One of the biggest concerns that business owners have when they are contemplating whether or not to hire a call centre is that customer interactions will become overly scripted and impersonal. After all, most of us have had at least one experience of dealing with a call centre rep who sounded more like a robot than a human being. That’s why it’s important to work with call centres whose reps are trained to listen carefully to what your customer is saying and then choose their words carefully and wisely in order to produce the best customer experience possible.

Here are a few ways that the best call centre CSRs choose their words to create a positive customer experience:

Accentuate the positive

The simple act of removing negative phrases can greatly improve the customer experience. For example, “We can’t give you a quote unit you’ve had an in-home consultation,” should be replaced by “In order for us to give you an accurate quote, let’s set up a time for an in-home consultation.”

In a study to measure the effects of simply removing the use of negative phrases, it was found that companies that use more positive language to convey the same message are ranked significantly higher by their customers.

Experience engineering

Another approach which can be quite effective – though it may be ethically questionable – is that of experience engineering. The idea here is to make a not-so-attractive option more palatable.

This can be demonstrated in the case of an airline where the CSR is dealing with a passenger whose flight has been cancelled. If the cancelled flight was for the morning, the CSR might let the customer know that they can book them for an evening flight – an option that could easily cause some disappointment especially if they are in a hurry to get to their destination.

On the other hand, the CSR who wishes to engineer a better experience might say something like, “I know it will be possible to get you on a flight for tomorrow morning, but first let me see if I’m able to get you on a flight for this evening.”  Now instead of being upset that they are being put on an evening flight, the customer might instead feel relieved that they do not have to wait until the next day.

To be effective in today’s marketplace, call centre reps have to go beyond simply following a script and checking off boxes. They must first and foremost be real human beings who listen to customers concerns, and who can provide them with solutions to their problems. These CSRs must also be cognizant of their language and how their choice of words will reflect on them and the companies that they are representing.

That’s why at Touch Communications, we never use a cookie cutter approach. Instead, we train our customer service representatives to take a unique approach based on the companies that they are representing. To learn more about how our services can help your businesses, get in touch with us today.