The call center services industry is notorious for having high turnover rates for live operators. Many times call center managers feel like they are constantly hiring and training new employees in order to replace the ones which have left. The key to retaining employees is keeping the call center staff motivated and interested in their jobs. Additionally, it is important to properly screen job applicants.
Skill Enhancement
A common reason employees quit a professional call center is lack of intellectual stimulation. In other words, employees become bored. One solution is to develop multiple skill sets of certain employees. Managers can do this by assigning multiple call center campaigns to employees who seem most interested. This will keep them from becoming bored of performing the same job function every day. This will also develop skill sets and work experience, which can help them their careers, therefore providing incentive and motivation. However, managers should not force this upon any employees. Some employees are perfectly satisfied with doing only one job function on a daily basis.
Promote Active Participation
Employees who are encouraged to actively participate in the management of the call center business will feel more empowered. When an employee feels insignificant and unimportant he or she may experience dissatisfaction. This increases the chances of attrition, therefore reducing efficiency. Call center managers can promote active participation and employee empowerment by asking the employees for suggestions on managing the call center business. Forming teams and creating contests, to reward effective work performance enhances interest and motivation.
Offer Promotion Opportunities
Employees are more motivated when there is an incentive to perform. Call center managers can offer is the possibility of being promoted within the company as an incentive. This provides employees a reason to continue their careers with the company and fosters a sense of ownership. If there are no promotion opportunities available, then employees will eventually begin to look elsewhere to further their careers. This causes high turnover and forces management to spend more time, money, and energy on hiring and training new employees.
Treat Employees Like Real People
Call center managers have an easier time retaining employees if they have empathy for employees' lives outside of work. The call center services industry refers to this as the employee's work-life balance. Employees have various personal obligations to family and friends outside of work, which may affect their performance at the workplace. Live operators working at a professional call center can be a stressful job. Therefore, call center representatives need time to recharge by enjoying free time in their personal lives. Managers should consider employee work-life balance when scheduling to ensure employees have enough time off in between shifts to rest. Management should consult with each employee to make sure they understand the employee's personal needs and to address any problems with his or her work-life balance.
Keep Things Fun and Positive
A fun and positive work environment helps retain employees and reduce attrition. Motivational games help to keep employees interested and increases productivity. Many call center businesses give away prizes to employees who perform well. Some call center managers will treat their employees to the occasional free lunch or party in order to build a sense of teamwork. Allowing employees to dress casually on specific days or perhaps even every day will also keep the work environment relaxed and free from stress. Permitting regular breaks helps relieve stress caused by answering the phone. These call center management techniques boost morale, while keeping the work place fun and positive.
Showing posts with label call center services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label call center services. Show all posts
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Seven Rules of Excellent Customer Service
Businesses commonly outsource to answering services and professional call centers because they need help providing service to their customers. Customer service representatives should be able to answer almost any questions, as well as, solve most problems. Representatives should leave the customer satisfied and happy with the interaction. Fortunately, there are some simple rules which may help guide representatives in providing the best possible customer service.
Rule 1: Customer is King (or Queen)
Live operators should remember that they are being paid to service and fulfill customer needs. This is the best context for a representative when speaking to the customer on the phone. Setting this context when training call center employees will help them understand how providing good customer service can benefit themselves, as well as, the customer.
Rule 2: Listen to the Customer
The first step in providing good customer service is knowing what the customer wants or needs. Customer service agents should not assume they already know what a customer wants. Finding out what the customer wants requires excellent listening skills on the part of the live operator. Some important things to take note of are the customer's choice of words and tone of voice. These will be clues as to the customer's level of satisfaction, as well as, how much rapport the representative has earned.
Rule 3: Always Be Courteous and Polite
Being courteous and polite with customers is essential to building rapport with customers. Live operators should be trained to carefully choose their words. An effective script can help the representative in this aspect. He or she should also pay close attention to the customer's tone of voice. The representative should never raise his or her voice or sound frustrated in any way when speaking with customers. Even if the customer is irate, the representative should remain calm.
Rule 4: Go the Extra Mile
Customers appreciate a service agent who does more than is expected. Many times it is easy for a call center representative to ignore this aspect in customer service, because he or she are not physically in front of the customer. When training call center representatives you should be sure to emphasize that going the extra mile for the customer will be recognized by the customer, as well as, the call center management team. Whatever reasonable request a customer presents, the customer service representative should always accept and fulfill the request.
