Call centers are often the first and foremost point of contact for a customer, and if your business has a contact center that customers can call when they need to get in touch, it is often the people who man the call center phones that wholly represent your business.
For this reason, if you manage a call center or your business owns a call center, it’s important that you implement good call center etiquette throughout, and ensure that your staff understand the importance of this and how it reflects on you and your company.
Each and every positive interaction that a customer has with a company can turn them into a loyal customer, therefore it’s vital that your call center agents know exactly how important it is to ensure that each customer interaction they take part in is as positive as possible. We’ve put together some of the best tips for call center etiquette.
Be courteous
It is vital that each call center agent knows the importance of treating each and every caller with courtesy. Simple things such as asking how they would like to be addressed, making every effort to pronounce their name correctly, and using their name consistently over the duration of the call are all seemingly small and insignificant things that can often be the difference between a positive and negative interaction.
Simple, polite gestures such as waiting until the caller has finished speaking before speaking yourself, talking with a smile, and remaining calm and clear go a long way.
Be professional
Call center agents should understand that it is crucial that they retain the same level of professionalism throughout the conversation, even in difficult circumstances such as where the customers begins to get irate or annoyed.
Call center agents are the face of the company, so it is important that they have the necessary training and that they are regularly monitored to ensure that their calls are up to professional company standards.
Respect
It goes without saying that all customers should be treated with respect, and agents should remain calm throughout each and every customer interaction, speak respectfully and treat each individual customer as if they were the most valued customer ever.
Agent’s should be respectful to their caller by trying to understand their problem and empathizing with them, as well as making sure that every possible effort is made in order to ensure that the caller’s problem is resolved.
Honesty
Customers appreciate honesty, and call center agents should understand the importance of this when on a call. Agents should never lie, make up an answer or make guesses when speaking to a customer – instead, when faced with a question that they are unsure of the answer to agents should politely tell the caller that they are unsure and that they will pass the customer on to another employee who will be better qualified to answer their queries.
Building trust
As well as being honest, there are a number of other things that a call center agent can do in order to build the trust of their callers. A trustworthy company is more likely to be recommended to others by its current customers and will tend to have a better reputation than one which is not.
For this reason, building trust on every call is not only essential for the interaction to run smoothly but it was also help to build positive brand awareness for your company on a larger scale. Character and competence are just some qualities needed to build trust with customers, and good trust building also requires integrity, honesty, truthfulness, reliability and loyalty.
Confidence
In order for the handling of difficult interactions to go as well as possible, call center agents should be confident in their abilities to do so. Proper training is just one necessary step that should be taken to ensure that call center agents are confident enough to do their job as needed, and ensure that staff are also well managed and properly equipped, for example with software like eGain KnowledgeAgent, in order to handle any stressful or difficult situations.
This will instill confidence and lead to interactions being a more positive experience for both agents and callers, which reflects on the company as having a more positive image overall. Callers should also be confident in the abilities of others – for example, if a customer asks them a question that they are unsure of the answer to, they should be confident that there will be someone who they can pass the call over to.
Do you work in a call center? Pass on your etiquette tips in the comments.