CCP Foundation Level
Communication and Customer Relations cheat sheet
Every chapter's key points, formulas and definitions on one page, for the last week before the exam. Each heading links to the chapter that explains it.
Introduction to communication
- Communication is the sharing of information, ideas or feelings so that the receiver understands, as closely as possible, the meaning the sender intended.
- A message moves from sender to receiver through encoding, a channel and decoding, the receiver's feedback confirms whether it was understood, and noise can distort it at any stage.
- The 7 Cs of effective communication are clarity, conciseness, correctness, completeness, courtesy, consideration and concreteness.
- Internal communication flows within the organisation; external communication flows to customers, debtors, suppliers, regulators and the public.
- Barriers can be language, physical, psychological, organisational or cultural, and with a customer in financial difficulty, clear, calm and specific language removes more resistance than firmness does.
Key terms
- Verbal (oral)
- Spoken communication, face to face or by telephone, covered in full in the chapter on oral communication.
- Written
- Communication recorded in text, letters, reports, emails, covered in full in the chapter on written communication.
- Visual
- Communication using graphs, charts, diagrams or images, covered in the chapter on written and visual communication.
- Non-verbal
- Communication through body language, tone and other cues without words, covered in full in the chapter on non-verbal communication.
- Internal communication
- Communication that flows within an organisation: between management and staff, across departments, and between colleagues at the same level.
- External communication
- Communication that flows between the organisation and outside parties: customers, debtors, suppliers, regulators and the public.
The rest of the sheet covers
- Written and visual communication
- Oral communication
- Non-verbal communication
- Meetings
- Group and team dynamics
- Decision making and problem solving
- Negotiation in customer relations
- Customer feedback
- Customer relations
- Customer care through technology
- Ethics in customer relations
- Exam technique and revision
- Glossary