6 Steps to Writing Effective Contact Centre Scripts

One of the simplest and most effective tools in your contact centre armoury is conversation scripting and guidance.

Creating and adapting conversation scripts that demonstrate efficiency, understanding and a real desire to help customers can help you reduce average handling time (AHT), improve customer experience (CX) and make life considerably easier for stretched employees.

Writing your own scripts can feel daunting, but in most cases it’s just about following a few simple rules.

Here are Six Steps to Writing Effective Contact Centre Scripts:

1. Keep it Simple

With scripts, it’s all about focus. Only ever try to sell one product or service. Have one goal in mind for the conversation, whether it’s a further call or scheduling a demo. It’s the same with support and debt collection scripts.

Keep the focus on one thing (problem A or payment B). Don’t encourage a wider conversation about customer support or the cost of your product.

Be polite and – if relevant – sympathetic, but get to the core point of the script as quickly as possible. Don’t waste words, and use simple language at all times.

2. Introduce Yourself

Start every sales script by introducing yourself. It’s important that you build rapport, so use your first name and personalise the conversation by using first person phrases – “I can”, “I understand”, “I will make sure” and so on.

If you know anything about the customer – do your research beforehand – bring it into the conversation. Mention the target company’s latest product, or an earlier conversation a customer had with your company.

3. Write Professionally

That means making sure you don’t make obvious spelling and grammar mistakes. If you can’t be bothered getting the details write* in an email, a customer might wonder if you’ll bother to get them right in other areas of your business.

A difficult customer may see it as more evidence of a lax attitude to customer service. Use online tools like Grammarly and Google’s plug-in spell checker to help, but always get someone else to read your scripts for a second opinion.

*You see what we did there, and doesn’t it make the sentence feel unprofessional?

4. Give Customers Opportunities to Talk

A difficult customer may want an opportunity to vent. It’s important that you let them. In general, getting customers talking is good, because it engages them with the conversation.

If it’s appropriate, script questions for agents to ask to encourage conversational flow. Or mark in the script where the agent may want to pause to allow the customer to speak.

5. Compliance is Key

Always write relevant scripts with compliance in mind. Check your industry’s compliance rules before you put pen to paper or finger to keyboard.

6. Consider Scripts a Work in Progress

Scripts aren’t one-offs, they’re works in progress. Refine them over time using feedback from advisors and evidence from call recordings. What works, and what doesn’t? Are customers ever confused? Do conversations feel too rushed? Tweak your scripts accordingly.

The best way to do this is with a script editor that lets you make edits on the fly. That lets you add questions, create branching paths, and integrate third-party data, in real time and in just a couple of clicks.

Importantly, it also lets you present your teams with useful in-the-moment information on one screen, so they don’t have to jump between multiple windows.

Good scripts work. They lead to higher sales, better service and easier debt collection. They create trust and build rapport.

A powerful script creation tool helps you write, edit and refine great scripts, as part of our wider customer engagement solution. It means your teams always have the right messaging to hand, can counter objections naturally and have the information they need to double down on your best features and benefits.

Looking for More Examples? Download our Latest Ebook – Scripting Templates to Help You Deal With Difficult Customers.

This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of MaxContact – View the Original Article

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Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: MaxContact