If you frequently handle calls for your business, you know the importance of phone etiquette! Call centers regularly handle large call volumes, and must maintain high customer service levels. Try the following call center techniques to leave callers with a strong positive impression of your business.

How should I sound on the phone?

Sometimes, your voice at the end of the line is the only impression of the company your caller will get! People are often unaware of how their voice reflects to the listener. Enunciate clearly, speak slowly and sound enthusiastic. Smile when you answer the phone—it sounds cheesy, it creates a noticeable difference in your tone. You may take a variety of calls ranging from executives to clients and vendors, so be sure to maintain your positive tone of voice throughout the day.

What should I say or avoid saying?

Find ways to accentuate the positive, and make the caller feel unique. Instead of “what can I do for you?” try “how are you?” This allows you to engage the caller for a moment or two. If the caller asks how you’re doing, try an enthusiastic response (“I’m great! Thank you for asking”) rather than “fine, thanks.” Avoid filler words (“um,” “ah,”), and replace “sure” with “absolutely!” or “of course!” Use the caller’s name periodically throughout the conversation to create a sense of familiarity. If a caller says “thank you,” never reply “uh huh.” You may only speak with a caller for a few seconds, so make every moment count.

What if I don’t know a caller’s name?

If the caller drops any hints, such as mentioning that they called earlier, do a quick search for any record of their name. Don’t always trust caller ID, as they may be using a phone not associated with their name. Once you identify a caller’s name, verify the spelling. You don’t want to follow up a call by emailing “Catherine” instead of “Kathryn.” Use a phonetic alphabet to verify spelling (“K” as in “kite).

What’s the best way to take a message?

As the caller speaks, jot down what he or she says. Afterwards, restate it in your own words. The caller will feel more confident that you fully understand the message. Say, “May I ask who’s calling?” and take note of the caller’s name and how it’s pronounced.

What if I can’t answer a question?

Avoid making up answers, or saying, “I don’t know” or “I can’t do that.” In business, almost no one will ever admit to not knowing the answer to a question. Put a positive spin on the situation, and emphasize what you CAN do for the caller. Say, “That’s a good question! Let me put you in touch with John. He would be happy to help you with x, y or z.”

Case Study 1: Candy Manufacturer

The Problem:

One of the nation’s leading candy manufacturers contacted Ansafone for help handling high call volumes during the holiday season. The company sells over 100 varieties of premium chocolates via phone, Internet and 200 retail locations, and originally handled all customer service calls with in-house staff. To better serve their customers, the candy manufacturer wanted to lower average wait time for callers during the holidays, and provide after-hours, overflow and multilingual support.

Ansafone’s Solution:

Ansafone provides seasonal inbound customer care for the candy manufacturer, using a shared agent model for their after-hour, overflow and seasonal volume calls. Instead of paying to employ extra staff, the company only pays Ansafone for minutes used. This results in a 30% reduction in labor costs. The candy manufacturer receives an average of 8,000 calls per month to over 50,000 calls per month during the holiday season. Ansafone’s staff, extensively trained on the candy manufacturer’s product, maintains exceptional service levels that meet or exceed that of the in-house call center.

Results:

The candy manufacturer cut costs by 30%, exceeded revenue goals by 20% and reduced average wait time by 34%. Ansafone’s shared agent model helps create scalability, and allows for greater flexibility to offer multilingual support. Ansafone’s agents regularly exceed the average order size goals set by the client during the seasonal peak. Prompt service, fewer abandoned calls and up-selling helps increase customer satisfaction and revenue for this client.

Case Study 2: Educational Organization

The Problem:

One of the largest North American career education companies needed assistance with direct response and inbound lead generation. This US and Canadian organization receives approximately 5,000 calls per day, which they originally handled with an in-house call center. They contacted Ansafone for help supporting 25% of their call volume, and converting calls into sales.

Ansafone’s Solution:

Ansafone worked with the organization to minimize costs and maximize each dollar and interaction. Ansafone’s agents offer extensive knowledge of the organization’s services, experience converting complex sales and bilingual services to accommodate more of the organization’s callers.

Results:

Ansafone increased sales for the organization to 33%, an increase of 12%. The abandonment rate is at a low 6%, which is unheard of for a typical direct response campaign. With Ansafone’s help, the organization now maximizes the revenue potential for each call, connecting with more customers and driving more sales.

