Technology has blessed us with a lot of technological gadgets due to which most of our communication happens over the calls these days. Answering the calls or making calls to our closed ones seems simple, but we get cautious when as a professional we have to make calls to the customer and need to behave like a true professional.
Especially, when an individual works in a call center to earn his bread & butter, that’s very prominent his job is to make the customer happy over the call. That’s done either by hearing the customer’s woes and giving relevant solutions or providing them some extraordinary services or additional discounts on listed products, etc.
Why are telephone etiquette must while making outbound calls?
The customer is the one who judges your conduct upon listening to your voice at first instance. For example, if you say ‘Hello’ or ‘May I talk to ‘XYZ’ person’? In a loud or shouting way, do you think the customer will like to talk to you further? He will simply disconnect your call for never to answer it again.
Answering calls or making calls for this purpose would not suffice the overall purpose. Ideally, as a customer support agent, your job is to make a clear call by giving your proper introduction and take the call duration ahead by engaging the customer.
In such a scenario, effective communication skills are needed and that’s how your speech delivery should be your strongest tool to get the customer’s attention.
To give you an overview, we have listed below some very effective telephone etiquette that may assist you in the outbound calling process.
You just have to hold these telephone etiquette while you make a call to the customer and monitor how good your speech turns up.
- Show professionalism on the call
Showing professionalism over the call conversation might sound tricky; but yes once you interact with the customer very nicely and stick to your professional attitude and not talking irrelevant should reflect in every outbound call you make to the customer.
- Give a clear introduction
Upon calling your customer as a call center agent, your primary responsibility is to give your customer a complete introduction without being ambiguous. Such as your full name, company’s name and where you are calling from, and then move onto the purpose of the call.
You shouldn’t just start pitching your product to the customer without assuring him about your whereabouts.
- Politeness is essential
Mantra is simply simple – be POLITE!
Always answering the phone warmly and with enthusiasm is the agents’ duty so that the customer should not feel they are talking to some rude and foolish person who is just interested to sell their product or service.
- Speak in clear accent
When you are making international calls, your accent should be attuned accordingly. Whether the customer speaks Australian, Canadian, American or British accent – your speaking skills should be ultra-fine to speak in the same accent.
That’s why the call center agents are being provided special accent reduction classes so that they can converse in the same accent to the customer speaking on the other side.
- Mind your pitch & tone
We understand when somebody works in a call center, the voice automatically gets loud at some instances so that background voices of other agents should not bother the customer. So, to make them heard properly, the agent pitch in a loud tone which is not correct.
Be careful when you talk to the customer over the call. Your tone should be extremely polite and tone should not be too loud or too low.
- Listen carefully
Before probing your product’s pitch or providing any solution to the customer, stay calm and listen to what all the customer has to say.
Speak like that you do not have to repeat yourself again.
Conclusion
Showing the basic mannerism is the core but maintaining the telephone etiquette over the call is of utmost priority both for the customer and towards your job. With knowledge of how to demonstrate phone etiquette while making outbound calls is essential for every call center agent to survive in the industry.