Ten Golden Rules For Call Centre Operator

Many customers end up frustrated after dealing with call centres, but here are a few tips to help call centre operators keep the customers happy. 
 For many companies, call centres are the only way they can practically and affordably deal with the number of customers they have seeking information. By their nature, often the call centre operators cannot not know everything about a company and how it operates and sometimes they only know the answers to a list of frequently asked questions. This can be frustrating for customers who want a more detailed reply. However, by following these basic rules, call centre operators can go a long way to making the exchange successful for the caller.

Greeting the Caller

When answering the phone, start by greeting the caller, with name and company, and asking the nature of the call. Do not start by asking the caller for information. So, for example, say: “Good morning, my name is Joe Bloggs from (insert company name), how may I help you today?” Do not start by saying, for example: “Hello, can I have your account number please?”

Time on Hold

If the screen shows that the caller has been waiting to speak to someone for more than a minute, apologise for the delay. If the customer is paying for the call (that is, it is not a free phone number), then offer to call the customer back rather than let them continue paying for the call.

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Call Center Outsourcing Trends: How Outsourcing Call Center Functions Drive Business 2.0

Call center outsourcing has ushered in a radical paradigm shift in the way businesses consider traditional customer service. With the introduction of new technologies, organizations are finding that they can better serve their customers without sacrificing the fiscal and human resources necessary to host these tasks in-house.

However, as outsourcing call center activities is a concept in constant flux, the businesses that utilize best-practices should hold an edge in the market. From wireless technologies to survey-based functionality, call center outsourcing is proving to be a critical spoke in the branding wheel. The concept is simple--give customers a reason to interact by providing convenience and value with every contact. While that may sound easier said than done, call center technologies that incorporate social media networking into their operations have made surprising headway.

The Mounting Challenges Call Centers Will Face

Understanding the roles that call center outsourcing may potentially play in Business 2.0 requires examination of the challenges it faces. The Marktforschung blog cites Datamonitor findings that discuss the state of the industry and how these factors may shape the future. CEOs considering outsourcing call center functions would do well to take these into account for strategic planning:

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How to Provide Internal Customer Service Excellence

When we talk about customer service, we usually think about how we deal with the people who walk through our doors—both physical and virtual—to purchase our products and services. What we often fail to realize, however, is that we also have customers within our organizations; those customers are our co-workers.


Customer service means being responsive to a customer’s needs and being resourceful in meeting those needs. Customer service is many things: knowledge, communication, skill, attitude, efficiency, integrity, reliability, knowledge, and helpfulness.

How you interact with co-workers and supervisors has a huge impact on the effectiveness of the team. When Dan asks for your help in completing a report, do you tell him that it’s not your responsibility, or do you eagerly offer to do whatever you can to help him meet his deadline? When Bethany points out an error, do you get defensive, or do you view her comment as constructive and vow to improve your performance?

When you treat co-workers and supervisors with respect, when you help them solve their problems and meet or exceed the demands of the job, your value as an employee increases dramatically. Just as you should do whatever it takes to satisfy a customer, you should do whatever it takes to help a co-worker.


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Are Your Customers Getting Uniform Service?

If you want to offer the best possible customer service experience, be sure to be consistent..

How consistent are you with your customers? One sure way to lose business to competing vendors is to give a customer one answer the first time he or she has a question and a different answer the next time the issue is raised.
Even worse is when one customer receives concessions that others do not; such as extending return deadlines or accepting returns on "final sale" items.

And don't forget the importance of consistency of service.
Are customers receiving their product in three days the first time they order, but 10 days the second time around?
This can be confusing and inconvenient, especially for customers in a "continuity program." Inconsistent delivery will get the product to them either too "early" or too "late." It's very important to have a consistent service record.

Customers deserve to know that the company they are dealing with has a consistent approach to taking care of its customers. And the secret to making that happen? Train. Train. Then train some more!

Training is critical to customer service. Training keeps everyone "on the same page" and in the know about your customers and the products they order. And while employees' busy schedules can make finding time to train difficult, the need is not diminished. Training can often be done over the lunch hour, in the evenings or even remotely. And some companies will rotate their employees through the training process to ensure their phones still get answered and customers are still taken care of properly.

When planning your employee training sessions, consider including the following topics:

Phone Etiquette

Answer the phone within three rings. A prompt and pleasant response starts the customer's call off on the right foot. Record in-coming calls periodically; then listen to call center staff to see how they sound and to make any necessary improvements. Call center managers should also listen to their operators periodically to ensure each one is providing the best customer service possible.

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Make the most of those precious opportunities when connecting with your customers..

We've all heard the saying that "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." However, in the world of customer service it's often not about the first impression... it's about the second, a.k.a. the follow-up!

