As a customer or a manager I am sure that phrase would make you cringe, but in a strange way for one call handler in 90% of cases it reduced the aggression from the customer, although I wouldn’t recommend it.

So what does good customer service look like and how do you instil it in to your team.
There are 4 things that will always spring to mind for me

• Be treated the way you expect to be treated yourself and avoid jargon. To deliver this the recruitment of people with your culture is paramount.
• Have a smile in your voice, this emanates a more pleasing voice to the customer, but be mindful of those cases where a more empathetic approach is required.
• Strong knowledge on their subject matter, you don’t want customers put on hold every 5 minutes whilst they refer something, you don’t want any ‘i think you need to’ or ‘I think the answer is’ as a customer you want conviction.
• Ownership, if the call handler needs to follow up some internal actions, I want them to own it and ring me back in the promised time frames.

Many of us know all of this but struggle to achieve it as the recruitment of new people tends to be just in time at present, leaving you to throw people in at the deep end who often then don’t stay. You can reduce the issue by following these steps:

• Ensure you are clear on the type of person you need at recruitment stage;
• Structure the training plan appropriately, frequent queries first;
• Consider your IVR ‘press 1 for…press 2 for..’ – just don’t make it too long;
• Allow for time to read relevant documentation as part of a training plan and ensure sufficient side by side listening to then taking calls;
• Make sure that you have someone to show them round the system; and
• Ensure the training continues with the less frequent queries, the more complex items as the weeks progress.

Much of this is common sense but as Managers very often the focus is get the people in answering the phones and you don’t get chance to embed the principles you would like to.

As a trusted pair of hands we can come in and support delivery, the outputs will speak for themselves, comfort on staff knowledge, compliance boxes ticked off and a reduction in staff turnover meaning a reduction in training costs and improvement in bottom line.

http://www.propolis-ps.co.uk/services_cjen.html