cancel your membership, you cancel and you decide not to use our service anymore, then it's not like you get to have still all your cleanings. You don't get any cleanings anymore if you cancel or you quit, have to remain a member if you want to use your rollover cleanings, the ones that you've saved up that you haven't used. Okay? So this is a way to sort of encourage the customer to stay, let them know that they need to stay. But at the same time, It's okay if you stay with or you stick if you stick with, stick with and stay with are the same thing. And you don't leave. If you stick with the plan, that's totally fine. I feel pretty, pretty neutral about it. Pretty neutral about it. So all of the examples we've talked about really cover a different focus, the expressions themselves to correct the misunderstanding. They're pretty simple. Now of course, there are other expressions that we could use in this kind of situation. But I think the ones we've talked about for this case can really help you with whatever main focus you might have. Whether you're focusing on sales or you're focusing on simply providing information and correcting a misunderstanding or correcting incorrect information. Okay, So hope those are all clear. And remember, review, make your own examples. And then to really get them deeply in your mind, record yourself doing a little role-play and try to use them naturally without reading anything, pulled them from memory. The more you do that, the more comfortable you'll get with them. Good luck. I'll see you in the next lesson. 37. Part 10: Basic Expressions: In the last lesson, we talked about how we can correct customers who may have a misunderstanding about something. And this lesson is actually related to that, but it's a bit different. In this lesson, we're going to be focusing on how we can help customers who are complaining about something. But in fact, the issue is on them. In other words, the customer did something wrong or the customer is to blame for the issue. We'll talk about the case first and then we'll go through as we usually do examples. So we'll look at the case and then we'll talk about some core phrases. And these core phrases. Core here means the most important, really the most important phrases are going to allow us to tell the customer perhaps that we cannot help them, that we're not able to do something for them because they have done something wrong, because maybe they are at fault. Now, later on, in the next lesson, we're going to be actually talking about when we can make exceptions. Perhaps when the customer did something wrong and we want to still help them even though we don't have to. But first, we need to talk about how we tell the customer that maybe, maybe, maybe we can't, can't help them. But first we need to know how to politely let the customer know that it is their fault. Now we don't want to obviously say it's your fault. It's your problem. You broke the rules, you did something wrong. It's you, you, you obviously that's not good. We don't want to say this stuff. We want to be able to say this in a way which sounds respectful and polite. But the content, the meaning should be, it's your fault. That's a lot of what this course is about. It's about how we can say things politely no matter what the meaning of the words may be. And the reason that's so important is that the way you say something is extremely important, you can tell someone that they have ugly hair. But if you do it correctly, if you do it politely, they will feel like you're just giving them a suggestion about maybe a new hairstyle they could have depending on how you say it. It's all about the way. I believe that anything can be communicated politely if we say it the right way. Okay, so we'll look at the core phrases and then we'll talk about how to get them to understand. Understand here doesn't mean understanding the idea. It means understanding the reason. From my perspective. We have rules. We need to follow the rules, whatever the reason may be, we need to be able to express the reason clearly so that the customer feels Oh, yeah, Well, I guess I guess that's reasonable. I can accept it because otherwise, if they feel it's unacceptable, unreasonable, they obviously will get upset. So start with the core phrases we can use to say that maybe we cannot help. And then we'll talk about how we can get them to understand. And feel that we're as customer service people, reasonable. And then as we usually do, we'll look at a couple of more detailed examples so that you can get the feeling for how we can express ourselves in this kind of actually tough, tough situation. So here it is. You work for an airline. An airline is accompany that provides flights. I'm sure you know that a furious customer, remember furious means angry. A furious customer wants to change the date on his ticket, but didn't sign up for trip protection. Didn't sign up for trip protection. Now that means trip protection means if something happens, you're able to cancel your flight or reschedule your flights without paying an extra fee. So maybe you pay $20.30 dollars when you book the ticket. Booking means you buy the ticket. And because of that, because you do that, you have a little bit more flexibility. Maybe there's some other issue preventing you from being able to take the flight that you booked. Okay. So he didn't sign up for a trip protection. As a result, changing the flight will result in a $200 fee. So if you get tripped protection, you don't need to pay a fee. You can change your ticket, reschedule. Reschedule. But if you didn't, you got to pay a fee. If you want to reschedule. Those are the rules. Okay. So this is the situation. Maybe he's furious because when he booked, he thought that he could actually change if he needed to because he didn't carefully read the rules, the terms under the under the ticket when he was booking it, perhaps perhaps regardless, He's not happy. So we should be pretty careful. We need to be careful about the words we choose. Let's now look at our basic expressions. The basic phrases that we need to basically say, basically basic, yeah, I can't help you. Now generally, I wouldn't recommend saying that very directly. I can't help you. If you want to. You could add I'm afraid. I'm I'm afraid. And then maybe we could add just I just can't help you. All right, So that would be alright if we wanted to really say that, we could say it like that. But I want to look at some other ways we can bring up this reality and explain it to the customer. Well, according to our policy. Now, what is a policy? A policy is a group of rules. Generally, you have rules about what you can and can't do that could be related to the government. It could be within accompany. And generally speaking, if you work for a company. And you do, For example, customer service. There is a policy about different things that might come up. What you can do, what you can't do. In this case, if a customer says, I want to change my ticket. Well, unfortunately, sir, i'm I'm afraid I just can't help you. According to our policy. Then you cite the rules. You cite that there are rules in place that stop you from being able to help because the rules on the website when you book the flight are pretty clear. Mentioning the policy is often a good idea because instead of saying, this is your fault, why is it your fault? Because you didn't book trip protection. If you want to reschedule without a fee, you need to book trip protection. Don't don't say it like that. I'm just explaining it directly. So it's their fault. But instead of directly saying it's your fault, say, well, this is our policy. According to our policy, then explain. We aren't able to maybe change or reschedule flights that don't have trip protection without a $200 fee or whatever it may be following this, you just say what the policy is. You just explain the policy. But what this does is it helps you to distance yourself personally from it so that they're no longer blaming you. It's you who's not allowing me to reschedule. No, it's not me. This is removing yourself. It's the policy. So it's actually quite a useful tool. And to kill two birds with one stone. You're not directly saying this is your fault, but you want to probably avoid when things become a little bit more heated and this customer begins to get quite upset. We might begin by saying, sir, and this just feels a little bit more authoritative. There's a bit more authority in saying it like that. Sir. Then in this case, maybe a