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DEALING WITH DIFFICULT CALLERS AND UNHELPFUL STAFF

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Part of the book series: Guides to Professional English ((GPE))

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Correspondence to Adrian Wallwork .

Dealing with difficult callers and unhelpful staff: Summary

Dealing with difficult callers and unhelpful staff: Summary

  • If you are a receptionist, devise ways of politely terminating a telephone call with unwanted callers e.g. by telling them you already have a provider of the product or service you are offering, by saying that you are not authorised to transfer the call to the person they want to speak to, by telling them to write an email.

  • Empathize with callers who are registering a complaint. Show understanding and try to keep the caller calm. The same applies with impolite callers – the important thing is never to be impolite yourself no matter how insulting the caller gets.

  • If you are the caller, and you fail to be able to be transferred to the desired person, ask to be transferred to that person’s secretary or another person in their department. Again, don’t be rude as this will not improve your chances of being transferred to the right person.

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© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Wallwork, A. (2014). DEALING WITH DIFFICULT CALLERS AND UNHELPFUL STAFF. In: Telephone and Helpdesk Skills. Guides to Professional English. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0638-3_8

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