How to Improve Agents Typing While Talking and Listening

Call centre agents will often find themselves having to take notes during discussions with customers, though more often than not this is a skill they need to perfect.

So then Clive B asked our Community of industry professionals for advice on how to develop these skills, we wanted to share the responses with you:

Anyone got any good tips, exercises or websites to visit to help improve agents skills in typing notes whilst still in call?

Obviously an attempt to try to improve wrap times but also to help agents in their skill sets.

Play Computer Word Games

I used to be a slow typist. Around 20 words per minute or something.

After each shift, when I get home, but before sleeping, I would play computer word games like “Text twist”, “Hangman”, and there was another one with a kangaroo.

I would dedicate about 1 hour to doing that everyday – without fail.

After a week, I was already getting bored so put on a headset and turned on some music.

Turns out playing text-twist while singing helps improve multi-tasking skill. This is the exercise I give to my agents who are a bit slow to type and so far it has really worked out for them.

You might also want to try doing captcha’s just for the sake of improving your typing skill.

Whether a game or captcha, make sure you multitask when you do it, so that you will become better at it. Singing was the best that worked for me and my agents.

With thanks to Derrick

Utilise Stock Notes

A good option is to have a set of “Stock Notes” available for agents.

If there are a number of queries that have a very typical response having the note pre typed and ready to cut and paste may lead to a reduction in after call work.

Speaking from experience within a semi-repetitive customer service role, it’s evident between the agents that do and do not use them and the increase in after call work.

With thanks to Jimbles

Encourage Touch Typing

Not everyone is good at multi tasking, so I think that the trick is to encourage touch typing.

I learnt basic touch typing during my lunch breaks. Could that be the answer? Lunch time typing lessons – perhaps with a prize for completing the course.

Last year I wanted to get faster in touch typing and found that I was getting slowed down by looking at my fingers.

I found that you could buy a keyboard with no legends on the keys, but that it cost £140. As an alternative I bought a permanent marker pen and blacked out all of the A-Z keys.

For about 4 days my typing speed dropped in half, but after I had got used to it I found that I was so much faster.

That all worked really well until I broke my shoulder and I had to type one handed. But that’s another story…

With thanks to Jonty

Free Courses for Touch Typing

In the past I have found free courses that agents can use to learn touch typing.

Have a look at the free trial version of Short Keys Lite. This is a great tool for agents to use to input frequent call notes.

However, care still needs to be taken i.e. that the agent sense checks the short key and edits if necessary to ensure it matches the actual call.

Also you need to ensure that the keys you choose for the short keys are not going to be used generally, a combination of letters for example ‘zq’ may work as they will not form part of a word – however, if they are tech agents it is possible this combination may appear in a serial number etc.

With thanks to Bunnycatz

Try Coaching

We have a similar situation with an advisor who is fantastic on the phone to a customer but is not great at small talk.

She has a high aftercall as this is when she types up her notes etc. I am currently coaching her to try and get her to get the call notes etc done while the customer is still on the phone.

We have even tried putting a plaster on the aftercall button lol.

With thanks to Thornden

This article was made possible due to the great community of experts we have at Call Centre Helper, to get involved just join our LinkedIn Community and and if you aren’t already make sure you are following us on LinkedIn to see our latest content.

If you want to find out more information on developing agent skills, read these articles next:

• 5 Soft Skills Every Agent Needs Before Taking Their First Call
• Customer Service Skills: How to Improve Empathy, Active Listening and Knowledge
• How to Develop Empathy as a Skill in Your Frontline Teams
• How to Train Active Listening in the Call Centre – With Four Exercises

Author: Jonty Pearce
Reviewed by: Megan Jones