little bit directly we can say as the terms on the website clearly state and then say what they state. State here means say that means if you were to go to the website and read above the button that says, I agree. It would say, if you do not have trip protection, you must pay a $200 fee if you want to reschedule whatever it says. Right. So then you would just say that here without trip protection, you're not able to blah, blah, blah, just explain it. This gives it a feeling of strength as though you're putting your foot down and you're being clear and you're not moving, you're not bugging to budge is to move where you feel like the customer is in charge of you and makes you feel so bad that maybe you do something you're not supposed to do, right? And again, we'll talk about exceptions in the next lesson. As the rules clearly state as the term state as the policy states, these can all be substituted in, these can be used interchangeably. That's fine. Gives this a feeling of formality. I'm really becoming a little more direct because maybe the customer hasn't calmed down yet. And I want to let them know that not trying to be rude here, but there's really no room for arguing. It's useless. You can stop arguing basically. Here's another example. Another way to say this, the policy we have now doesn't allow that. Unfortunately, this one's slightly different because it feels like maybe these are the rules currently. I don't know if they will change. I don't know if they were different in the past. It doesn't matter right now. These are the rules and unfortunately is generally a good way to say I think it's bad to or I kind of understand how you feel. I'm trying to empathize with you. But at the same time, I do need to be very clear that there is really no room for flexibility. Sometimes what you need to do is just stop the arguing because there's really no point. Nothing is going to change. 38. Part 10: Showing Your Desire to Help: After you've expressed very clearly that this is the policy, these are the rules and maybe you sound a bit firm. You can then go back to being quite gentle by saying something like, I wish, I wish there was something that I could do. It does two things. One, it helps to enforce the idea that there really is no other option for you. No other doors are open. The only option you have is too well, actually there are two. You could take the flight or you could pay the $200 fee and then reschedule. Okay. So I'm kind of enforcing that that reality that I'm trying to make you understand. But at the same time, it is very gentle and you're showing personally that you want to help. You want to be useful. You want to make the customer feel happy. But for you, There's also no room for flexibility. Policy. This could do I wish there was and then could do is what's called a hypothetical. A hypothetical is something that allows us to think about an idea, explore an idea up here mentally, without actually talking about doing it. That's why we use, I wish there was something that I could do, which means very clearly that I cannot. Now, if you don't want to talk about policy, may be the case that you're dealing with isn't about policy. You can still probably use this one. You're simply unable to help for whatever reason, the policy one is a more specific reason and it's pretty common, but maybe that doesn't apply to you. Well at least you should be able to use this one. And I would recommend generally using it toward the end to help the customer who's frustrated, who's maybe even furious to help them calm down and perhaps end the call on a good note, if you're getting close to the end of the call, you might say this at the very end, there's just not much I can do here. Now this one will not be understood as 0. So there is something you can do. Probably it will not be understood that way. Generally, when we use this one, it means the same as the one we talked about before. It means that there aren't really any options. The only thing I can do is reschedule and book a new ticket for you. But of course that will include the fee, right? So that's just a different way to say it. I always like to use the word just in this kind of situation. I think just sounds very friendly. It sounds a little bit casual and it does sound like you're genuinely wanting to help the customer. You really want to do what's best for them. Maybe if it were up to you personally, you would just reschedule and book another ticket for them without any fee, but there's just not much I can do. Not much makes it a little softer. What it really means is nothing which sounds more direct and you can use nothing. You could say there's just nothing that I can do. It just sounds a little bit final. I think. A bit to final. A little serious, almost a little a little dark. 39. Part 10: Getting Them to Understand: We've talked about the different ways that we can use to tell the customer that we really cannot help them. Now we need to make sure that they feel that what we've said is reasonable, that we're not being unreasonable. So let's look at a few examples, getting them to understand or to see our side as well. And we can say that kind of directly. Now if you're talking with your friends, you might say, look at it from my side, look at it from my side. You can also say from my point of view, my point of view. You could also say perspective, or you could say my shoes. And we've talked about that expression before. But I wouldn't use that here. I wouldn't use the look at it because it sounds so direct and I think this is something that you would say more with your, your friends. Maybe look at it from my perspective. I hope. Now this, I hope, sounds much more formal and it sounds very professional, right? It is your wish that this will happen. I don't think you should use this one with your friends. That would probably sound weird, maybe sometimes anyway, I hope you can see where I'm coming from. Now we don't really need to talk about exactly why we use the phrase coming from, but just know that it basically has the meaning of these perspective or point of view, except it's not really perspective or point of view. Exactly. It's perhaps the policy, whatever. It's just the reason that I'm not able to help you and hopefully the reason that I'm not able to help you as logical policy is logical. A logical reason because you're following the rules basically. And that's why we say where I'm coming from. It's just an expression that helps us say my position basically. And hope is a way to reach out to them and get them to maybe say, Yeah, yeah, I know. Yeah, I understand. Because they probably do. Have you ever booked a flight when you book a flight, that button's pretty clear because they want you to look trip protection. They want you to pay that 25 extra dollars, that 30 extra dollars to protect the trip. It's pretty clear usually. Okay. So hopefully this will get them to say, I can understand It's reasonable. It's reasonable. And then they might even apologize, sorry for getting upset. I'm sorry for being angry. I apologize for shouting at you. It's my bad. Sometimes people will say, they'll admit, maybe it is their fault that they shouldn't have become so upset. Well, what do you say if they say that? If they say, I'm sorry, I got upset, you might say, oh, it's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about it. Don't worry us to ours. Don't worry about it. You could say thank you for saying so. But I think these two are probably better. I don't know if this next expression would work here for our flight situation, but it might work in some other situations and perhaps we could use it here. We think it's a fairly reasonable policy. Now why would we say this? We've said the policy. The policy is we can't just change your ticket for you. You have to pay a fee because you didn't get. Tripp protection. Well, this is when we want to sort of defend ourselves against maybe an accusation. If somebody tells you that what you've just said is crazy, are you kidding me? That's crazy. That's your policy. What's wrong with you? It says something like that. Then you might say this as a, as an explanation or as a defense against that common, we think it's a fairly reasonable policy. And you could go on to say, We think it's a fairly reasonable policy. And a lot of our competitors, that means the other companies who do the same thing have a similar policy. Let me just say one more thing about this one fairly here is much better than saying very. Why is it much better than