Rule 5: Educate Customers
Some of the most common customer complaints stem from the customer's ignorance about how an organization's systems work. If customers are confused by a company's systems for transacting business, they can become irritated. Even the most patient of customers can become angry in these instances. Customer service representatives should do their best to educate customers on how the company's systems are designed to simplify transactions.
Rule 6: Always Apologize
An apology can go a long way in call center customer service. When a problem arises, customer service representatives should always apologize first before finding a solution. This helps build rapport and calm down the customer's emotional responses. Customer service agents should always apologize even if it is not his or her fault. They should also apologize even if the customer is the cause of the problem.
Rule 7: Value Employees
Working as a customer service representative in a call center can be stressful. Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain a positive attitude after taking hundreds of calls. Call center managers should recognize this and do what they can to keep customer service agents happy with their jobs. How call center management treats its employees will be reflected by how employees treat the customers over the phone. The last thing a call center wants are employees who are already upset before they even take one incoming call. Making employees feel appreciated will translate into customers feeling appreciated. This will cause increased business and income.
Implementing these rules will help any professional call center service elevate its level of customer service. Putting these rules into action require implementing them into the customer service representative training curriculum. Proper training from day one will build the correct context for the call center employee to effectively interact with customers.
Rule 1: Customer is King (or Queen)
Live operators should remember that they are being paid to service and fulfill customer needs. This is the best context for a representative when speaking to the customer on the phone. Setting this context when training call center employees will help them understand how providing good customer service can benefit themselves, as well as, the customer.
Rule 2: Listen to the Customer
The first step in providing good customer service is knowing what the customer wants or needs. Customer service agents should not assume they already know what a customer wants. Finding out what the customer wants requires excellent listening skills on the part of the live operator. Some important things to take note of are the customer's choice of words and tone of voice. These will be clues as to the customer's level of satisfaction, as well as, how much rapport the representative has earned.
Rule 3: Always Be Courteous and Polite
Being courteous and polite with customers is essential to building rapport with customers. Live operators should be trained to carefully choose their words. An effective script can help the representative in this aspect. He or she should also pay close attention to the customer's tone of voice. The representative should never raise his or her voice or sound frustrated in any way when speaking with customers. Even if the customer is irate, the representative should remain calm.
Rule 4: Go the Extra Mile
Customers appreciate a service agent who does more than is expected. Many times it is easy for a call center representative to ignore this aspect in customer service, because he or she are not physically in front of the customer. When training call center representatives you should be sure to emphasize that going the extra mile for the customer will be recognized by the customer, as well as, the call center management team. Whatever reasonable request a customer presents, the customer service representative should always accept and fulfill the request.
Rule 5: Educate Customers
Some of the most common customer complaints stem from the customer's ignorance about how an organization's systems work. If customers are confused by a company's systems for transacting business, they can become irritated. Even the most patient of customers can become angry in these instances. Customer service representatives should do their best to educate customers on how the company's systems are designed to simplify transactions.
Rule 6: Always Apologize
An apology can go a long way in call center customer service. When a problem arises, customer service representatives should always apologize first before finding a solution. This helps build rapport and calm down the customer's emotional responses. Customer service agents should always apologize even if it is not his or her fault. They should also apologize even if the customer is the cause of the problem.
Rule 7: Value Employees
Working as a customer service representative in a call center can be stressful. Sometimes it can be difficult to maintain a positive attitude after taking hundreds of calls. Call center managers should recognize this and do what they can to keep customer service agents happy with their jobs. How call center management treats its employees will be reflected by how employees treat the customers over the phone. The last thing a call center wants are employees who are already upset before they even take one incoming call. Making employees feel appreciated will translate into customers feeling appreciated. This will cause increased business and income.
Implementing these rules will help any professional call center service elevate its level of customer service. Putting these rules into action require implementing them into the customer service representative training curriculum. Proper training from day one will build the correct context for the call center employee to effectively interact with customers.
Monday, December 19, 2011
How to Create a Good Telemarketing Script
The first step in creating an effective telemarketing campaign is drafting a good script. This critical component can often be neglected by even the most experienced of professional call center managers. Instead of being a priority, many times writing a proper script is the last aspect call center managers consider. However, even with the best telemarketers, without an effective and concise script, a call center business will not be able to produce results.
Have a Precise Goal
Before you begin writing your script, make sure you understand the goal of the campaign. Some campaigns may simply require you to generate leads. This means you are not actually trying to close a sale, but rather verifying a potential customer's interest in a particular product or service. Other times a client who hires a professional call center requires live operators to close sales over the telephone. Understanding the nature and goal of the campaign will enable you to draft an effective script.
