As a call centre manager, you can expect to employee all different types of call centre agents. Some will come equipped with the necessary skills to be an exemplary call centre agent. Others will require a little bit of training on your part. It is your duty to understand what skills a strong call centre agent should have and how you can cultivate them to benefit your call centre.
You want call agents who have a very strong ability to retain information. This will dramatically reduce your call times. Call centre agents who do not retain information well are going to spend a lot of time looking things up and fact checking before providing your callers with information. This is going to frustrate your caller as he or she will spend much more time on the phone than he or she really wanted to.
You want a call centre agent who knows when they are dealing with a problem they cannot resolve on their own. Instead of trying to deal with the issue, they should know who to send the caller to so the issue can get resolved. The other thing you do not want to happen is for your call centre agent to make the mistake of sending your callers to the wrong department.
A call centre agent is not always the most exciting job to have. This is someone who is going to be saying the same script over and over again. They will be answering and asking the same questions every single day. A problem arises when your call agent loses their lacklustre because of how monotonous the job can be.
Your agent is going to hear the same complaint or issue so often that they think they know how to fix the issue without listening to the whole problem. Your call centre agent needs to understand that every single caller is different. They need to listen to the caller and fix the caller’s individual problem. It is fine for them to use knowledge retention to make fixing the problem either. However, they should never cut the caller off and try to fix the problem without listening to everything the caller has to say.
You never want your call centre agent to talk about the product or services you are trying to sell until they know the caller. This should be more than just the caller’s name. You want your call centre agent to take the time to learn some fine details about the caller. An agent needs to learn how to ask the right blend of open-ended questions and direct questions in order to understand who the caller is and what products and/or services would be perfect to pitch to them.
For example, there is a big difference between a travel agency call centre agent asking a caller how many people they have coming with them and asking the caller who they have coming with them. It is more beneficial to know who is coming than how many. Whether or not a caller is bringing children, for example, would weigh heavily on what kind of recommendations you are going to make to that caller. Asking the right simple question can answer a lot more complicated ones.
The key to cultivating this skill is through training. Do mock phone calls with your agents. Have them spend time getting to know each other. The key is for them to ask a series of questions that allows them to learn a lot about the other person without actually spending a lot of time talking.
After establishing who, you need to establish why. Why is the individual calling the call centre in the first place? Knowing why they are calling is going to help with what your call agent will pitch to them. Working with your call agents so they have a nice grasp of what targeted questions to ask is vital.
More important than being a good talker is being a good listener. You can have the best sales pitch in the world and it is not going to do you any good if you did not listen to a word the customer had to say before you pitched a sale to them. You have to make sure you teach your call centre agents how and when they just need to stop talking and let the customer speak. If you cut the customer off and do not let them finish their thoughts, you are never going to make any sales.
Have a casual conversation with your call centre agents and see how well they listen and how long it takes for them to respond. Then, you can give them feedback.
The biggest mistake you can make as a call centre leader is thinking all of your agents are going to come fully equipped with all the skills they need to be successful. You will have to spend some time cultivating their skills in order to make them the best agent they can be for your specific needs.