saying vary? Because if you say very, It sounds like you're saying, Ha, our policy is perfect, There's nothing wrong with it. You're wrong. Be quiet. It kind of has that feeling. We say fairly because fairly as a sort of middle level word. That's not up here like very and not down here. Fairly, fairly good. Are you good? Yeah, I'm fairly good. I'm fairly good at ping-pong. I'm not the best. I'm around here. I'm, I'm not bad. I'm not great. I'm fairly good. So it's much better. I would really appreciate your understanding on this. You might say this one before any comment even happens. Appreciate your understanding. After you say, Well, unfortunately, this is our policy. I would really appreciate your understanding on this. This is quite respectful, a bit formal sounding. And we say wood here because maybe we're saying it before the customer has reacted to it before they've even said what they think about the idea that we can't help them, we can't book another ticket for them. I would really appreciate sometimes instead of saying appreciate your understanding, we would say I would really appreciate if you could. This is a very polite way to ask people to do something. I would really appreciate if you could, I make a video while you're there so that then I can watch it later. That's something you might say to a friend. Is it okay to be that formal with a friend? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. It's okay. This really helps us to make the customer feel like they are being respected. And that's important. If they feel respected, maybe they can calm down a little bit, right? That's a good thing. That's what we want appreciate basically is what we use when we want to express. Thanks. We want to express a feeling of being thankful. Could we say I would really be thankful if you would understand me on this? No, not really. It's too much to say. It's kind of confusing. This one is much more clear and much, much more common. So don't use, I would be thankful. That's not not very natural. 40. Part 10: In-depth Examples: So far we've talked about the basic phrases that we need to explain to the customer that perhaps we can't help them. And we've talked about how we can try to help them understand the situation so that they feel that it's reasonable so that they don't feel upset or frustrated anymore. Now let's look at some full examples, some real examples that are in a bit more detail using some of the phrases that we've talked about so far. So I recommend taking notes here. That way you can use the phrases in your own examples and get a feel for how they're used so that when you use them, it sounds natural instead of strange. The difference between learning and learning through example and practicing is that when you learn through example and practice, you're able to actually use them naturally in the future, which is what it's all about, right? Using a phrase in an unnatural situation or in an unnatural way is pointless. Okay? The reason we offer protection, now this is, this is right after the customer said, Hey, I want to book another flight. I don't want to pay this phi. Okay. Well, sir, maybe I could say the reason this is my beginning. Well, sir, I can always add that. Well, sir, The reason we offer trip protection is so that when such things come up okay. Such things, what are such things? Such things as what you're complaining about, such things as you not being able to get on this flight and needing to reschedule that kind of thing. When such things come up, you can easily change your dates without incurring a fee. Dates here means flights. So sometimes when we talk about rescheduling something, rescheduling a flight, rescheduling a ticket, a concert at a meeting, whatever you can easily reschedule or change. It could use either one, your dates without incurring a fee to incur something as sort of like passing through a door that then maybe because you have metal in your pockets goes BPP. Well, think of it like that. That's kind of what incur means. But it's often about money, often, not always. So if you incur a fee, you're sort of going through the door and the BBB means give us $200. Basically, you've incurred fee. There's just not much I can do in this case. Notice I'm saying this at the end, not the beginning. If I say this at the beginning, they might not listen to what I explained before. So I'm trying to explain it by first just laying out the reasons and then using the expression at the end. There's just not that much I can do in this case since you elected not to have protection. Now, I'm not saying here that this is our policy. Maybe I have to say that after the customer then says, But, but, but, but, but and complains maybe then I can say, I'm sorry, sir. This is our policy. We feel this is a reasonable policy or a fairly reasonable policy. So the structure here is situation is explained first, I explain the reason, the purpose. So then it's quite obvious if you didn't do this, it now leads me to say this, which is basically telling you I can't help you in this case, I'm not able to help you. And the more polite way. And then we add, since now this could be left out. We could just say, there's just not much I can do in this case. We can stop there, but I want to emphasize it a little bit. I want to stress it. I want to make it impossible to misunderstand since you elected, elected here means chose, since you chose or elected. It's just a more formal way to say it. You can use either one not to have or get or by trip protection. So the structure here very clearly is number 1. I tell you what the service is, trip protection, what it's for. Then I say I can't help you. Then I say very clearly so there's no misunderstanding that you didn't do that thing. I described in the first part, you didn't do that. And that's why I can't help you. After this. Hopefully, the customer will say, Yeah, I suppose that's reasonable. Next time I'll get trip protection. Then we can start talking about the next step, which might be so would you like me to book a new ticket for you? Yeah. I guess I'll just pay the $200 fee. Thank you. Which date would you like to reschedule your flight? Two. Then we can talk about the details of that using some of the other things we've talked about in this course. So pretty logical, hopefully. Okay, next example, I wish there was more I could do, but unfortunately, it's our policy to only change travel dates without the fee for passengers who's signed up. Make that look more like an S. Passengers who signed up for trip protection. I think this one is very simple. Here the structure is first, I state my desire to be helpful. I state my wish. I say my wish that I want to help. Then I say that I'm not able. And it's not it's not because because I hate you. It's because of the policy, because of the rules. And then I say what the policy is. So this is what we talked about earlier. The policy is that we do this but only four customers who have trip protection. So this is a slightly different structure, but I think it's just as good, just feels a little different. It starts with that earnest wish to be helpful. The desire to be helpful, which I think is probably comforting. Okay? So I like this one actually quite a lot. This one unfortunately doesn't mean the policy is unfortunate as though it's a bad policy. Means that it's unfortunate that I have to tell you that I can't help you. You want me to do this? I can't. Because you you, sir, didn't sign up for trip protection. It's your fault. Don't say that. Don't say that. Okay. It's our policy to only means we're able to do this, but in specific cases, then I'm going to say which kind of case. Okay. Only four passengers who signed up for trip protection. So I think this one is even simpler than the last one. And I think it depends on depends on the situation. I think it depends on the customer that you're talking with. You have to be ready with either one. You have to be ready to sort of mix and match depending on who you're talking with. Finally, let's look at one more example that's kind of a blend or a mix of the previous two. It has a similar structure to the second one, where we say that we want to help. And then we state that there is a policy that prevents us from helping. And then we explain further. So similar structure, but I'm going to add a couple of phrases to the end just to make sure that the customer really understands and feels that my explanation is reasonable. And in fact, the policy is reasonable. The reason is