When working with a call centre, one of the first orders of business is to put together a professional voice greeting script. Don’t worry, a good answering service should be able to do the bulk of the work in this department, but they will still need your help to ensure that they are getting your company voice and brand just right.
Here are five things to consider when developing answering phone call scripts:
Keep the initial greeting short
Remember that you are answering the phone – not reciting Shakespeare! At the start of the telephone conversation, callers only need to know that they have reached the right company. Long or complex messages at the start tend to be overwhelming – and since the caller is usually pretty focused on their own problem (the reason they called) – they probably won’t listen to a long greeting anyway.
Once you’re done with the initial greeting, the rest of the call can be as long or as short as it needs to be to assist the caller.
Don’t sound like a recording
This may sound obvious, but one of the reasons businesses use live call answering is because it is more personal than voice mail. So why would you want a professional voice greeting script that sounds like a recording?
The point of a good script is not necessarily for a customer service representative to read word for word, but rather it acts as a guideline to make sure all the essential information is conveyed and received. There may also be specific messages relevant to the company’s brand contained within the script that the representative can “check off” during the call.
Collect the necessary information
Call center phone call scripts are two-way. There is the information that the representative needs to give to the caller, and there is the information that the representative needs to collect from the caller. The basic information such as caller name, phone number, etc. should be collected at the beginning of the call.
Depending on the company, there may be other very specific information that the representative will need to collect. Be sure to differentiate between must-have information and nice to have information. The less information you ask of your callers, the better their phone experience is going to be.
Attach an action to the call
Any phone call script should ultimately lead toward some type of action. Do you want your customer service representatives to make a sale? Set an appointment? Provide further directions to the caller? Think about what kind of outcome you want the call to have and develop the script around that.
Smile
A smile is a simple thing to do, but it can be easily overlooked. You’ve probably heard that people can “hear” your smile through the phone. Well – it’s true. Smiling affects the way we think. When designing your script, smile, so you keep your script positive and polite. Polite words such as please and thank you should also be part an answering script to ensure the caller feels welcome and appreciated.
Touch Communications is ready to work with you to help develop your script. Our goal is to seamlessly represent your business with the same care they have come to expect from you!