English Learning Guide

Competency 2
Unit 1: Customer Service
Workshop 3
Centro de Servicios Financieros- CSF

Name: Sonia Milena Peña Zapata Cohort: Two Date: 13- nov- 2022

Training program: Tecnólogo en Gestión Empresarial Instructor: Harry Estupiñan Corredor

DESCRIBING PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

This workshop attempts to help you improve your basic interaction with others at your workplace,
sharing personal information, identifying formal and informal communication, and asking and
giving information on phone calls your coworkers and you will learn about customer service,
offering and describing products and services, and how to interact with others at your workplace.
Objective from the development of these activities, you will be able to offer customers your
company’s services and products.

1. Work in groups and discuss the following questions:

- What do you think it is a product?
- Response:
- It is something that help us to solve, satisfice, and supply the customer needs, problems, and troubles

- What do you think it is a service?

- Response:
- t is a set of actions that is ofer by companies to satisaface, and suply the needs of the consumer.

2. Skills practice: do the following activities to practice the learnt vocabulary and English
structures.

2.1. Listening practice: Video about product or service description1

Watch the following video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHrxP-mTJt4

8Before watching the video, identify the following vocabulary:

Product: (producto)
It is a set of tangible
characteristics and attributes
(shape, size, color) that the
buyer accepts, in principle,
as something that will satisfy
his needs.
Service: (Servicio)
Action or set of activities
aimed at satisfying a specific
customer need.
Description: (Descripción)
It is to explain, in a detailed
and orderly manner, what
people, animals, places,
objects, etc. are like
Market: (Mercado)
It is a retail commercial
establishment offering
consumer goods on a
self-service basis, including
food, clothing.
Functionality:(funcionalidad)
A set of characteristics that
make something practical
and utilitarian.
Different:(Diferente)
Which is not the same, does
not resemble or has other
characteristics or qualities.
Unique: (Única)
Applies to one or more things of
which or of whosekind there are
no other.
Exclusive: (Exclusivo)
That it is unique among
others or that it belongs
only to something or
someone.
Patent: (Patentar)
It is a privilege granted by
Trademark: (Marca Need state: Development cycle:
Commercial) (Estado de (Ciclo de Desarrollo)
Is one the first commercial necesidad) It is the process that a
identification that how a It is one of the trade item goes through
product or service is circumstances that from its conception to its
related and offered in the allows an unlawful exit from the market.
market. act not to be
punishable.
Competitors: (Competidores) Development goals:
Competing with others and Consumer: (Objetivos de
aspiring to the same goal or (Consumidor) desarrollo)
superiority in something. A consumer, or Is a set of goals that
user, is any natural the company will have
Patent-Pending: the person acting in the future.
process to obtain a patent outside his trade,
has already started by business, craft or Sale: (Rebaja)
having filed an application. profession. The action or effect of
There will be competitors selling, delivering a good
who, faced with this End/ultimate: by transferring
warning, will not try to (Fin/ ultimo) ownership in exchange
imitate the corresponding "Ultimate" is a form of for an agreed price. The
product. "last", an adjective that process and result of
can be translated as providing a service in
Stock: (Valores) "last". "Final" is an exchange for an agreed
Set of goods or products adjective that can be price.
stored awaiting sale or translated as "final."
marketing. hygiene items, Specifications:
perfumery, and cleaning. (Especificaciones)
Action and effect of
Benefits: (Beneficios) Manufacturing details: specifying. Information
It is an improvement (Detalles de provided by the
that a person fabricación) manufacturer of a
experiences, thanks to production of objects product, which describes
something that is done through its components,
or given to him/her. mechanical-type characteristics and
means operation.
Solutions: (Soluciones)
That is given to a doubt, Pricing structure:
or reason with which (Estructura de precios)
the difficulty of an It is a process that aims
argument is dissolved to effectively organize
or untied. costs within a company
and thus improve
decision making. It takes
into account different
aspects such as types of
costs, percentages,
product, customer,
the State to the inventor in among others.
recognition of the Margin Analysis:
investment and efforts (Analisis de margen)
made by him to achieve a It is an analytical metric
technical solution that used to evaluate the
brings benefits to financial health of a
humanity. company. It reveals the
percentage of revenue
earned in relation to the
costs required to
generate it.

1
Taken From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHrxP-mTJt4 Used by SENA for academic purposes, exclusively.

Watch the video, make some notes and answer the following questions:

Which are the three basic questions you need to ask yourself to describe your product or service?
- Response:

1. What is the product?

2. Because it is unique?
3. How are we going to make it?

What is it important to have to make your product or service exclusive?

- Response:
- trademark patent function functionality

What makes the mousetrap an exclusive product?

- Response:
- Each trap comes nicely furnished, includes a flat screen TV, a full bar and the cage inside is padded
and patented.

Explain the concepts for product or service description:

- Response:
 Manufacturing details:
Is it a service that could generate potential customers, is it expected to be just a simple
mousetrap? the goal is to rehearse beyond the initial product.

Development cycle: It is the process that a trade item goes

through from its conception to its exit from the market.