 The truth is that most customer service and sales professionals do not fall down on the first impression.

In customer service, we answer the phone and put on our "game day" voice, politely, cheerfully and respectfully, but if we can't fix their problem immediately on that first call, we choke!
We transfer customers, make them repeat their problems, promise calls back, but then never make them - forcing customers to call back and start the process over and over again—until their issue is finally resolved through their diligent efforts (not ours)... or they leave.

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The Customer Service Tree

Imagine your customers are the branches that support the leaves (revenue), and you company as the trunk of your money tree that supports and supplies the customer branches

Think of how a tree grows; it starts with one or two little branches. Those branches shoot off and create more branches, and so the process continues until a full-grown tree emerges.

A customer who has a positive experience and tells just one person has helped your tree grow.

That new customer branch may lay dormant and leafless for days, weeks, or years, but it is still a customer branch with potential to grow money-leaves.

It takes a long time for customer branches to grow, but in only an instant the customer branches can be cut off and never grow back. At any company the best way to cut off a customer branch is to provide poor customer service.

An unhappy customer who tells three people about his or her bad experience with you company has snapped off a branch - a branch budding with potential to grow more customer branches, eventually creating more money leaves.

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Customer Service Back In The Day

I was at a gas station the other day and noticed something that caused me to look twice.
At first, it appeared to be a normal occurrence, a man pumping gas and then cleaning his windshield.

Thinking nothing of this, I continued with my gas purchase. When I again looked at the other vehicle, I saw a man walking to the rear of the same car, yet there was someone else continuing to clean his windshield.

To my surprise, the person cleaning his windshield and tending to this gas was the gas station attendant, not the customer.

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How to Hire the Best Customer Service People

Through many years of hiring Customer Service staff, I've found that competency based assessment is by far the most effective and accurate way.

That is not to say that technical abilities should not be checked, rather that this in itself is insufficient to ensure success.
Indeed it's very important to study the delegates' CVs, to check their relevant experience and qualifications, to ask questions of clarification and to probe any gaps in their employment history.


The Assessment Center process is carried out in addition to this.

Competency Based Assessment Centers (CBAs) are a highly accurate way of performing an assessment of someone's suitability for a role and focus largely on behavioral traits rather than on technical abilities. CBAs normally comprise a blend of Role Plays and a competency based interview (CBI). Studies have concluded that competency based assessment methods are around 5 times more accurate at choosing the right employees than traditional interview based formats.

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Become a Customer Service Raving Fan!

It seems to me that the way to get your customers to be raving fans of your business is to become raving fans of your customers.

"Get Into Their Lives" This is the mantra at Marquis Jet, a company that sells "flight time" on a private jet in the form of calling cards, starting at $110,000.00 for 25 hours.
Their client list is a who's who of Hollywood, including Matt Damon, Christina Agulera and J. Lo. When Carrie Underwood was named the American Idol, she was given a record contract and a Marquis Jet card.

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Customer Service Metrics to Measure Client Satisfaction

When it comes to measuring the success of your customer service operation choosing the right set of metrics is essential. By creating a Balanced Scorecard made up of your most important deliverables you will be able to track your clients' satisfaction and report stakeholders’ key success factors.

 The Balanced Scorecard was created by Harvard Business School Professor Robert Kaplan and Renaissance Solutions President David Norton and includes financial and non-financial indicators.

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Most Popular Outsourced Jobs

Outsourcing occurs when a company contracts out a portion of its business to another company; these jobs would have traditionally been done by in-house employees. It's important to make a distinction between outsourcing and offshoring. Jobs can be outsourced to local companies that specialize in that particular area. Offshoring, though still a form of outsourcing, is when a company outsources portions of its work to be done overseas. This is a growing trend as companies find that outsourcing and offshoring lead to greater efficiency and cost savings as they don't have to pay salaries and benefits to employees, and instead pay contract fees for completion of duties. This also allows companies to allocate greater resources to parts of the company that they excel at.

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Customer Service Outsourcing

There has been a lot of emphasis in recent years about customer service outsourcing as a way for companies to save money and reduce the need for a full customer support staff. Unfortunately, many people aren’t exactly sure what it means when a company decides to outsource their customer care and this can lead to a number of assumptions which just are not true. Outsourcing a call center is simply a means to reduce the cost of customer support, not a sign that companies don’t care about their customers like some people would like to believe. Customer service outsourcing often entails operating call centers in other countries, hence the term offshoaring. Continue Reading..

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Don’t take your bad day out on a call centre worker

Everyone loves to hate call centres, but it’s time to give them a break because they generally provide a convenient and effective service. If you’re foaming at the mouth right now thinking that the ten minutes you’ve just spent on hold being told “your call is important” was neither convenient nor effective, consider the alternative. Continue Reading

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