Understand What You Are Selling
Knowledge is the cornerstone of any type of sales campaign. It does not matter if you are selling a product or a service, knowledge of what you are selling is integral to creating an effective script. For example, if you are generating leads for a mortgage company, be sure to understand the terms of the proposed mortgage. When selling services, make sure you understand the pricing and scope of the services before drafting your script.
Know Who to Speak With
When developing a script be sure to know the decision maker's name and title. This should be integrated into your cold call and lead list. When calling on businesses do your best to obtain the person's official title. Generally, the script should assume that the call reached the correct person. For example, an introduction may be similar to the following: “Hello, John, my name is Sarah calling from XYZ Marketing Company.” Notice, that the introduction did not ask to speak to “John,” but simply assumes that the sales person has already reached the correct person.
Explain the Reason for the Call
Your telemarketing script should also explain the purpose of the call. This is important because you may be interrupting somebody in an important task. This may be especially true when targeting other businesses. Even with calls to consumers, you may be interrupting somebody's dinner. This part of the script needs to be direct and concise. However, you should also try to be as natural and smooth as possible. The introduction also needs to explain how your company can benefit the potential customer.
Use Open-Ended Questions
Closed-ended questions are those which can be answered with a single word, such as “yes” or “no.” Open-ended questions, on the other hand, require more detailed responses. Closed-ended questions can be used to close a sale, however, in the opening moments of a sales or lead generation call they can be detrimental. Closed-ended questions can end a conversation too quickly, not allowing the telemarketer to gather information necessary to build rapport. Open-ended questions allow the potential customer to express how he or she feels about business or whatever aspect of their lives that is relevant to the sales call.
Rebuttals
Rebuttals are an integral to any script. No matter what type of product or service you are selling, potential customers will have some type of objection, which is a reason to not want your product or service. Rebuttals are scripted responses designed to overcome objections. Be sure to create strong rebuttals for the most common objections.
The script is the skeleton with which you will build your sales campaign upon. It will help guide how you hire and how you organize your sales process. Once you create an effective script, you can then add other components needed for a successful call center business.
Have a Precise Goal
Before you begin writing your script, make sure you understand the goal of the campaign. Some campaigns may simply require you to generate leads. This means you are not actually trying to close a sale, but rather verifying a potential customer's interest in a particular product or service. Other times a client who hires a professional call center requires live operators to close sales over the telephone. Understanding the nature and goal of the campaign will enable you to draft an effective script.
Understand What You Are Selling
Knowledge is the cornerstone of any type of sales campaign. It does not matter if you are selling a product or a service, knowledge of what you are selling is integral to creating an effective script. For example, if you are generating leads for a mortgage company, be sure to understand the terms of the proposed mortgage. When selling services, make sure you understand the pricing and scope of the services before drafting your script.
Know Who to Speak With
When developing a script be sure to know the decision maker's name and title. This should be integrated into your cold call and lead list. When calling on businesses do your best to obtain the person's official title. Generally, the script should assume that the call reached the correct person. For example, an introduction may be similar to the following: “Hello, John, my name is Sarah calling from XYZ Marketing Company.” Notice, that the introduction did not ask to speak to “John,” but simply assumes that the sales person has already reached the correct person.
Explain the Reason for the Call
Your telemarketing script should also explain the purpose of the call. This is important because you may be interrupting somebody in an important task. This may be especially true when targeting other businesses. Even with calls to consumers, you may be interrupting somebody's dinner. This part of the script needs to be direct and concise. However, you should also try to be as natural and smooth as possible. The introduction also needs to explain how your company can benefit the potential customer.
Use Open-Ended Questions
Closed-ended questions are those which can be answered with a single word, such as “yes” or “no.” Open-ended questions, on the other hand, require more detailed responses. Closed-ended questions can be used to close a sale, however, in the opening moments of a sales or lead generation call they can be detrimental. Closed-ended questions can end a conversation too quickly, not allowing the telemarketer to gather information necessary to build rapport. Open-ended questions allow the potential customer to express how he or she feels about business or whatever aspect of their lives that is relevant to the sales call.
Rebuttals
Rebuttals are an integral to any script. No matter what type of product or service you are selling, potential customers will have some type of objection, which is a reason to not want your product or service. Rebuttals are scripted responses designed to overcome objections. Be sure to create strong rebuttals for the most common objections.
The script is the skeleton with which you will build your sales campaign upon. It will help guide how you hire and how you organize your sales process. Once you create an effective script, you can then add other components needed for a successful call center business.
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