If you do phone work from home, you may have to work from a script – many companies require that their workers read a script so they can make sure that all relevant information is provided to the customer, and the customer service representative is following all the proper procedures. But after reading the same script over and over, you may start sound like a robot. How can you avoid this? This post will provide some ideas for how to avoid sounding like a robot when you have to read from a script.
If you don’t have to follow the script word for word, don’t. I personally prefer to try to add my own personality whenever possible, but you also need to make sure that you’re sticking to your company’s policies about how long calls should be, as well as any other policies that may affect how much you can deviate from the script.
If a customer can’t understand something you’re reading on the script, it should be ok for you to deviate enough to explain to them what you mean. In my job as a telephone interviewer for a company that did underwriting interviews with people who had applied for life and health insurance products, we had to stick to our script word for word – however many of the people that I talked to were older, and some of them didn’t understand what we meant by a certain question, or misunderstood what we said when we asked a certain question. In those cases, it was ok for us to rephrase what we were saying so that the applicant could understand. Make sure that it’s ok for you to explain something in different words before you do it, though.
Don’t be afraid to chat with the customer a little – Chatting with the customer can help establish a rapport and make them feel more at ease, but again be mindful of your call times, if your company is a stickler about how long you spend on the phone.
Respond to customer concerns as quickly as possible – Customers want answers quickly – most of them won’t have time to hold on the phone for long periods of time. If it does take you a while to find the answer to a question, make sure you check in with the customer every so often to let them know you’re still trying to find the answer to their question. To avoid sounding like a robot, try to find other ways to say “We appreciate your patience”‘
I hope this blog post has given you some good ideas on how you can avoid sounding like a robot when you’re talking to a customer on the phone. Scripting is important in certain industries, but it’s still important to sound like a human as much as possible. If you have any other tips or techniques you use to avoid sounding like a robot on the phone, I’d love to hear them – please feel free to comment below.
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