You should not be surprised when we say that the call center services these days have become so robotic that people think that they are talking to the AI. Consistency is great but there is a reason why there are actual people on the other side of the phone. The call center agents are meant to be great listeners and deal with customers in a more human way.
By a more human way, we mean they ought to sound like they listened to the customers carefully. Many people complain that the call center agents did not sound empathetic or they sounded like they did not care, etc. This makes the company look less trustworthy.
If you are training your customer care representatives or agents, here is how you can make them sound more real and empathetic:
Develop good listening skills
The reason why many of the call center agents sound no less than robots is because most of the time they assume the problem the customer might be having. They just pick up the keywords and roll with it. Train them to actively listen to the customers and pick things from the conversation. This way the customer would feel heard and can be more clear about their issue. Working on the call agents’ learning skills goes a long way as they learn to be more alert as well. Better listening then translates into better understanding.
Ask them to use more genuine statements
Call center agents are mostly using a template to address certain types of complaints. The templates often involve very generic statements that often sound a little impolite. Ask your call center services staff to use statements that show genuine concern towards the complaint or issue e.g., I understand how inconvenient it must be, I understand the difficulty you must be facing because of it, etc. Using statements like these will make the customer feel like the agent actually cares and isn’t just rushing their way through it. It will also temporarily satisfy the customer if not more.
Monitor the calls to keep a check on them
Many times, call center managers are already doing that. They are monitoring calls. Ask your manager to monitor calls to check if the agents are being empathetic or not. They could check which of the agents is doing the most at it. Once identified, they could ask the said call center agent to tell what they are doing differently. The rest of the call center services staff could learn from it. It also lets you identify what practices are working best. It also gives others the opportunity to learn from the best and incorporate more empathetic practices into their routine. The real-time call monitoring analytics could also be employed that can send messages to the agents if they need to be empathetic with a customer. This way the overall performance of the employees can be improved.
Give monthly reports to the employees
One of the best ways to inculcate empathy into your call center services staff is by giving them monthly reports. These monthly reports will include how empathetic they were on average with the customers. You could even start a reward for the employee with the most empathy points. This will give them an incentive to do better in the coming months. It will encourage healthy competition among the employees. At the same time, you will see a rise in customer satisfaction, a win-win for both the company and employees. Employees who are not doing well could learn from the ones acing it.
Summing up
Training call center agents to be more empathetic is the key to satisfied customers. Customer care department’s primary duty is to help the customers. Sounding too robotic or emotionless can make the customers feel like their problem is being dismissed. It is important to make your customers feel heard. Give a try to our aforementioned tips and let us know if they worked out for you.
For more information on call center support, feel free to contact us.
We’d love to hear from you. Do let us know what you think in the comments section below!
