Summary
| Industry | Global Corporate Technical Support / Internal IT Service Desk |
| Challenge Type | Customer service, communication skills, reducing call handling time, improving resolution, increasing customer satisfaction. |
| Service Provided | Improve customer experience, reduce negative feedback, shorten resolution times, increase engineer confidence and reduce call escalations. |
| Goals | Decrease negative customer feedback. Improve active and empathic listening. Decrease call time while increasing call effectiveness through confident, assertive communication skills. |
| Methods of delivery | In-person delivery |
Key Takeaways
Real call analysis identified the behaviours affecting customer experience.
- Bespoke communication training improved confidence and call handling.
- Active listening and effective questioning led to faster issue resolution.
- 15% reduction in call handling time and 35% fewer negative customer comments within six months.
- Better communication delivered measurable improvements for both customers and the business.
Complete Case Study
A global organisation employing approximately 21,000 people relied on three international technical support hubs to provide 24/7 assistance for employees across production, HR, finance and other business functions. The support engineers handled complex technical issues involving SAP, internal systems and third-party providers, making every customer interaction both technically and professionally demanding.
The organisation approached Green Key Personal Development because one of its largest support centres was experiencing declining customer satisfaction alongside increasing call resolution times. While the technical capability of the engineers was high, leadership recognised that communication during customer interactions was affecting both the customer experience and operational efficiency.
The Challenge
The department identified several key issues:
- Increasing negative customer feedback.
- Engineers were not always demonstrating active listening.
- Calls were taking longer than necessary to reach a resolution.
- Customer confidence was being lost during conversations.
- Slow response times caused by internal systems (outside the scope of the project).
How Green Key Helped
Rather than delivering a generic customer service programme, Green Key began by analysing almost 50 real customer calls to understand how engineers communicated, where conversations became difficult and what behaviours were contributing to longer resolution times.
The analysis revealed that many engineers were unintentionally escalating customer frustration through their tone, questioning style and communication approach. In some cases, cross-cultural communication differences also affected understanding and customer confidence. These behaviours increased call duration and made resolving issues more difficult.
Using these findings, Green Key designed a bespoke development programme tailored specifically to the team’s needs to ensure issues were addressed fully.
Programme included:
Two days of practical, face-to-face communication skills training.
A follow-up two-day programme three months later focusing on professional written communication.
Interactive learning built around real customer scenarios taken directly from the analysed calls.
Practical role plays with facilitated feedback, enabling engineers to hear how their communication affected customer responses and practise more effective techniques.
The training focused on helping engineers to:
- Build rapport and confidence with customers.
- Listen actively and demonstrate understanding.
- Ask better questions to diagnose issues more quickly.
- Set clear expectations throughout the call.
- Manage challenging conversations professionally.
- Take control of conversations to achieve faster resolution.
- Produce clearer, more effective written communication.
Results
Within six months the organisation experienced measurable improvements:
- 15% reduction in average call handling time, driven by quicker issue resolution.
- 35% reduction in negative customer feedback.
- Greater confidence among engineers when handling customer interactions.
- Fewer calls requiring escalation to managers because engineers were better able to reassure customers and manage conversations effectively.
This project demonstrates how improving communication skills can deliver measurable operational benefits. By combining detailed call analysis with tailored, practical development, Green Key’s approach through effective design of course content and interactive, experiential delivery helped the call support engineers and the organisation improve the customer experience, increase engineer confidence and reduce the time taken to resolve complex technical issues.
Services demonstrated in this case study
Leadership Coaching, Leadership Skills Training, Management Development, Customer Communication, Difficult conversations & Feedback, Influencing & Persuasion Skills, Energy, Brain Health & Performance, Resilience & Stress Management