A phone call from a customer

Listen to the phone call from a customer to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

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Transcript

Junko: Hello, Junko Mori speaking. How can I help you?

Andrea: Hi, Junko, it's Andrea here from Red Band. I'm calling about our latest order.

Junko: Everything arrived OK, right? We got the delivery confirmation at our end.

Andrea: Yes, everything's fine with the order. I'm calling about the invoice and the payment terms. I need a favour.

Junko: A favour? What do you need?

Andrea: This is a little, er ... difficult, but I need an extension on the payment terms. I know they're usually 30 days, but we're having some cash flow problems. You'd really be helping us out if you could extend it to 60 days.

Junko: I'm not sure if I can do that, Andrea. We've got regulations at our end, and also have to manage our own cash flow.

Andrea: I promise this won't become the norm, Junko. Actually, I also want to place another new order. The same size order as last time. It's for an important customer and they pay on delivery.

Junko: I see. So your cash flow problem will be solved after this new order is delivered.

Andrea: Exactly.

Junko: That sounds good. Hold on, Andrea. Let me see what I can do. Yes, I think we can make an exception this time.

Andrea: That's great, Junko. I appreciate your help.

Junko: And we appreciate your business, Andrea. It works both ways.

Andrea: Thanks again, Junko. Can you send me a quick email confirmation of the payment terms extension?

Junko: Sure, no problem. We're happy to help you.

Andrea: Great. And I'll email you the new order.

Junko: Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for it. Talk to you soon.

Andrea: You too. Goodbye.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

Do you ever do favours or make exceptions for important clients?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

Yes, but I'd request a strong justification, also I think it should not be to not only important customers but also all customers if they have some issues.

here in Brazil is hard learning language,portuguese is oficial language

i am learning a lot

It is not my case because I don't work in a job wich has that kind of situations but I think that there are some cases in wich we need to do some exceptions in the benefit of both parts of the relation.

Yes, in my work I have million costumers. A many of them are a CEO and need a quicly answer about them questions. It's dificult because, in many times, I depend another area to solve the problem. I work in a Bank technical support.

In Italy we say: the customer has always right... But certainly with limits . .

the customer has always right... - in Russia too ))))

Hello, I personally think doing favours and making exceptions are intertwined, since in context, it has to do with "an important client". So, I make exceptions for important or let me say 'favourite' clients...

helpful.

Yes. When I had my own mobile shop, I used to do exceptions for clients who had financial issues in order to help them keep using my services that time.