reasonable. We could say that two, if I were able to adjust your flight without the fee, believe me, I absolutely would. You could change this. You could say of course, without a doubt. Without a doubt, of course, believe me. Okay. These can be substituted in if you want. I absolutely would. This is a very strong, It's similar to the one in the previous example, but stronger. We're really trying to emphasize or stress our desire to help our desire to make the customer feel happy. Before we then contrast that to the inability to do that, do to the policy. We want to be careful not to say that the policy is bad. You don't want to do that because then you're criticizing your own company and that can cause more problems. So don't do that, but it is okay to state the desire to help and then the clear fact that Help is not possible. There's nothing that can be done. So just be careful about going too far. Don't go too far. Okay. I absolutely would, however, however, but you could say but according to our policy, according to our guidelines, according to the rules, we can only do that. It looks like a D. That's not very good. That's not a very good. Why? I'm going to rewrite this. We can only do that for customers who purchased trip protection. That's the same as our previous example. Who purchased trip protection? I really appreciate your understanding on this. Okay, So that's the way to emphasize that we would like the customer to look at this from our point of view. I'm a helpful person. I wanted to help you. Can't help you. Can you understand that that reasonable? And hopefully they say yes, even though they won't be happy. Again, there's just not much I can do that. We didn't exactly say there's not much I can do before. But sometimes using, again is a way to stress something and put it in slightly different words. This part is saying it for the first time. If I could, I would. Okay. Again, there's not much I can do. Well, that is kind of the same thing, so we can still use, again here. I think this one is extremely friendly. I think it's very respectful and I think it's a very good one for making sure that after we say this, the customer feels, at least, okay. At least they feel like they're not getting cheated or something, even though they might still feel a little frustrated as we get closer to the end of the course, I hope that you're getting deeper into your practice habits, that you're learning the expressions from each lesson, from the examples that we talk about. And then you're actually putting those into practice. And then you're actually as a way to really deeply understand them. You're actually trying to use them in role-plays, either with yourself or a friend. And then you're listening to those role-plays, played back perhaps on your phone, so that you can then point out where you might make improvements. That sort of flow and loop for each lesson is really important and getting into the habit of doing that, whether you're learning stuff from this course or other courses, is, I think, an extremely important part of the learning process. It's not only about sitting here and watching these lessons. Do you think if you just watch these lessons one time and then go off to your job where you need to talk with angry customers that the expressions are just going to pop up suddenly. Probably not unless you have an amazing memory. So really, make sure you practice. It's very important. Do the examples, your own examples. Try to fit these into your own situations. Do the roleplays, it is important. That's why I always say it is very important. Okay, I'll see you in the next lesson. 41. Part 11: Case Overview: In the last lesson, we talked about how to tell a customer who's having an issue that perhaps we cannot help them for, for some reason, maybe because of a policy. In this lesson, we're going to focus on something quite similar. We're going to talk about how we can make exceptions to those cases. That means maybe there's a policy that tells us we shouldn't help this customer because maybe they did something wrong. The issue is on them. But we also know that if we tell them no, they may leave forever and not come back, go to another company That's called loyalty. So sometimes making an exception means saying, well, we have this policy, but sometimes I need to go against the policy or I need to help a customer pass through the policy as a way to keep them as a loyal customer, to make sure that they're still loyal to this brand or this company or whatever. So we're going to look at the, the case and then we're going to talk about some basic phrases. Basic phrases. And then we're going to go through some more in-depth specific examples. How we can make exceptions even when there's a rule or a policy in place as a way to make sure that customers continue to be loyal, which is of course, very important to any company, to any brand. So let's look at the case first. Let's just read through it and talk about what it means. Exactly. So mobile phones, all right. That means cell phone. You work for a company that sells mobile phones. You're given some discretionary power when it comes to making exceptions to rules. If you feel as though it will benefit customer loyalty. In the long run, a customer calls about a phone that needs to be repaired and it is 30 days past the warranty period or the warranty expiration. Here you've decided to make an exception. So let me explain a couple things here before we talk about the phrases. First one, discretionary power. And that sounds kind of serious, right? If you have discretion, it means there are times when you're allowed to make an important choice. Told perhaps by your supervisor or your manager, hey, if you ever feel like a customer is going to be lost, if you follow a specific policy and refuse to help them, even if it's their fault, go ahead and help them. You have the power to decide to make that judgment what's called discretionary power sometimes or making a judgment. We sometimes just say making making a call, you're allowed to make the call on that. Maybe you only get a certain number of those. For example, for a year, you're allowed to do 10 for the whole year. I don't know. Different different companies have different rules, but if that ever happens to you as a customer, it feels very good, feels very good. Okay. When it comes to making exceptions to rules, if you feel as though it will benefit customer loyalty. Remember, customer loyalty or brand loyalty means that the customer wants to stay with this company. And the last class we talked about the guy who wants to reschedule his flight. Well, it's the policy that we're not able to do that unless you pay a $200 fine. There is a small chance that he will not book flights with this airline anymore, even though it's his fault. So sometimes exceptions can be a very good thing. Okay. Now his situation is that he has a phone that's broken, but it's passed the expiration of the warranty. Now that means basically, when you buy something, you have a period of time. Sometimes it's a year, sometimes it's 60 days, sometimes it's a 120 days. And in this period, if whatever it is that you bought breaks, you can get it fixed. Maybe it'll be fixed for free. Sometimes if you spill water on it on purpose and it's your fault, you can't. But anyway, this person is here past the expiration of the warranty. So actually, if we're following the policy, we should say, well, I would really love to help you with this, but unfortunately, our policy says that we're not able to because you're past the warranty. I'm so sorry about that. That's what we probably should say. But in this case, we feel like doing that will cost this company a customer forever. And so we're going to make that exception. Okay, so I hope that case is clear. Now let's look at some of the specific phrases that we can use to express or talk about making exceptions. And then we'll go through the more specific examples. 