Why Use Call Center Scripts to Improve Quality Assurance?

December 19, 2022

Why Use Call Center Scripts to Improve Quality Assurance?

Keeping your customers satisfied at all times is crucial, particularly if you run an e-commerce or retail business. Your service agents will have to constantly communicate with the customers to address frequent issues that may arise. 

You will need to ensure your customer service representatives are ready for such calls, and there is no better way to do this than by giving them access to a comprehensive contact center script. This is true even if you use the most dynamically tailored and customer-centered software.

Contact centers that use scripts to direct their personnel enable their teams to provide a timely and prompt response to consumer inquiries. In this post, we will define contact center scripting, discuss how contact center scripts can benefit your company, and depict how to develop a script that perfectly matches your requirements.

What is a contact center or call center Scripts?

Contact center agents are humans who are bound to make errors. Has someone ever asked you something, and you were lost for words, not because you were unfamiliar with the topic, but for reasons, you couldn’t explain? The same can happen to contact center agents regardless of their training level in the field. 

Being a contact center agent is not as easy as people think. It is not just picking up calls and directing people or answering questions. The profession entails dealing with humans, and every customer brings a different experience. Some might be rude and impatient, while others are considerate and willing to listen. Sometimes customers may ask complex questions and service representatives fall short of words, especially if the customer tries to intimidate them.

Given that the agents have to remember every detail, it is only understandable that some of the information might slip through their minds. Your contact center agents will feel less overwhelmed if you have contact center scripts. They can use it as a guide for what to communicate and do rather than solely relying on their remembrance.

As such, a contact center script is a properly drafted document that aids contact center agents in understanding what to say and do during customer interactions. It serves as a communicative and administrative tool that minimizes error. 

If you leverage contact center scripting, your agents’ calls will be optimized and the representatives will accurately guide your customers. Your company will also improve communication, address customer issues more quickly, and reduce training time.

Why Use a Contact Center Script or Call Center Scripts?

Regardless of its niche, every company looks forward to maintaining organization and uniformity, which is what you achieve when using contact center scripts. Here are some of the benefits you will reap with a well-developed script.

Ensure Consistency

Imagine communicating with an agent today, and they tell you to do something in a specific way, then getting a different agent next time who tells you something totally different. Every company thrives off consistency. 

A call center script offers a uniform consistency level and guarantees that your agents are equipped with all information required for every call. It may be developed and executed appropriately to ensure you obtain crucial information at the start of the conversation and ensure all clients acquire the same guidance regardless of the representative they interact with.

Improves Your Brand Image

When a client calls hoping to get help with an issue they encountered and end up getting exactly what they expected, they will regard your company highly. Your agents will give the greatest feasible impression each time they answer the phone with the aid of expertly designed contact center scripts.

Encourage Confidence

Being a contact center agent is an overwhelming job because you must remember many details and deliver them in a specific manner. If an agent doubts, they will remember certain facts about the company, and their confidence level will depreciate. They might even want not to interact with customers who will force them to answer questions from these areas. 

With a proper guide, your agents’ confidence will be boosted, which might even improve their morale. Handling customer difficulties and concerns can be frustrating, but a well-crafted script eliminates any additional stress associated with coming up with answers on the spot. This will result in representatives seeming more competent and certain.

Less Room for Error

According to a recent survey, 40% of clients associate good customer service with how the agents helped resolve their issues, regardless of the time it took. We make many mistakes in our daily activities, but contact center agents are somehow viewed as “superhumans” who should always be perfect. The agents must solve the issue appropriately and make an impression with the first attempt. 

Contact center scripts assist operators in quickly resolving client issues by guiding them past typical challenges and difficulties. Customer confidence declines when agents stumble, slur, or provide inaccurate information. Scripts prevent this from occurring.

Improve Overall Performance

Effective contact center scripts are developed after analyzing previous call performances and customer satisfaction. If you notice a certain undesirable pattern recurring, be sure to clarify the matter with your agents and include it in the script.

Consider exceptional performance examples, and gradually work the lessons you have acquired into your script, which should improve and grow as necessary.

Developing a Practicable contact center Script

Anyone can design and implement a contact center script, but the chances of getting it wrong are high. It is easy to develop a script that makes your agents sound robotic and impersonal, something you don’t want. Scripts don’t need to be complex and undesirable. 

We analyzed different approaches and came up with the best practices to help agents deliver excellent customer service.

Don’t Settle for One-Size-Fits-All

One mistake most companies make is providing a “master script” encompassing every type of issue that could arise. This would probably be a huge booklet, and given the dynamics of the job, there could be no time to peruse through pages seeking answers. Scripts broken up into multiple parts or sections are the most effective. Creating a general script that can be used in all circumstances is uncalled for. 

These are the four main types of scripts you can implement:

Intake Scripts

This is the script an agent works with when starting each call. Its purpose is to help the agent collect essential customer information and unearth the call’s aim. An intake script for contact center is necessary as it is the basis for starting a customer conversation.

