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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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.

This caused me to wonder if the economy might be having an impact on the level of customer service being offered today. As businesses compete for dollars, which are being tightly held by consumers, we may be seeing more of this.

Back in the day, we used to be known for giving great service to our customers and the mantra of "The Customer is Always Right" was a standard policy throughout most every retail establishment and other types of businesses.

Customers were number #1 and intensely loyal. The customer service counter area was always visible when you entered a store, and everyone knew that was where you went to solve problems and get answers to questions, any question.

Briefly, let us stroll down memory lane and look at what our customer service practices used to be. Granted, some of these still exist. Nevertheless, things have definitely changed.

 - If there was an issue with an account, you didn't have to listen to 5 or 6 different message prompts before speaking to a live person, or getting the requested information.

- If you were not happy with your meal, it would be replaced with a freshly made duplicate meal, not put in a microwave and returned.

- In a restaurant, if you needed to take home your leftover meal, the restaurant staff would prepare your carry out package in the kitchen area, rather than have you do it at your table.

- If you had some installation done in your home, cable, telephone etc., the debris would be cleaned up by the technicians, and not left for you to do.

- If you're admitted to the emergency room, you better have health insurance, enough said on this one.

Today, our customer service industry has become more automated with pre-recorded messages, self-service, unassisted online and offline shopping, less emphasis on the customer and a general feeling of having to "jump through hoops" to get a problem resolved or redeem a rebate. I believe we have come to expect less from the businesses we support.

On the other hand, this economic crisis is forcing businesses to go that extra mile in responding to their customers' needs. These are loyal customers who find themselves caught up in the downturn and need understanding. They need a return to the old fashioned customer service that endeared them to your business for life.

For example, have you seen the advertisements from certain auto manufacturers who say they will pay several months of your auto note, if a job loss occurs? This is an example of addressing the customer's needs in this down economy. If this program wasn't in place, these people would lose their vehicles. Why aren't all car manufacturers doing the same?

Here are some other ways to make your customer service more compassionate during these times:

Make it possible for your customers to talk to a live person when calling your business. This will alleviate some of your customer's stress as it shows you care about addressing your customer's issues and concerns quickly. Also, not having to move through several phone prompts can save time for the customer.

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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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Businesses outsource IT for reasons other than cost

Cost-cutting is diminishing in importance as a reason to outsource IT, according to research of 630 contracts worth £14bn carried out by KPMG.

In its 2012 UK Service Provider Performance and Satisfaction study, the KPMG found 70% of businesses are influenced by cost when making their outsourcing decision. This compares with 83% in the last survey two years ago.

The results, from over 200 participants from user businesses, showed 46% said the need for better quality services was their reason for outsourcing, while 51% said it was due to a lack of in-house skills.

Lee Ayling, partner in KPMG’s Shared Services and Outsourcing unit, said the need for better services combined with a lack of in-house expertise is driving outsourcing.

“Just going for a low-cost option isn’t the de facto reason to outsource anymore. Companies are now looking at how outsourcing helps improve the quality of service they can offer to customers," said Ayling.

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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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The Changing Face of Customer Service

It was 10 years ago that I sat in a hotel room with my laptop plugged into the phone cord, fighting with my first version of a pda (a palmpilot), trying to make sense of an assignment in an ever-evolving industry — customer service. Just as foreign as the acrid air and constant motor noise of India were the changing ideas of what it meant to be a customer service expert. While the times have changed and business has become more efficient and optimized, a decade later we all have a different perspective of what it means to be a service leader but remain aware of how important an interaction with a customer can be.

Taking a more in-depth look at this era of change, it is inherently obvious how much the technology we are using in our lives has changed. W hat can go unnoticed is how these advancements have affected how a customer care center has adapted to serve customers. Not only are companies looking for different ways to interact with customers, but they are also looking for valuable interactions and meaningful connections.

While this was just one of many trips to India, China or the Philippines, we found our mission was of a singular purpose: how many seats can you move “offshore?” Directed by companies looking to make spending cuts (sometimes up to 40 percent), we were looking for anything that could move, and we all had the same objective. At the time it was considered a brilliant initiative to free up capital for other business practices. While there are good reasons to leverage lower-cost labor markets and we can debate the labor arbitrage pros/cons, one undeniable fact is that there was a fundamental lack of vision in regard to customer facing interactions; in the pursuit of outsourcing customer service efforts for cost-effectiveness, we minimized the value provided.

A few years later, with a well-worn luggage set and a filled passport, it finally starts to click. Why are we answering customers’ calls just to make them more irritated? Taking into account the absurdity of the notion, would it be better not to answer at all? Without the resources for an academic study, I’m only left to assume that my instincts have some legitimacy and that something else is taking place during this shift of resources. W hat ’s more, customers “are” starting to figure things out on their own. We continue to listen to calls and hear something eerily similar; in one manifestation or another, the phrase “I already found this information online” is multiplying. As such, I now believe that as a direct response to the shift of valuable customer service, we as consumers have begun to solve our own problems online.