42. Part 11: Common Phrases for Exceptions: So now that we understand the case, let's look at these phrases that we can use to make exceptions. Well, obviously, the basic phrases make an exception. I can make an exception. I would be willing to make an exception. We often say I could, I could, I would be, and then you could say either willing or able. Now if we want to make it even more, to make it sound more special, we might say, I, I might be able I might be able to make an exception in this case because you've been with us for so long, then you can make an expression to talk about why you're making the exception. Because remember, the goal is to keep the customer to make sure they remain loyal. So you want to say why you're doing it well, you're a very valuable customer to us. So I might be able to make an exception. Now if you say I might be able to, that probably means that you can sometimes you can use that before you double-check, maybe with your supervisor. But generally speaking, if you say I might be able to, you're going to get their hopes. The customers hopes will be up. And then if you say, oh sorry, I guess we can't, well, that's even worse. So generally don't say this unless you're pretty sure that you can make the exception. Okay. We could say I think I can make an exception. I should be able to make an exception. I'm pretty sure I can make an exception. I'd like to make an exception. Okay. All of those work. Those are all fine. Okay. Now let's look at the next one to give you some leeway. To give you some leeway. Now, leeway here is room or extra space. So if you have a rope, Let's imagine that this is a rope. And you have a person standing here. And a person standing here. If the rope is very tight, That's because there's no maybe leeway in the rope. There's no slack in the rope. If you give someone some slack, that means you give them more, which allows maybe the rope to go down here because maybe there's more rope back here, whatever it gives me some, give me some slack. So that's generally the idea. If we're just past the exploration of the warranty, the end of the warranty period often call that the warranty period for past that. Just a little bit. Then we might say, well, I I think I will be able to. Then we could either say give you some leeway or cut you some slack. And this one is a little more formal sounding. This one is a little less formal sounding. It's a little more casual. Okay. This one is probably the most common one. And I would recommend if you can't really remember which one to use, just go with this one because it's so common. And these two which have basically the same meaning are okay to slightly different feeling, but generally. Leeway and Slack are used in the same way. You can put in the pieces that you want and then after it or before it, you can give the reason. I think that's very important to remember. It's very important I think to say why you're making an exception, why you're cutting them some slack? And because they're good customer, you want to say that clearly. What phrases can we use when we're making the exception to? Make sure that the customer feels very special. This happened to me one time. My phone's home button stopped working the button on the phone and the customer service representative didn't have to really do anything for me because the phone was passed, the warranty period, it had expired. And so she could have just said, I'm sorry, past that period. And it looks like it was damaged for some reason. We don't know what happened. She could have said that. Instead, she made an exception and she made sure she made sure to use I believe she used a couple of these phrases here when she was explaining it to make sure that I knew that it was a special thing that they didn't do this for everybody. And this is very important. It's a very important part of giving the exception or making the exception, making sure the customer knows how valuable they are. Making them feel special. Making them feel like you really, really want them to remain as a customer and the finger doing for them as very special. That's generally quite important. That can, that can leave a lasting impression. It gives them a feeling of the customer. It gives them a feeling of, wow, this company is more than just accompany. They have values, they care about me. They want me to stay. Yes, I know they want my money, but they're willing to go the extra mile or go above and beyond in order to keep me, Wow, that's great. So in my case, they replaced the phone. They gave me a completely new phone and they didn't have to do that. Okay, So actually, this example that we're talking about in this lesson is based on that experience. I feel like it's a pretty good example. Okay, so let's look at these phrases now. We can use to accomplish that. We usually don't do this. This is very simple by saying this, you're saying this is a rare thing. This is rare does not something that happens often. You're lucky. We really want you to stay. We're like, Okay, we usually don't do this. And sometimes then you could say what you usually do. We usually don't do this. Usually when a phone is broken and it's past the warranty period, you have to get it fixed at your own expense, at your own expense. So you explain what generally happens, then you make the exception. That's a good technique. I'm going to wave the. Now in the case of our previous lesson, we talked about the person who was upset because they didn't want to pay the $200 fee to schedule or book another ticket, schedule another flight. We could say wave here. Wave means to remove something or not pay attention to something that should be there to just decide to not do it. And usually it's a fee or a rule or a deadline or something like that. So for that one, we could have said, I'm going to wave the $200 fee, and we don't usually do this, but we really value you as a customer. And I'm going to look you a new ticket at no extra cost. Wow, okay. In this case, maybe we usually don't do this. I'm going to wave the warranty rules and then say the action that happens after that. So we will fix your phone at no cost to yourself or something like that. And we'll look at more specific examples later on. But the basic idea is who you're special and they are, right? Okay. I've been authorized to give you or make an exception. I've been authorized to give you maybe a voucher for a free repair in one of our locations. So then you give them maybe a ticket or something. Maybe it works like that. Or I've been authorized to make an exception in this case and have our team repair your phone free of charge. You'll only have to pay for shipping. Authorized means that it's not just me who's saying this randomly. I have the power of the company behind me. The reason that this one can be very good is that it does suggest that, in other words, it's not just this customer service person who's very nice and doing a wonderful thing for me. It's this customer service person, you as a representative of the whole company. And it's the company that has given you the power to do this. So I think that's a really good one because it has that meaning tied into it. So these are quite powerful phrases. Now let's look at some specific examples. 43. Part 11: In-depth Examples: We've talked about the specific phrases that we need to make an exception, but now we should look at how we can use those phrases in real life example, in a more detailed example. So let's, let's look at the one that's most similar to the case that I described which happened to me with my phone. Okay. So this is this is real, real, real because you were under the impression that the warranty extended another two months and because you're a loyal customer, I'm going to make an exception and actually send you a replacement phone. So this one sounds pretty natural. We've started out with very clearly two reasons. So we say the reasons first k, and then we say the action. We're going to take pretty simple reasons, action. And the phrase that we use. Well, we talked about at the beginning of the class with the phrases right there before the action. So it's sort of like the expression stands at the middle point between the reason and the action. And you could flip it around. You could say action first and then reason. I think the reason first is maybe a little bit better. Because if you give the reason first, it makes the action make total sense immediately and it really sticks with you. But either one, I think works under the impression, means I was wrong. Like the previous lesson we talked about with the man who wanted to change his flight. I was wrong. I thought that the warranty extended another two months. I was incorrect about that. I was under that impression. If you're under an impression, it means that's what you think. You think that you think that although it is incorrect sometimes, not always, you can be under the correct impression, I suppose actually hear you. Leave it. You could take it as you know by now, I feel that actually can sometimes make what you're saying sound more friendly, more