“Good morning Mrs. Jenny, this is Emma calling from XYZ company. Can I have 5 minutes of your time……”
Does this sound similar? Yes, the call center agent script it is. A report by Nuance states that even after the evolution and popularity of various online service tools, 79 percent of customers prefer to communicate with customer care agents over a call. Another report from Forrester quoted that 64 percent of customers are likely to stop recommending a business with poor call center etiquette or failure of customer experience. These percentages are good enough to justify the relevance of an appropriate agent script.
So, what is a call center Agent script?
An agent script is a prepared set of discussion points that address the common concerns or information of the caller. The script needs to follow a 360-degree approach that provides an answer to all possible queries of a caller and save him from getting frustrated. This also boosts the confidence of the newbie agents or others where they can respond to their customers without fumbling, pondering, and more. Scripts are conditional to the industry and type of call (inbound or outbound). So, even if there isn’t a lead, there will be some useful information for business collected against every customer who has been interacted with.
Things to consider when creating a call center script
To build an effective call center script there are some major points to consider before creating one.
Analyze your customers’ pain points & expectations
A script needs to be customer-focused. So, you need to know and understand what your customer is looking for to make your agents have effective and beneficial conversations. Have customized script basis the different customer journeys or concerns. Take the help of agents addressing customers every day to collect some valuable insights. Even, previously recorded calls can help you in creating some highly engaging scripts.
Consider the language
Now that you have the required context or information, it is necessary to format it in a user-friendly and customer-focused language. Since there will be a lot of information cascading through the call journey, it is necessary to keep things simple and short. This will also impact your average handle time (AHT). The data collected with questions and answers should flow naturally instead of sounding a forceful deviation to the customer.
Forget pen and paper
Your contact center needs to advance with the advancing technology. The era of writing the script on paper is already dead. Make use of various scripting tools such as the NovelVox Agent Scripting Tool (about which we will learn later in this blog) to customize your scripts and follow the conversation in the desired format. Such tools abolish hardbound conversation offering a human touch to the flow.
Reanalyze and reword
There is always a scope of improvement for all and so for the scripts. Revisit the scripts according to your customers’ responses and customize it accordingly. Analyze the performance and call recording to gather the required feedback and effectiveness of the agent scripts. See if the scripts are being rehearsed timely and easily for an agent to stop stammering on the same.
Risks associated with scripts
Now you know how an effective agent script can be created, but should not ignore the risk attached to it. Answer the following questions to abolish the risks
1. Will the script resolve customer issues?
Is the predesigned script good enough to address customers’ concerns? The contact center agent script should answer to the problems and cascade in a logical manner. It shouldn’t miss guiding the customer with insufficient information. Make sure the script is dynamic enough for all customers.
2. Is the agent addressing it correctly?
Even if the script is solution-ready, it depends on the customer care executive to use it wisely. They should not pitch an entirely different solution or the same solution for different issues. This can be frustrating for the callers and they might leave the call at any point in time.
3. Is the agent turning into a robot?
Personalized customer service is one of the pillars of success for any contact center that makes it imperative to have humanized conversation and not let the agent sound robotic at any point in time. It should not sound like an agent reading the script. A survey by Software Advice stated that 78 percent of the customers consider customer experience better when they feel a representative is not just reading a script.
What is an agent scripting tool?
So, to efficiently combat these you need to have a dynamic script ready. The NovelVox agent scripting tool is the solution to the same. It is a guided agent scripting software that ensures a remarkable customer experience created with a logical flow of conversation. This easy to customize drag and drop designer software can be updated anytime as per the business needs. Further, this intelligent tool helps an agent increase First Call Resolution (FCR) by 45 percent and reduce level 1 call escalations by 50 percent.
Benefits of Agent Scripting Tool for Call Centers
– Decreases the time & effort consumed on training new agents: With the increasing competition, your business might not have enough time to train agents on the script. It educates agents and makes them efficient enough to handle the situation with or without a script.
– Drag and drop designer: The script designer allows managers to customize the script at any point in time.
– Reduces transfer and AHT: It leads to only meaningful conversations that subsequently reduce FCR & AHT and removing customer frustration.
– Manage consistency and compliance: Dynamic contact center scripting offers consistent address throughout that is apt as per the compliance requirements.
– Increase sale: This sales script software offers chances of up-selling and cross-selling products/services as provided by the business. One just needs to be opportunistic
– Seamless integration: It reduces after-call efforts and eliminates data duplication with an integration-friendly interface. Single-agent can access, view and act on the various applications simultaneously that no other would offer you.
To wrap up, understanding the importance of agent script, creating customizable call center scripts with the help of technology is the need of the hour for every contact center. Today, where the 30-second script is ruling the trends and minds of customers, it is imperative for your business to have call center script software that helps you retain your customers and get more leads.