As a business community, at some point in the past decade we finally reached the proverbial tipping point. We as companies and service leaders went too far. By minimizing the value of the interaction so low, consumers have resorted to handling the problem on their own. Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) loved it; Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) feared it.

In 2007, I left the corporate world on a mission to redevelop the way people think about not only customer service but also online engagement. At this time the business community wasn’t using social media as everyday jargon, but the presence of customers online wasn’t ignored. In response, millions are spent by companies placing “ads” in the right places of the web, and websites are redesigned and optimized around the clock.

During this timeline, though, the question still lingered on how this channel can be utilized for superior customer service? Things have changed so much since the offshoring days; are there other service leaders who will see this untapped opportunity? Can we make a business of it?

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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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How to Maintain Traditional Customer Service in the Social Media Age

You’ve been monitoring your Facebook wall and Twitter pages, responding to customer inquiries. But what are the next steps you should take to stay abreast of the latest trends in social service?

 The emergence of social media communities requires you to track a new set of customer service metrics. Fortunately, you’ll have a better understanding of who your customers are and their service expectations. In some cases, it might even mean the end of traditional service level agreements (SLAs).




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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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Top 10 Customer Service Technology Trends for 2012

Sabio, the specialist contact center and unified communications systems integrator, has highlighted what it believes will be the Top 10 key technology trends that are set to shape the customer service landscape during 2012. Sabio has identified placing contact centers at the heart of an organization's social networking strategy; optimising websites for smartphone access; and supporting multi-channel customer engagement through consistent interactions as three of the most important issues currently facing customer service directors. Read More..

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Things to Consider when Outsourcing your Call Center

This week’s guest blogger is Bill Samuels, President of Telesales Services a call center referral agency. He answers some common questions that he encounters regarding outsourced call center work. Bill is a call center industry expert that is highly acclaimed as a call center outsourcing consultant. Read More..

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Designing your customer support escalation

Does your company have an escalation procedure in handling an advanced or high-risk customer service concern? If not, it would be advisable to spend some staff time establishing one. Every business should have a set of rules and expectations on how to handle a customer service or support issue to maintain satisfaction. From frontline customer service personnel all the way up to executive management, every member of your customer-handling/interacting team should know what they can and cannot commit to on behalf of the company and when and how to appropriately escalate a problem internally to achieve the most positive and less risky result. Read More..

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Give Good Voicemail - Master the Art of Leaving Messages!

What’s the difference between a great voicemail message and one that’s lacking (and therefore stands less of a chance of getting returned right away, if at all)? It comes down to whether you “gave good voicemail” … or not! Wouldn’t it be great if there were official voicemail rules people had to follow? Read More..

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Why you need a call centre

And why Connections Call Center is your perfect pick! It’s common knowledge in our industry that every missed call is a missed opportunity. Missed opportunities might be missed sales, missed invites to special events or even missed introductions to business relationships and networking ties. If your company phone is not answered, there’s no telling what you’re missing out on. We’re all clear on the importance of answering a company’s phone calls… so why not just get an answering machine or a voicemail system? To that question, I counter with a few questions of my own: Read More..

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Benefits of Providing Quality Customer Service

Customer service is a universal concept; most companies have a customer service department. Companies that keep quality at the forefront of their operations are on track to becoming a better company and provide their customers with the quality service they deserve and should expect. Some of the benefits of providing quality customer service include increased revenues, improved customer service and customer loyalty.Read More..

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The Business and Customer Support

In order for a house to stay strong amidst natural disasters and pest attacks, the house should have been made with a strong foundation. Also with a business, it can stay strong amidst financial crises and negative publicity as long as it has a tough foundation. Human resources and product or service quality make up the foundation of a business. However, running a business does not stop in fulfilling the given two cores. The relationship of the business with its customers is a crucial element that secures triumph. To improve the relationship of the business and its customers, customer support was invented. The department brings the heart of a business to customers, either current or future. Customer support enhances the relationship of customers with the business’ human resources and the products or services offered.Read More..

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Customer Support Rules

The customer support team is a special extension of the sales department. The team’s mission is to make sure customers are using the availed products and services in the right manner. Personal Approach Undeniably, automation makes the tasks of the customer support team easier. However, it lessens customer satisfaction. Machines and robots were not created to substitute real people in work. Services from machines and robots should still come with human touch. Dealing personally with customers is the best way to address a concern, while utilizing the products of technology. Therapeutic Communication Therapeutic communication skill is one of the requirements to be able to be part of the customer support team. This skill gives a candy-like effect when demanding for the name, password, email address, account number and other relevant information needed to verify a customer’s identification. Appearing harsh to customers is a big “no no” in the mobile business. Read More..

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Redefining Mobile Service Customers

The most memorable thing to a mobile service customer is not how long he has been subscribed to a mobile service. It is how he was treated by the provider as a valued customer when he hit the mobile support hotline for assistance.

From time to time, a mobile service customer transacts with the provider via the different support services made available. In every transaction, there is mutual benefit between the customer and the provider. For instance when a mobile service customer re-subscribes to a mobile service, the customer enjoys the fun service while the provider receives monetary gains. Read More..

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