natural, more conversational, certainly doesn't have to be there. You could replace this with, in fact, if you want to make it sound more formal and in fact, send you a replacement phone, okay. You could say the other actions as well. You could say fix it for you, whatever it might be, you can put anything there. So this one is pretty simple. This second example is a little bit more complicated in the structure, but overall, it's pretty simple. We start with since give the reason, and then we say the action. Then we add something to the end to remind the customer that in fact they were wrong. So sometimes it's a good idea to remind them that they had the wrong impression or to remind them again that you're not supposed to really help them. You don't have to be doing this. It's an extra thing, you're going the extra mile. So at the end we've added a little reminder, hey, this is special. We don't usually do this. Okay. Since you've been with us for so many years, That's the same as saying, since you've been so loyal, since you're such a loyal customer saying, since you've been with us for so many years and we really Value that loyalty. Now this one is just emphasizing the loyalty with us for so many years, we value that loyalty. Basically we're just saying we know that you've been a customer for a long time and that is important to us. So it's really focusing on this point and we're not even giving another reason or being extremely clear. The main reason we're doing this is to make sure you continue to buy our products. I'm going to wave the repair fee for you even though you're over the expiry date. Okay. So the even though part allows us to then add that piece which says you're, you're wrong. Well, maybe that's, maybe that's a little too direct. It allows us to add that piece. That is sort of like saying we don't have to. This is extra. Okay. So between the first one and the second one, I think they're both very clear. I personally prefer the simpler style of the first one, the basic structure. This one really focuses on the loyalty part. So if you want to do that and then add a reminder than this one would probably be better. But honestly, I think they're both they're both very good. Just depends on who you're talking with thing. It depends on the situation. And remember, you have to be thinking about how you can adjust, adapt, and apply the phrases that we're talking about to your own cases, to the situations that you face and the customers that you need to deal with. These expressions that we're using are very general. You should be able to use them and apply them in lots of different situations. Next example. Let's just read through it and then we'll talk about it a little bit. Notice in this one that we're going to use the word authorized as we learned earlier. So let's just, let's just go through it. Well, we don't usually do this, but I've been authorized to send you a replacement phone. Just to be clear, the reason is that you just barely missed the warranty expiration and we really don't want to lose you as a customer. Okay, So just to be clear here is a way to be very direct when you want to be very direct, sometimes it's necessary to not speak indirectly, not speak too casually, but just incredibly directly. Say what you mean. But you still want to sound pretty polite. Well, this is often the best way to do it, not only in this case, but in many, many situations. Just to be clear, I really don't want to go just to be clear. I'm only going because I promised to just to be clear. The reason is that you just barely missed the exploration. We can take out just here if we don't want to say just twice, just to be clear, the reason is that you barely missed. What that means is you're almost inside of the warranty period and if you were, then the phone repair would be free. You are not in that period anymore. But you're very close and we're going to make the exception because you're so close and because we don't want to lose you. Now, this might sound a little weird to some people, and I think it depends on how you say it, your tone of voice, it has to sound, I think very genuine. Gdn you I and II, remember that means very real. Has to sound very real when you say it. If you don't want to say that you can replace that with anything else. We want to make sure. We want to make sure that you are satisfied with your product. So you don't have to talk about the customer being valuable. If you don't want to, you can talk about satisfaction, you can talk about other things. I'm focusing on that a little bit in this lesson, but whatever you want to put in here is okay. We want to make sure you're very happy with your products. We know that it can be frustrating to have phone damage. And it's so close to the exploration. Whatever you want to put in here should be fine. It should be based on the context, of course. Okay. Now, well here I've just added that that's not necessary. We could take that out if we want to, we learn this expression. We don't usually do this. Remember we use that one to make sure the customer knows this is a special thing. Now I say that I have permission. And then here we're giving ourselves the chance to very clearly explain the, give the explanation for the exception. And here, whatever you want to say honestly. In the last example for this lesson, we're going to empathize and use that as the reason for making the exception. Personal empathy, sometimes you may want to frame it that way. How you frame something is how it's maybe presented to others. You may want to frame it that way as not the whole company but me. I understand you and because of that feeling that I understand because I empathize with you, remember the word empathy? Empathy to understand others, because I empathize with you. I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to make this exception. So how can we do that? How can we make that the reason? Well, let's look at the example. I think I can give you some leeway here. This is a period if you can't see it, very small, we certainly don't usually do this, but I can definitely understand how frustrating it must be to have broken your phone so close to the warranty deadline. Okay. So at the beginning here, nothing special. We learned this phrase. I think I can give you some leeway. Remember, we can say, I should be able to. I am able to. I think I can. But once again, I want to mention I want to emphasize that if you say, I think I can and you absolutely don't know, you don't have authority to do that. You probably shouldn't say this. Okay. Don't get their hopes up. Be careful about that. Okay. I think I can give you some leeway here. I think I can cut you some slack here. This would be after we've told the customer, unfortunately. Due to our policy, due to our policy, we are not able to repair your phone for free because it is past the warranty period. That's so frustrating. That's really disappointing to hear. Let me check with my manager. Are you still there? Yes, I'm still here. Okay. Well, actually, I think I can give you some leeway here. We certainly don't usually do this, but I can definitely understand how frustrating it must be to have broken your phone so close to so near the warranty deadline. So in that case, it comes after the the bad news. We've said the bad news, we've said the policy. We can hear that disappointment in this customer's voice, we can hear it. So we've decided to check with maybe our supervisor or manager, or maybe just make the decision. Or maybe say Could you hold on for just a couple minutes while I checksum information. Okay. Then come back and say this, then give the reason of not the reason so much, the explanation of I understand how you feel. And that can be sometimes more powerful than saying something like we value your business or you're an important customer to us. So this one is good because it's on the personal, on the personal level. But notice that the structure is basically the same, starting with what we're going to do, right? And then making the customer feel special and expression we use to make the customer feel that they have really something that people don't usually get, right, so that makes them feel valuable. So they do know that it's because we value their business, although we're not giving that reason in words, but they, they can feel that from this expression, right? And then a statement of empathy to show that we really understand they're feeling and we're connected. And you're not just talking to a person who talks to a 100 people every day. You're talking to a person who has a phone and knows what it's like to experience this kind of thing. Okay. When it's so close, it must be so infuriating. It must be annoying. Frustrating means it makes you a little, a little angry. Hopefully all of those examples are quite clear. Hopefully the expressions for making exceptions are also very clear. Make sure to practice them, make your own examples, and then try to insert them into free-flowing role-plays. Record them, listen to yourself, repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until it becomes easy, natural and a habit. See you in the next lesson. 