Phone Skills Are Not Enough

You’ve been there before. Everything that was said was perfect. The script was followed to the letter. Well… The right words were said but the emotion wasn’t there.

It happened to me recently. I had a new laptop break down and I dialed the technical support line. I felt like I was watching figure skating as my “consulting hat” judged the phone technique.

My technical side said, “Chris, I have to say the technical elements were amazing. The initial greeting was spot on. The words were crisp and spaced. I bet this technical support agent has the call script down pat. Only through years of experience can you get it so tightly. This is clearly a dedicated person who has been studying call scripting since they were 7 years old.”

My “artistic side” said, “But Chris, the passion, the enthusiasm… It was parked in the parking lot waiting to go home. Their lips were moving but no one was home. Is that a hint of gunpowder in the air? I bet the technical support agent had a gun to their head.”

Key phone technique point – effective telephone customer service must address the emotional needs of the customer as well as follow effective phone procedure. Some customers don’t mind robotic answers. It’s efficient to them – devoid of the pleasantries. Yet others want to be emotionally engaged.

The problem? You can say the right things at the right times and still miss the emotional connection with your customer. If your lips are moving but you aren’t radiating passion – your customer may sense the “disconnect” and they may in turn become a disconnected customer.

What can you do? Quite often potential customers call us and say, “Do you have a phone skills training program that will inspire my employees to sound excited?

Hey! We are The Rainmaker Group – not The Miracle Maker Group. You either have that passion or you don’t.

Can you deliver a phone skills training program that will help team members understand the power of tonalities and emotion in the telephone customer service experience?

Yes, you can. However… It’s easier to give birth than it is to raise the dead.

Meaning… You are better off hiring someone who is inherently capable of delivering the desired telephone customer service experience, complete with tonalities, inflection, and passion.

What should you do? Implement an employee selection program designed to identify, hire, and retain the kind of passionate talent that creates the telephone customer service experience your customers will rave about.

If you are serious about creating a telephone experience your customers will rave about, you cannot afford to hire just anybody for your call center customer service representative positions. Give us a call today to learn more about how you can hire, with certainty, individuals who possess the passion necessary for creating powerful customer experiences.

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