Right. Lets start with the basics. This document is split into various sections taking you through the stages of a telephone call from start to finish. Most of it will seem like common sense, so I apologise in advance if you think I'm being condescending. All the points raised *do* come up when dealing with phone staff, and sometimes it's quite an effort not to tell the person at the other end of the line to start again from the beginning and try again.
In case you haven't noticed, If nobody else critisises your telephone
technique, I *will*.
Any other equipment you need should be close to hand. Be it a terminal, a PC, a ruler, a client list or whatever, you should not have to leave the phone for five minutes to get it.
"Be Prepared" - Don't answer the phone with a mouth full of food. Similarly,
"just hold a moment while my computer boots up" can be OK if you are using
many operating systems, but with a Windows machine, it is just not acceptable
- it just takes too long... Be ready for the call. It makes you look professional.
Hmmm.
First off, you should *always* answer the phone within 5 rings. Research has shown (yes, people *do* spend their time doing research on these things. Why do you think there's a proviso "your calls may be taped and replayed for training purposes" on many leaflets?) that anything more than five rings will frustrate your customers. If at all possible, answer within two rings. This will make it look like your company is used to answering phone calls, and the customer will be delighted to see that you have answered the phone so quickly. Is there really any benefit in watching the phone ring for ring after ring just so the customer won't think that you care?
For a real-life example, try calling a software company tech support. Most of them will leave you waiting for up to half an hour on hold. Costing *you* money while you wait for them to bother to answer the phone. Some of them will even let you know what position you are in the queue - they have obviously got keeping their customers waiting down to a fine art. By the time you get through, you are frustrated, annoyed and irritated. And that's *before* you have spoken to some incompetent droid who tells you to reinstall Windows before hanging up on you. Or telling you that "you need to speak to the Bobbins department. I'll just put you on hold"...
Compare with a major utility or bank. Your call will typically be answered within 2 rings (many of the utilities are regulated and must get over 90% of calls answered within 30 seconds. By far the easiest way to do this is to ensure that you never have a queue and then if you are inundated for half an hour, your stats mean that you are still within the limit.). You may even be faced with an automated answer service to make sure you get through to the right department. By the time you speak to a competent person, in the right department etc etc, you will be delighted at the speed and efficiency that they have got you through to the right person.
And first impressions *do* count...
Right. So you've answered the phone. You lift it up to your ear, and
the conversation goes like this:
droid: "Hi."
customer: "..." (waiting for more information
from the droid, like his name, his company etc.)
"..."
"... erm - is that Bob's building supplies?"
"Yep."
....... and so on. Not good.
What's missing?
A Salutation! This is an odd term, defined as "a greeting" or something like that. In this case, it's the first thing you say on the phone. Your company should have a set salutation, so that whenever a customer rings, they get the same "front end" to the conversation each time.
Some examples from Real Life (tm):
"Good Morning, welcome to xxxx xxx. Can I take
you through security starting with your postcode please?"
"xxx xxx what name please?"
"Good Morning, xxxx xxx, droid speaking, how may I help you?"
"Good Morning, xxxx xxx, droid speaking, may I take your customer reference number please?"
Some of these salutations are *recorded* for each droid, so they don't even have to go through the effort of saying them... Directory enquiries is a case in point.
Note the following:
The salutations nearly always begin with some "chaff" (useless info which doesn't really matter) - research has shown (good stuff this..) that a customer is generally not paying attention until about 5 seconds into the call. Think of it as modem negotiation or something - your brain has to switch into "phone mode", as talking on the phone is not the same as normal conversation. There is no eye contact, no lip-reading, no gesticulation, no nothing. All you are left with is a disembodied voice at the end of your ear. It takes some adjusting. So the best thing to do is start your salutation with some rubbish. "Good Morning". "Hello, this is xxx xxx". "GoodmorningthisisBRMbodyparts" - it doesn't matter, as your customers generally aren't paying attention. You'll probably want to stick with "Good Morning (takes up more "chaff time" than just "hello"...)" or "Good Morning, BRM Body Parts" (they'll be dimly aware that your company name matches the one on their bit of paper, which is a Good Thing).
Giving your name is another Good Thing. It indicates that you are willing to take responsibility for resolving the call. The customer is probably not going to notice anyway, and unless they have a pen and paper handy, or they're *me*, they won't keep it in memory for long anyway. But it looks good, and builds rapport.
Note the end of the salutation. It ends with a question. This is a "prompt" for the customer to wake up and say something.
Note the difference between the last two salutations from Real Life (tm). They were both from the same company, a few weeks apart. One day the bosses decided to change the salutation, and many staff were not happy. You can see why - the second version feels unweildly, doesn't flow very well and is basically longer. But look what happens:
".... Can I take your reference number please?"
"Sure. It's 100 505 333 3020." (with appropriate
listening noises from the droid, natch...)
"And can I take your name please?"
"Mrs Bloggs" - note that this is a security
check - does the name match the account details?
"And the first line of your address?"
"27 Biddy Road" - again, confirm identity
of the customer
"And that's in Rochdale, yes?" - Now you
confirm to the customer in order to pass *their* "security check" - confirming
that you are in a position to have access to their account, and that you
have the right account on the screen.
"That's right."
"OK, Mrs Bloggs, how can I help you?"
Compare with:
"How can I help you?"
"Well, I'm not sure if you can, but could you tell me when your man
is due to call round? It's just that I have to go out at two o'clock to
see my brother in Manchester, and it takes me a good half an hour....."
blah blah, shut up will you...