44. Part 12: "Anything else?": Finally, you've made it to the last real lesson of this course. You've made it this far, so congratulations, I hope that you've enjoyed it. I've certainly enjoyed it. And we still have a couple more things to learn. So let's jump into that. Now, at the end of a call, what happens? You have to end the call. Let's assume you've dealt with the customer's issue, whatever it may have been. Okay. We need to perhaps do a couple things. We don't need to always do all these things. It really depends. We're going to talk about how we can ask the customer if we have resolved all their issues to make sure that we have and they don't have any other questions. We're going to make sure to let them know that if they need more help in the future, they can come back and call again. Okay, we're going to talk about some different ways to say You're welcome. More and less formal ways to say You're welcome, some very casual. We're going to mention a survey which is at the end of some calls. It's basically answering some questions about you and the experience. And then we'll give a couple of examples how to actually end the call and say goodbye. All right, so let's get started and see if we can ask the customer if we've actually resolved all their issues. The main issue has been resolved, but what if there are other things? What if the customer leaves the call still feeling confused about something or with some questions in their mind. Well, we need to make sure that there aren't any questions left. We need to make sure that all issues have been resolved, right. So we simply ask, we might say, is, is there anything else I can help you with? And then many people will add today. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Is there anything else I can help you with today? This is probably the most common. So simple, right? Very simple. We could also say, has the issue been resolved to your satisfaction? Now this one, to me sounds much more formal, and I think this one is way more common. This one is way more useful in most cases. This one sounds like a survey question, but you could say it to make sure that this issue is result. You're not here asking about other issues. You're just asking about the one We finished resolving whatever it may have been. Was there anything else you were calling about this May 1 sound a little strange to you. Was there anything else you were calling about to past tense verbs in the past tense? Y? Well, this is an American thing. We often, when we want to say things a little less directly, we say was and were. And we're actually talking about now because we're talking to you now. But it really sounds a little more friendly, sounds a bit more casual, and it sounds less direct. When we're inviting a friend somewhere, we say, hey, I was wondering I was wondering if you'd like to have lunch later. Yeah. Sure. It sounds good. Where were you thinking of going? Well, we're talking about something that we're going to do in the future and we're talking about it now. Why use the past? It's really just about the feeling. Okay, we really need to create a feeling of friendliness. And especially for Americans, American Customer Service, this is a common way to do that, okay, we could also say, can I help you with anything else that's very similar to the first one, but it's so simple that it might be almost to direct, might be too straight. So I think Is there anything else I can help you with today? Sounds a little bit better. Can I also sounds a little bit more straight? I don't quite like that one as much. Of course we can mention questions, do or did, because we can use the past tense too. You have have any other questions I can help you with? Did you have any other questions I can help you with? Do you have any other questions I can help you with? I don't know if you can feel that, but this one to me when I say it sounds a little less direct and a little friendlier. Okay, So these are the common things that we can say when we want to know if we have actually resolved all the issues. Pretty simple. So I'll see you in the next video. 45. Part 12: Future Issues: Let's talk about how we can make sure the customer knows that anytime they have an issue, they can call back. Now of course, they know that, but still it's a good thing to say. It's a very friendly thing to say. And it can give the customer the impression that we are very eager to help and it's not an inconvenience that they've called and asked for help resolving an issue. If there's anything else we can do or if there's anything else we can help you with, that would be fine. You could put help you with in there if you want to help you with that's fine. Please don't hesitate to give us a call. If you're a one man business owner and you're the one who's going to be dealing with everything, then you might say if there's anything else I can do or if there's anything else I can help you with, please don't hesitate to give me a call. So we just change out we and us with I and me, and otherwise, it's exactly the same. This is pretty common. Another quick example, if you need anything further, let us know. This is simpler. We're not talking about calling for let us know. But it suggests that obviously it means that okay. Anything further means more than what you had an issue with before? If you have any other issues, that would be what further is referencing. If you need anything further, let us know. Let us know or give us a call. Or we could give options. We could say, send us an email or give us a call, send us an email, or give us a call. And you might see this written on a website, maybe on the part that says contact on a website and you click on that, it might have a phone number and an e-mail address. And above that it might say, if you need any assistance, help, please give us a call. If you need anything, please let us know. If you need anything, please give us a call or send us an email. That's fine. All of those are okay. Sometimes for a call, there's a, there's a less formal way to say it. Drop us a line. Now, drop me a line or drop us a line means to call. But it's really informal. Just to be very, very clear, I'm not recommending you use it. This is just an FYI, FYI for your information. And I'm not suggesting that most people use, drop us a line. This sounds too casual, I think, too casual, very casual. 46. Part 12: Ways to Say "You're Welcome": Let's now look at a couple of simple ways to say You're welcome. If the customer says, Really thank you so much for helping me. I really appreciate it. You've been so helpful. Thanks a lot. You result my issue. Thank you. All of those things are things that customer might say. You bet. Now, this I want to be very clear, is very casual, very casual. I'm not recommending you use that. Of course, this one is, I'm marking this with a B, both casual and formal. You can use it in many situations to say You're welcome, Thank you so much. Of course. It's not really casual, not really formal. Okay. Sure thing. This one is definitely casual. I wouldn't recommend saying this one necessarily either, unless you have a very friendly relationship with the customer and you feel like you're in a sort of casual, relaxed dialogue. The conversation is that way. Okay. Maybe you can say Yeah, you bet, or sure thing, right? But then again, these two are very, very casual. I would recommend, of course. I say, of course most of the time. I also say very often, I say, Sure. Now I do want to just mention something. If you say just sure, then it's not so casual. Thank you so much. Sure. Sure. That one is more like of course. So if you say sure, and I'll write that down here, That one would be a, B, that one would be, I guess, uh, both. Maybe I should use N for neutral but whatever, of course, ensure sound good in most situations. Sure thing then changes, the feeling changes. Absolutely, Absolutely. This one is more formal. Generally, people don't use absolutely so much with their friends. It's less casual. So this would be great for dealing with the customer. And the customer says, I really appreciate it. You can say Absolutely, Absolutely. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Now, these You bet, of course. Sure thing. You kind of have to say with that bright tone, this one, you can say pretty straight. Absolutely. Absolutely. You can say absolutely. But I think with a flat tone, with a straight tone, it's maybe a little better and sounds a bit more formal. This one is quite formal, and this one is more about hearing good news than it is about saying You're welcome. But if somebody says, I'm so happy, that's kind of saying thank you, right? That's showing your gratitude. Showing your gratitude, showing how thankful you are. And they say an emotion, well, if they say, I'm so happy than it would be weird to say You're welcome. It would be weird to say, of course, it would be weird to say Absolutely, Because they say, I'm so happy. But again, saying I'm so happy, I'm so satisfied, I'm so excited. Saying those things is kind of like saying thank you because they're showing that excitement there, showing that happiness. They wouldn't be saying that having that emotion if they didn't feel thankful probably. So we can say Glad to hear it. When we're not exactly saying You're welcome, but we're still kind of recognizing the happiness that this is when you really, really need to remember. Because it's for those situations when the thank you takes on a different form. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. Very common. Okay, My pleasure, my pleasure. This one is quite formal. This is when you do something really big for somebody, you help them do something that's quite difficult. It takes time. It's more than you would normally do. You've gone the extra mile and they feel so thankful, then you might say, It's my pleasure. This is not something that friends will say to each other. Hey, thanks, Steve. Oh, it's my pleasure. It's too formal. I use sure, probably. And of course, most often, I think these are the two most common ones for me in my daily life. Let's look at a couple more expressions for saying You're welcome. Similar to, I'm happy to hear that we might say happy to help, but this one could also be used for. You're welcome. So thank you so much. Happy to help. Happy to help. You can replace happy here with glad GLA D. Can you say I'm glad to help? I'm happy to help. Yeah, you can think a little bit more, little bit more formal feeling, but let's make a little tiny, little tiny C there because you can use it casually to no problem at all. No problem at all. Now you don't have to say at all you could leave that out. You could just say No problem. You could also say not a problem. If you say not a problem, this one is very casual, no problem at all. I think fits in both the category of both. You could say in a very friendly way, thank you so much. Oh, no problem at all. No problem. But with your friends, you might do something for them. And they might say, Oh thanks. And you say, No problem, No problem at all. No, I think adding at all makes it sound a little more formal and saying just no problem, makes it sound a little more casual. That's just my feeling. So maybe for Customer Service, this one, the whole expression, no problem at all, is a little better. You're very welcome. You're very welcome. This one is when you want to sound very genuine. It's like saying you're welcome, but it's adding that feeling, that genuine feeling to it. And you have to say it in a genuine way, you're very welcome. You actually want to probably stress, stress, focus on with your voice. Very, You're very welcome. You're very welcome. Now, could we say this one casually? Probably not, not as common, but I suppose you could. It's definitely, definitely more formal. Okay. I'm pleased I could help. Wow, okay, this is similar, too happy to help. Write. Very similar, too happy to help, but it is more formal. I'm gonna do two Fs for this one, I'm making up a rating system here for I'm making up a very silly rating system for saying You're welcome. This one is 20 F's. I'm pleased. I could help. Sounds kind of like It's my pleasure. It's that very formal one. You could use that if you want to sound very respectful. If you want to sound a bit more serious and you don't want to show a lot of emotion, that's totally fine. Often depends on the tone that you use. 47. Part 12: Mentioning the Survey: For the end of the call, we've talked about how we can make sure that we've resolved all the customers issues. We've let them know that they can call back if they have any issues in the future. And now we know how to say, You're welcome in many different ways, or at least acknowledge the customer's happiness if they feel, if they feel happy. Now I'd like to talk about something that isn't true in all calls, but it's true in some, there may be a survey. Sometimes the prompt for the survey is automated. That means it's a robot voice saying it. And the robot voice might say this, but if the robot voices and saying it, maybe you have to say it. What do you say? Please remain or stay. The line. That means don't hang up. Don't hang up. It might be more common on the phone to say complete or finished instead of fill out. Sometimes fill out is used more for a written survey. You're answering the questions about whether or not you are satisfied with the service you received. Maybe you rank from one to ten, how well you feel the customer service person did, how well your issue was resolved, whether or not your overall satisfied, whatever the survey questions may be, this is general and this is I guess it could be done on the phone, but for the paper type, a way to ask the customer to remain on the line and complete the survey in a more natural way. A more, I guess we could say human way would be something like this. If you have a moment, if you have a moment, please take a few minutes to finish the survey about your experience today. We could replace this if we want to with, if you can. If you can. But could also say if you don't mind, please take a few minutes. Please take a few minutes or we could make it more personal and say, I would appreciate that's a very personal thing. I would appreciate. I would appreciate if you could take a few minutes to finish the survey about About what? About your experience today to make it clear that it's about what I did and the issue that you had and how you feel overall about my job of helping you resolve the issue. In this last example for mentioning the survey, we can use, by the way, to transition or move from one topic or one thing to another. It's a great phrase to know. Great phrase I love using by the way. So maybe I've asked you if I've resolved your issue and you've confirmed that I have, you don't have any other questions. And maybe you've said thank you very much, I really appreciate it. And I've said, Of course, of course, or I'm happy to help, or whatever I say. And then I want to mention this to change that and switch from telling you that you're welcome. I can use, by the way, by the way, you may receive a survey by email asking how you felt about this call, then you could use the one we talked about in the previous example. If you don't mind. I would appreciate. If you don't mind, I would appreciate if you could a few minutes to complete it. If you don't mind. Now, this one, you may receive a survey because sometimes you get the survey and sometimes you don't. And maybe I, the customer service person don't know whether or not you will. So I just want to prepare you for the possibility that it might show up. So it could be random, may or may not happen. Maybe it's random. Okay. And then this is what the survey is about. Asking you how you felt about this call or what we talked about in the last example about your experience today. Whatever we want to say here, we can say this one, great way to move from one topic to another. You can use that in all areas of life. You can use it in many kinds of conversation when you want to start talking about a new thing. And sometimes we add 0 first. Oh, by the way. Do you remember? Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you. So sometimes we use that when we're talking with friends, but we can use it here too. It's not formal, it's not casual. It's just a nice way to transition. 48. Part 12: Before You Hang Up: