For some contact centers, the concept of scripting remains important. Whether it’s because of new agents or highly complex products, most contact centers rely on scripting at least a little bit. The process of scripting has gotten easier in recent years, thanks to call center solutions with browser-based agent desktops such as those offered by VoltDelta (News - Alert) that facilitate integration into available knowledge bases or scripting resources. Agents have more tools available to them, and companies have been able to build smarter scripts thanks to the integration.
Call centers, however, should beware of relying TOO heavily on scripts. Today, nearly half of customers report they would stop doing business with a company because of a negative customer experience, and overly robotic agents who aren’t empowered to go “off script” to resolve an issue are a top complaint of customers, particularly younger customers in the so-called “Millennial” generation. Simply put, forcing customer service agents to adhere to the company script can prevent them from being flexible in responding to individual customer complaints and resolving issues. It also doesn’t help with employee engagement: call center workers who can use their initiative to solve problems and truly help people report better job satisfaction.
“Many times with call centers, customers must go through a number of automated systems before they reach a live person,” wrote Jeanne Landau for Customer Think. “But when agents start to read from a script verbatim, they come across as stilted and mechanical, making them sound no better than another machine. As a result, agents sound apathetic to the customers’ problems, causing the customers to not only doubt the agents’ sincerity in wanting to help them, but also their desire to find the best solution.”
Highly scripted agents often signal to customers that the workers is poorly informed and incapable of helping with a problem. A powerless employee is not going to instill a lot of confidence in a customer that his or her problem will be solved. So how do you achieve a balance between ensuring agents are hitting all the right points but not coming across like mindless robots?
Consider a compromise on scripts: use them for greetings and introductions and requests to help, but ditch them when it comes to apologies or empathizing with customers. Nothing sounds worse than a scripted apology, which is often too formally worded and almost always sounds insincere. Wrap-ups and good-byes also sound insincere in scripted format. Landau recommends having new agents practice with the script until they can work without it.
“One way call centers can improve the way their agents sound is to invest in some extra training,” she wrote. “While newer agents can be expected to rely a little more on a script, it should not be used forever. Instead, they (and all agents) should be encouraged to familiarize themselves with the script and practice so they become more comfortable with it, making their answers sound and feel more natural to them.”
You wouldn’t employ an army of robots to handle your most valuable business asset – your customers – why would you want to hire human workers that sound like robots?
Edited by Maurice Nagle