English Daily: Customer Service

Engramme: Your Daily English Programme #51 (New Series): Customer Service Issues (Listening A2-B2)

Think Before You Listen

Have you ever called a company's call center to get over-the-phone customer service for a faulty product you had bought earlier?
How did the customer service representative respond to you? Was s/he helpful?
Did you get the results you wanted? Why (not)?

Sometimes contacting a company's customer service is similar to finding your way through a maze. The representative taking your call may not have had customer service training, or you may not be able to communicate clearly what problem(s) you are experiencing with the product. At other times, the person on the other side of the phone may turn out to be impolite or little concerned about your problem or difficulty. Today's lesson, a video from Awkward Puppets, takes a look at the issue of customer service irresponsibility or inefficiency in dealing with customers' requests.

Watch and Listen

Watch the Video: What is the caller's problem? Does the customer care representative help resolve the issue? Why (not)?

Let's Practice

You realize that things between the two people got a little out of hand, probably because the representative had not been well trained or was being rude in his interaction with the customer.

Watch & Listen Again: Fill in the blanks with the words you hear:

	What ______ to be the problem?		Could you ______ your voice, please?
	For some reason, I can’t _______ to the Internet.		I want to speak to your ________.
	Can you help me ____ it?		Please hold [the line].
	I want to ____ the Internet.		I am so sorry about that. That is __________.
	Your ____ isn’t to tell me what to do!		I’m going to take _____ of it right now.
	This is so _________!		That’s it! I'm hanging ___!

(Turn on the video subtitles to check your answers)

Listen One Last Time: Which sentences (above) are said by the customer service representative? Which does the caller say? Put an (R) for the 'Representative' and a (C) for the 'Caller' next to each sentence:

Over to You

Look at this customer satisfaction survey from Wufoo.com: Think about a product/service you recently purchased. Answer the questions based on your level of satisfaction with the product/service:

click to enlarge

Share your answers with a friend or a classmate. How similar/different were your answers? Explain why you chose a particular answer.

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