Procedural Scripts

If your company deals with a lot of transactions and procedures, you will need one of these. To avoid confusion, a procedural script includes specific things the agent should say for that particular call. This might sound bizarre, but it actually simplifies the process. If your procedures are written down, your script can be integrated into them and won’t be required to be kept in a separate file. 

For a specific part of the procedure, such as clarifying a policy, you might simply need a script that representatives recite verbatim. The linkage of an intake and procedural script to accommodate particular calls can be done as follows:

Return of Goods

Intake: Thank you for calling Desirable Kicks. My name is Mary. May I have your customer identification?

Customer: 353652

Intake proceeds: Thanks. How can I be of help to you today?

Customer: I need to return the goods I bought.

(Rep identifies the return policy procedure, including a script on what to say precisely. 

The procedural script begins: Would you kindly present your order number?

 

Compliance Scripts

Compliance scripts are more or less similar to procedural scripts as they are employed for certain policies and procedures. They are utilized in parts of a call where your representatives must use certain wording to remain compliant. Such circumstances necessitate scripts. You must supply the terminology if agents are compelled to use it (otherwise, lawyers get engaged).

Closing Script

These are similar to intake scripts but are used when ending a call. Irrespective of the issue, your agents will use an invariable closing script on each call. As is the norm, closing scripts are kept succinct. 

Example: Thank you for reaching out. Do you require help in any other area?

Recognize When to Compose Verbatim Scripts and Prompts

contact center scripting is not as easy as you may perceive. You must consider the different writing methods and decide which is most convenient for your company. Most people are of the opinion that you must write every word your agents will say, but this is often not the case. Of course, to formulate the best script, you have to know the different approaches you may take, and they are as follows.

Verbatim

Verbatim scripts are those in that agents use exact terms as originally indicated. This is what a script is usually perceived to be. A verbatim script comes in handy if you are keen to avoid mistakes and helps the representative acquire necessary info quickly. 

Prompts

Utilizing general prompts, commonly referred to as call flows, is an additional choice. In these scripts, you are less providing exact words to say and more describing when to address subject matters in a process. For every conversation phase, call flows inform representatives what to ask next. These might be presented as checkpoints or step-by-step guidance.

For instance,

• Enquire about their ID number.
• Get the details of the order (order number).
• Ask where to deliver the items. 

You are not restricted to using each of the approaches at a time but can combine them in one procedure. Verbatim is best for when agents need to use specific words, like in compliance scripts, while prompts act as guidelines. 

Minimize Formal Language Use

There is a need to sound professional and competent when dealing with customers, but too much formal language may be a communication barrier. Let the conversation sound natural, as if the agent and client were having a day-to-day interaction. This will make the customer feel less tense and eliminate the chances of agents seeming robotic.

If you insist on using jargon based on your industry, the customer might have to verify what you mean every now and then, and might lose concentration. After all, the aim of having a contact center is to ensure customers’ challenges are dealt with in the simplest way. Too much formality will only complicate the issue further.

Don’t Confuse Your Agents

The formatting you use to present the scripts is important. Considering there might be tons of items to cover in a single call, the text presentation should be clear and easy to understand. Don’t make the agents wonder what you meant in certain steps. Remember, if the agent can’t understand, the customer won’t get the help they need, which would make a horrible impression on your company. 

Test Your Call Center Scripts Before Implementation

When done writing, don’t just release the scripts for use immediately. Ensure to use a test group to analyze how clear the scripts are. You can even present as a caller and let one of the agents take you through. If you understand the language and get clarity, you are good to proceed.

Does contact center Scripting Help with Quality Assurance?

Today’s customers are tech-savvy and not shy to reveal their unpleasant experiences with contact centers. And since your company’s reputation highly depends on customer experiences, you ought to implement the best practices for your contact center. 

Developing workable contact center scripts can help enhance your initiatives for customer satisfaction while adhering to constant monitoring, assessment and growth.  In a customer service center, quality assurance is applied to identify typical customer problems and enhance interactions for a more consistent customer experience. 

There is a constant  need to refine your contact center scripts, Call Criteria will provide the information needed to refine them using Artificial Intelligence (AI) enhanced speech analytics in combination with human review. This data is used  to determine what is effective and help the organization rapidly develop improved scripts. 

Quality assurance is a way of ensuring a company’s services or goods are as exceptional as possible. This is crucial because, as it is common knowledge, satisfied clients are more likely to purchase additional goods or services from you in the future, remain devoted to you, and recommend you to their friends.

Developing, analyzing, and employing a contact center script is one approach to quality assurance. It is a great way to ensure consistency, improve clarity, and boost call quality during interactions with agents. No contact center can deliver consistent  desirable results without implementing quality assurance and a comprehensive, easily-understandable script.

Wrapping Up

Contact center quality assurance efforts must be focused, something most businesses struggle with because there are countless interactions to review. You might not have the time or skills to prepare a comprehensive contact center script, and if that is the case for you, why not work with a reputable company like CallCriteria and utilize the power of AI? Let us help you improve customer interactions with our diverse resources.