Development goals: Project goals should define what

needs to happen after the project is successfully completed
and where the project fits in with the overall goals of the
business.

2.2. Speaking practice: oral presentation to describe a product or service

Prepare an oral presentation about a product or service description your company may offer to its
customers. Consider:
- What makes the product unique, exclusive, its functions, solutions, benefits?
- Tell why this product is a great solution for your customers’ needs.
- Share your presentation in class.

2.3. Reading practice: Read the text and then, complete the exercises below.

Ten tips on how to sell any product or service2

Opinion December 16, 2013 Business Matters

2
Taken from https://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/opinion/ten-tips-sell-product-service/ Used by SENA for
are the lifeblood of every business. You can call it business development, account handling or
client relationship management. There’s a fine line between success and failure. Follow these ten
tips and improve your chances of closing any sale.
1. Research the customer. Find out all you can about their personal circumstances, for
example their relationship status, family names and hobbies. Make sure you understand their
position in their organisational hierarchy and how their business works. Keep notes on their
company: read their website, their annual report and their trade magazines.
2. Research your products. You need to know the specifics of availability, delivery dates,
repairs and your aftercare service. You also need to know about competitor offerings, so you can
set your product or service in context.
3. Research the past relationship. You should know the complete history of the relationship
between your company and the customer’s organisation. That includes what they have ordered in
the past. Know your facts about any challenges or issues you have had and how they were
resolved.
4. Set a clear – but flexible – objective. Your objective is not just to create a rapport with the
customer, it is to sell. But you’ll need fall-back objectives too, so prepare some alternatives. For
example, settle for a smaller order or even leave a product on sale or return. Your objectives must
be realistic. For high value items or services, your objective might be to persuade the customer to
undertake a cost-benefit study on your solution.
5. Probe for other customers for your product. When you’ve exhausted a product’s
possibilities with one customer, ask them for leads to other people in their organisation who
might have a need for that product.
6. Probe for other products for your customer. If a customer starts to buy fewer products
from you, always check to ensure you understand the reason why. It may be that their policies
have changed. Find out what is different. It might be possible for you to sell one or more of
your
company’s other products, to help them meet their new requirements.
7. When you’re with your customer, ask open questions that get beneath the surface. One
of the worst things you can do in selling is to simply launch into your ‘patter’ without tailoring your
offering to the customer’s needs. We all know that people don’t buy features, they buy benefits,
but sometimes we can forget to look at what we’re selling through the customer’s eyes. Open up a
dialogue with the customer, make sure you understand their needs, then relate your product to
those needs and sell the benefits.
8. Keep control of the meeting. Be careful with a customer who tries to put you on the back
foot by asking lots of questions. Remember, you can answer a question with a question (why is
that important to you?). Try to uncover what is behind their queries and get to the root of their
needs.
9. Overcome their objections. There are few certainties in sales but one thing you can bet
on is that customers will have objections. The best advice here is that you should never take
objections personally. The customer is not objecting to you; they’re usually objecting either to
their need or to some aspect of your product. Once you understand that, it’s easier to put their
objection into context. The trick is to probe until you understand their specific objection (and
often it will really come down to just the one thing).
10. Ask for the business. Closing the sale should be pain-free and simple. If you haven’t
unearthed all of the client’s unspoken objections, if the benefits aren’t necessarily relevant to the
client, then the close will need to overcome this – you may still make the sale, but you’ll be doing
it the hard way and with more uncertainty. Finally, once you’ve got the sale, stop talking. Less
experienced salespeople can sometimes talk the customer into changing their minds after they’ve
agreed to buy. Never make that mistake.
These tips may seem obvious but, in the real world, even experienced salespeople can forget to
apply them. Keep these fundamental points in mind and improve your chances of success.
Martin Addison is CEO of Video Arts, the learning content specialist. He can be contacted on 020
7400 4800 or via maddison@videoarts.co.uk These tips are taken from Successful Selling, a new
video-based training resource from Video Arts which brings alive the essential techniques and
principles of effective sales through realistic and humorous scenarios. For a preview
visit: http://www.videoarts.com/sales-and-negotiation/successful-selling

- Look for the definition and examples of the underlined Words in the text.
- Based on the principle 7, write down at least 3 questions to identify your customer’s needs
to offer your products or services.

2.4. Writing practice: make a brochure of your model company services

- Work in groups and take your model company to design a brochure describing its services
and products. Take into account: Description of the product/service, benefits, aftercare
service, availability, etc.
- Share it with the rest of the class and discuss as if you were a customer.
 3. Extension activities: use some complementary materials to deepen your knowledge and get
more tools to improve your performance.

- To watch more videos and learn more vocabulary about the workplace communication, visit
the channel 925English at YouTube.
- Read more tips about products and services at https://www.bmmagazine.co.uk/opinion/ten-
tips-sell-product-service/
- Get more information about call center tips at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKkDBKaP-hs
- Based on your instructor’s orientation, explore the following website and practice the English
structures. Do at least 2 activities from each topic studied in class and deliver them to your
instructor http://www.esl-lounge.com/student/grammar-guides/grammar-pre-
intermediate.php