Personalize the Call Script

While customers feel that scripted conversations lack the all-important personal touch, agents are also typically not keen on being told what to say. There's a direct correlation between over-scripting and lower employee satisfaction. By giving employees guidelines and flexibility, you're empowering them to own the problem. Experts share five tips for organizations which need to use scripting within their contact centres:

Involve Customer Service Experts When Building A Script

Stefan Captijn, product marketing director for business applications at Genesys, says a big problem with scripts is that they're normally written by legal or HR teams and the parlance isn't very customer friendly. He recommends including customer service experts in the development phase, allowing them to look at the script from the customer's perspective and recommend changes that would improve the experience. "Be careful that the script doesn't turn agents into robots", he says.

Regularly Test The Efficiency Of Scripts And Make The Necessary Changes

Very few scripts are ready-to-use from the get-go. "You need to test [scripts] and have a team who will really critique them," he notes. Captijn agrees, pointing out that if part of a script doesn't make sense to customers and triggers other questions, then the verbiage needs to change to be more explanatory. "If customers don't understand what they're being told, the script isn't working even if it's legally perfect", he says.

Train and Empower Agents to Go Off-script When they Feel the Need

Scripts are no replacement for proper agent training. Instead agents need to be properly trained to listen to customers, understand the context of the conversation, and do their utmost to answer the clients' questions and help them with their needs. You have to trust them to do the right thing. Organizations need to keep this in mind during the hiring process to ensure they hire the right people who will say the right things to customers. Further, agents need to be trained to make sure that they speak to customers rather than at them and avoid sounding like a robot, an enormous aversion for most people. Customers like being talked with and not being talked to. They want to know that the company is sincere and is trying to help them.

Have Different Levels Of Scripting According To Agent Experience

A script can be a good tool to supplement training while agents are being exposed to real customer interactions. Using scripts when agents are brand new until they're comfortable with going off script is a good idea. Investing in tools, like a robust knowledgebase, which can help employees find the right information to answer a customer's question. Having a group of agents following a script and another who are empowered to own the conversation, measure key performance metrics, and compare which group is doing better.

Use Guidelines To Help Agents Adhere To Requirements

Rather than giving agents a script which they have to read word for word, savvy organizations are using guidelines to make sure that agents adhere to all the requirements. For example, agents are guided through the questions they need to ask to authenticate a customer but allowed to put them in their own words. "Don't hold agents to a very narrow script", Forrester's Leggett warns. The only exception is with certain phrases or sentences that are mandatory by law to read aloud. Otherwise, agents should be allowed to phrase the conversation in a way that's most appropriate to the context of the exchange.