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

Matching_MjMzNDA=

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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Worksheet81.85 KB

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

Hello Vusale

While it may be true that 'Andrea' is more often the name of a woman among native speakers of English, around the world, it is a name given to both men and women. The Andrea in this phone call is not a native speaker of English, so it's not unusual for him to have this name.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Hi. Is there any other listening audios apart from these

Hello MedScience

These are all the pages at the B1 level in our Listening skills, but there are many other pages in General English. I would recommend you have a look at a few pages in Big City Small World, Audio zone, Podcasts, Video zone and Word on the Street (though please note these last two have video, not just audio). Each of those sections has many more pages and you can continue with whichever one you like the most.

Hope this helps.

All the best

Kirk

The LearnEnglish Team

Yes, I agree with that but sometimes I don´t think it is a problem to open a small exception to a client if it is something important and obviously not to let it become a routine or abuse.

Until now, I don't have a chance to work directly with customers. I work with my team, and my leader with contact with them. But I hope that I will have a chance to do it and get many experiences, or something like this

Can someone please tell me how to select multiple answers and put in two groups. I am having problem in task 2.

Hello Jangchutshomo,

To place a second item in one of the boxes, make sure you drop the item on the box itself (it should be marked dark grey) rather than on any answers already in the box. If you drop an item on an item already in the box then it will swap them; if you drop it on the box it will add the new item.

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team