Your task now is to shut the old bid up and find out who she is and where she lives before you can even begin to answer her question. What happens if she gets cut off from the payphone? You can't do anything, you can't leave a note on her account for anyone else, and when she phones again she'll have to go through the whole thing again. Even if you do manage to get a word in edgeways, you'll *still* have to take her details at some point (except in certain circumstances). You can't use her name to build rapport, as you don't know what her name *is*.
Until you've had half-hour long conversations with some unknown customer who you still cannot identify, the salutation may seem unweildly. I'm not suggesting for one minute that it will work for every situation. It's there as an example of how to lead the customer through the conversation as much as possible. You take business phone calls every day. The customer may be making their first, and may be uncomfortable and flustered. "My roof has collapsed", "I can't afford to pay my bill" - these people are not in a fit state of mind to have an unstructured, faffy phone call. Make the phone call easier for them, and don't make them have to work hard to get the phone call finished with a satisfactory outcome.
It's all about taking control of the call. Your customer will *expect* you to do this, and will get flustered if you don't. By taking control of the call you keep the distinction between customer and droid, pupil and teacher or whatever. The customer is phoning *you* because they need to either tell you something or find out some information. Generally they don't know the procedure for giving information, and the whole process is made much easier if you lead them by the hand.
Right. Enough about salutations.
You should now be ready and equipped for the main guts of the call. You should have to hand the following things:
Be Polite
The customer is King. Don't forget it. Even the most annoying customer
still has the option of leaving your company and going elsewhere. You personally
may not like the customer, but you are being paid to be polite and, well,
it's just not professional to be rude.
If you irritate/annoy the customer, assume he/she will leave.
If you and your boss are happy with this then fair enough. Otherwise, stick
to the golden rule and suck up. Be nice. Do everything they ask. If necessary,
tell them that you "will have to charge extra for that", or "Sorry, that's
just not possible" (as a last resort, that one). You can scream and shout
at them after they have hung up. Not before! And preferably not
when another customer can hear you from the other line...
Research (oh god, it's them again..) has shown that a happy customer will recommend your company to two or three of their friends on average. There are many companies who keep going just on "word of mouth" to prove this. But an unhappy customer will tell ten or more of their friends, associates, colleagues etc etc. This is a bad thing. So don't annoy your customers.
Basically, this whole rigmarole is to avoid the following conversation
from ever happening:
droid: "Sorry, where did you say the Pink elephant
was again?"
customer: "For the Third Time, it's 168 Zoo Lane!
Are you listening to me? I suppose you're going to ask what colour it is
again next! Are you listening to a word I'm saying?"
droid: "Sorry. I am listening, sir. Right.
Now, what colour is this Elephant?"
This is a bad thing. So write it down. Even if you only think
you'll need it once, write it down anyway. You'll be grateful for it one
day, I promise. Use a pad of paper, write down each customer's information
as you go, and
put a line through the customer's details when you've finished. You
should be able to fit quite a few calls on each sheet, and this means that
if you have to try and remember who called you this morning about the tropical
fish, you've got somewhere to look.
This means you will have to translate jargon to customer-ese on the fly, so (for a TCP example...) don't say "FreeStyle account" to a new user, say "Videotron line account" or something. Always remember - while you may use these terms every day, the customer doesn't. And he doesn't expect you to know the ins and outs of air braking systems on his HGVs, so don't expect him to know the ins and outs of your line of business. If he did, chances are he wouldn't need to phone you in the first place.
Similarly, repeat information back to the customer. This is a surprisingly effective way of catching errors (those s and f sounds are remarkably similar on the telephone...), allows you to set the pace of the information flow, and also convinces the customer that you have the information all taken down and ready to be passed on/input/acted on or whatever.
droid: "Can I take your credit card details please?"
customer: "Sure. The number is 4539"
"..."
"erm, 2277 ..." (Thinks
"you *are* listening, aren't you?")
"..."
"33227711expiry02/98" (This
is great fun - say the whole thing in one go just for entertainment value.)
"..."
"Did you get that?"
"Yeah. I'll put that order through for you."
click...brrrrrrrrr
Aaaagh! This is *really* annoying. I have actually had to pull a droid up over this one, and spoken to his manager. He went a bit further in the incompetency stakes and waited until I had finished giving him the number (slowly - I was more lenient in those days) before asking me to repeat it (twice!).
Put yourself in the customer's shoes. What are you thinking?
Now wasn't that better? It also brings me nicely to the next topic:
There's no hard and fast rules about this one, but again, here are some tips.
Summarise the call. "So. I've got your order, it'll be with you in a
few days. Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Are you all OK with that now? Is there anything else I can help you
with?"
"OK. Thanks for calling." (stops a conversation dead - the Domestos
of the telephone world...)
Note the "anything else I can help you with?" - the normal answer will
be "I don't think so, no" - but the customer thinks "They're willing to
help with other things, I'll be happy to give them a call in future". Alternatively,
the customer will ask you a question which wouldn't normally merit a full
phone call. It may be a "I've been thinking about getting a new fish tank
- what sort of things do you do?", or a "If I wanted to get a new guppy,
would it be OK in with the other fish?". These are quick questions, sales
opportunites, call them what you will - but they reinforce your company
in the customer's mind as one which is approchable, helpful and willing.
And all it takes is "is there anything else I can help you with?" and you're
laughing. Builds rapport as well...