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

It's always good to build a relationship of trust with customers

Thank you, I learned new vocabulary

Yes, I've been worked for an employment agency. There was some payment late by our clients in another countries so we have been making exceptions.

I am currently working as Accountant and I wanna say that favours are good for both sides,but if you overdo it for your customers it does not matter they are loyal customers or new customers you will get problems in the future with management.Because it is a waste of time for company to "play" with cash flows of the company for customers frequently.If you wanna establish powerful company you need to keep down amount of recevibales from your customers.

As a student, I haven't had any business of my own nor have worked in a company but, I have had some experiences in purchasing chemicals, equipment and consumables for the laboratory and for my studies. Based on my experiences of purchasing and payment, some companies do extend the payment based on regularity of purchasing, prices of items or quantities of items purchase. I think is important to give some exceptions provided the customer is a regular customers and honest, so that customers will be happy and will come back to contribute to the business again next time.

Yes but I think it would not depend on me, if not on my boss. First, I would ask if we can do a favor to a client, and giving her answer would be done.

I would do the same, because it´s important to give a back up to the clients, but it depends on the benefits the organization has, because in this case both parts were benefited, but there must be situations where it could be risky so you can´t do the same.

I don´t know if it´s a favour but when I used to work in a family bussines, a client forgot his cellphone, I noticed about that so I took it, I wait a call asking for it and finaly I received the call and I told her that her cellphone was in the bussines so she can pass and pick her phone up.