Call scripting is one of the “hot topics” in the contact center industry, primarily because there are so many opinions on the subject. There are many people in favor of call scripting, while many still remain against it. Do you already do it in your contact center? Are you thinking about incorporating it? If yes, the following information can be helpful to either improve or implement call scripting at your company.
For many agents, a script can be a helpful starting point to answering an incoming call. Especially with new agents, it’s important that they learn the ins and outs of what the business does and how to convey that to the customer. By providing a script, it can be easier for agents to learn how to do both of these things and provide good customer service.
While a bullet-point version of a call script can be useful to keep on hand, a fully developed script may lead the agents to simply read it rather to fill in any additional information on their own. From the customer perspective, an agent reading directly from a script comes across as unknowledgeable and, therefore, unable to assist them with their question.
Utilizing call scripts can be beneficial for measuring performance. If every agent is saying something differently in their calls and the KPIs indicate that something is wrong, where can you begin to search for the problem? With scripts, it provides a certain amount of uniformity that can make it easier to pinpoint where a problem is coming from.
Once your company has developed a workable script, have them practice it on and offline to build confidence. Knowing what to include in a sales pitch or which questions to ask a customer off the top of their head comes across well. Ideally, once they practice enough, the majority of the script will remain when they answer calls, but allow flexibility for the agent to add their own flair and make adjustments according to the call.
While call scripting may appear to have a variety of benefits for a contact center, a number of disadvantages exist as well. There are, however, ways to compromise and ensure the best performance possible from your contact center agents. Utilizing a script as a training tool for new agents provides them with a template of what to include. In order to keep them from reading it, have them practice delivering the script dozens of times to help them learn it by heart and to help work on their delivery. Once they learn the script, only allow a bulleted list of key points, forcing each agent to be flexible with each client.
With this technique, your contact center should be poised to improve the performance of its agents and, consequently, improve the level of customer satisfaction.
Regardless if you choose a script or a suggested response, your company will create an identity, or pattern, of words and phrases that are typically said when interacting with customers. With our Speech Analytics platform, we can automatically show you Customer Behavior Indicators, which are words and phrases that are being said more frequently than typical within your pattern. This can provide rapid insight into what may be changing in the Voice of your Customers. Find out more about our Speech Analytics platform here!
