These days if you are visiting any college campus, the buzzword that you can’t miss is ‘Call Centers’. International call centers is where today’s younger generation wants to be especially with the kind of open environment, perks, the experience and the growth prospects. It is widely accepted that the career graph is a fast upward moving graph as compared to any other industry especially at the entry level. Call centers are the contact point for companies and their customers. Call centers may be inbound (answering enquires, dealing with customer concerns) or out bound (for telemarketing, customer follow-up). They could be “voice based” where the agent is required to talk over the phone or “web based” where the agent is required to either send emails or have a web chat. India is attracting a lot of American companies to set up call centers due to the time difference and a large population of English speaking professionals. Off course one cannot forget the cost benefit Multinational companies have in outsourcing to India. Agents working in International call centers are required to undergo extensive training which includes Accent training, American Culture, American Geography, and American History along with the training in soft skills such as Telephone & Net Etiquette, Communication skills, Selling skills, Stress management and of course the Domain Knowledge. In this article let us understand the role of Telephone Etiquette, Net Etiquette and Selling Skills training that a call center agent has to undergo.

We have a few friends working as call center agents they are so used to answering with “Good Morning Fands how may I help you?” that they even end up answering their home phone the same way. That is because these executives are answering atleast 200 calls per day and have to start the call the same way for all the calls. They are trained to answer each call that they take with their opening statement.

prospective customers they play the part of a very important link in this relation between the customer and the company. Call centers work round the clock so the different executives should give the same information in the same manner. There has to be uniformity in the ways the calls are answered and what is told to the customers. To overcome this the call centers have scripts and all the executives have to undergo training that will give them insight into how to answer calls and take care of customer concerns. The other day I got a call from some telemarketing company and I was not interested in taking the call so I replied “I have been called about that scheme before” and here is how the conversation went..
“ Miss. Priti I am so sorry to have bothered you. Perhaps they forgot to remove your name from the database. By the way which product did you choose?”
to which I said I was not interested
“Oh! You told them you weren’t interested. Well, Miss. Priti again I do apologize. You were apparently called by a new trainee who not only forgot to remove your name from the database, but also didn’t explain the offer very well otherwise I am sure you would be a happy customer.”

And it went on.. The executive went on even when I said that I had been called and was not interested. The way she spoke showed how well she was trained to handle these answers because without loosing her composure and in a very positive tone she continued with the talk. Which did not make me cut the conversation and I eventually heard what she had to say.

Selling Skills
Selling skills teaches the agents to sell their ideas to the customers. They learn to arouse interest in the customer’s minds. How talking about benefits to the customers over just trying to explain the features will help them sell and create a desire for the product. The agents are mentally prepared for the automated sales resistance that the customers have when they know this is a sales call. They learn not to get disheartened because of this resistance that the customers have. Agents learn to use “YOU” instead of “I”. Selling skills are useful not only in outbound call centers but also in incoming call centers. When a customer is calling with some concern regarding the product he has bought the agent has to be able to handle this customer with a lot of care and has to use his selling skills. The executives learn the Selling Techniques namely the Six Step Selling Cycle, SPIN concept of selling(The acronym stands for Survey, Planning, Initiating, Negotiating), The five stages that we can lead our customer through using AIDCA (The acronym stands for Attention, Interest, Desire, Conviction, Action – the sale) in addition to some home grown Indian concepts.

Telephone Etiquette
In telephone etiquette the executives learn how they should speak on the phone. The executives are constantly on the phone so it is very necessary they learn to manage time on the phone.
 

It is very important how you speak on the phone because the customer can only hear you and not see you. As it is clear in the above diagram we work with only 50% and have to make up for the body language that is missing by how we talk. It is also necessary to remember that this may be the only time you are talking with the prospective customer so you have to make a lasting impression in the first 20 seconds of the call itself. So maybe you will be able to say something very well and your body language is helping you explain that in a better way, but on the telephone it should be remembered that the body language is missing. So how you talk is very very important. What you will have to say will be given to you in the form of scripts. When you are telling the customer something that is very exciting you yourself have to sound excited, the excitement should be reflected in your voice. You cannot drag the conversation. You should sound sympathetic if you are sympathetic. If you are saying something like “I understand what you must be going through.”  You should sound like you really understand and not make it just a plain statement. There are certain guidelines you must follow like “Always Smile”. It is said that when you smile your voice automatically is relaxed and you sound friendlier. When I had gone for a study visit to one of BPL’s call center we were surprised to find mirrors kept in front of the call center executives. So they can keep smiling. As a call center executive you have to remember you are a very important link between the customer and the company. The way you speak to the customer is going to be the impression he is going to have of the company. We often hear comments like the “customer care at such and such a company is great, the executives there give you all the information and are ready to go that extra mile to help”. In today’s competitive world the customer service is the major deciding factor with so many similar products in market. You will never hear a trained agent say “You’ll have to…” he will always say “To process your order I will need you to …” He will never demand anything. You will never hear a call center executive who is trained to take calls say “Just a second.. ” He will always ask if you can hold and will tell you the time it may take.

Net Etiquette
Some call centers are web call centers where customer enquires or concerns are to be answered by email or web chat. It is very important to follow the Net etiquette. A few years ago Internet was something that was available only in offices and colleges but today most of the houses have internet and the number of customers buying on the net is also high. As an executive you may be required to send confirmation mails to customers who have ordered on the web or you may also have to reply to customer complaints through emails. Many customers may see the web site and send a mail to get more information. When a prospective customer is sending such a mail to the company the email must be such that it will surely turn this prospective customer into a customer. The executives are trained how to write mails. Just as in voice call centers here also the opening statement has to be very attractive and must grab the customers attention.

With the help of selling skills and telephone etiquette the agents will be able to build a lasting relationship between the customer and the company. He should not sound so over confident that the customer will not believe him nor should he sound unsure. Along with all this training a call center executive should also be a “good listener”. He has to be attentive to what the customer is saying else he may miss out on some important information. It is said that humans retain only about a fourth of what we hear. It always happens that we miss much that is said and forget much that we hear. I am sure we can train our minds to become good listeners as listening has more to do with mental involvement.

All the above skills which have been mentioned would surely need a lot of practice but can be learnt after a little guidelines and training.

The author Mrs. Priti Bhatawadekar is a call center trainer at Fands Infonet Pvt. Ltd. and can be reached at priti@fandsindia.com