Case Study 3: Medical Group

The Problem:

A leading physician-owned, primary care medical group had recently expanded, and struggled to keep up with its higher call volume. They wanted to reduce costs by replacing their in-house call center, and outsource eligibility, member verification, PCP changes and benefit information calls. The medical group required a HIPAA compliant contact center solution, and needed a scalable solution to help improve customer service.

Ansafone’s Solution:

Ansafone now supports all of the company’s member services needs, providing a flexible solution to accommodate changes in call volume. Working closely with the medical group’s IT department, Ansafone proposed a Citrix connection for access to the medical group’s internal systems that initially experienced latency with CRM navigation. The new flexible and scalable operating environment helps the medical group handle shifts in workload, staffing requirements and volume.

Results:

Ansafone reduced the medical group’s overhead costs by 42%, while maintaining high customer satisfaction rates. Through the use of a robust workforce management system, Ansafone can now predict call volume with a 3% variance. The new operating environment helps to increase average answering speed; abandonment rate is now consistently below 3%.

For successfully running and managing a call center, one should have appropriate equipment. Depending on the campaigns and purpose of your call center, you will require different call center hardware for building a company. A lot of call center’s software runs on the industry standard servers but you will need switch to connect telephone system with the internal telephone systems , usually called PBX. While these devices were propriety devices earlier and could be connected to traditional telephone systems but they are now built on IP based networks too. 

Basically the requirements of call centers are 

1.      Automated Dialing

2.      Predictive Dialing

3.      Wide coverage, either at home or at the center

4.      ACD and IVR components

5.      Call recording capability

The quality of phone systems should be fine as they are the main equipment for any call center and assist in handling outbound and inbound calls. For the purpose of outbound telemarketing, after end receiver takes the call, it automatically get transferred to one of telemarketers on the stand by. For all the incoming calls, a PACER phone distributes these calls according to the availability of the telemarketers. This phone offers recording capabilities along with ACD and IVR components. 

Predictive dialers are another type of call center hardware that enables dialing of several numbers at the same time. When the call is answered by receiver, then only it transfers the call to agents, thus avoiding answering machines and busy signals at the same time. 

IVR phone system offers automatic service of collecting information from the caller before call is transferred to one of the agents. Complete computerized systems are also used by call centers that allows the agents to type the information while they are on phone with telemarketers. 

Microsoft phone dialers are beneficial in working of any call center as they lets you make video and voice calls by using computer. With few mouse clicks and IP address of recipient, you can stay connected without any hassles and on video too! 

Auto alarm phone dialers have pre programmed telephone numbers that can be sued in the case of emergency. It is amongst elite security systems that help in protecting the equipment of call centers. 

While selecting the call center hardware, you should pay attention at interoperability while selecting the call center hardware. If you are planning to buy the call center technology from Phone Company then you will locked for making use of their equipments. You also need to pay attention at the fact that a lot of companies these days use IP based systems with conventional telephone sets for getting most of their applications using Session Initiation Protocol running on the base of IP phones, you will have to buy new phones. Replacement of your phone systems can put a dent in your bank balance. This is one of the reasons why middle and small sized companies do not switch to IP based systems till the time they face specific trigger events like expiration of lease or office shift. 

Consider the compatibility of your hardware in the relation to the software you are using. You will have to find out that Amount of effort used for entailing it with the software of your company. By buying the right call center equipment, you can look forward to smooth operations of your call center.

The PACER is a call center phone system that handles inbound and outbound calls for a wide range of contact centers. Calls are either initiated by the phone system or accepted from the outside and distributed in an intelligent fashion to your service agents. The PACER includes ACD and IVR components, plus call recording capability. Using industry standard components, the PACER phone system has features and functions that can only be found in large scale PBX's, but at a fraction of the cost. And the PACER has predictive dialing capability that cannot be found in most of these larger phone systems. The PACER phone system can connect calls to your employees working at home or in a local or remote office. The PACER communicates with applications written on Unix, Linux, or PC servers over a LAN. For a complete product presentation, download our PACER demo. 

• The PACER and WIZARD - Elite phone systems used in call centers that can handle inbound and outbound calls. They are also known as auto-dialers.   For outbound telemarketing, once the end receiver picks up, the phone system will automatically distribute the call to one of the telemarketers standing by.  As for incoming calls, the PACER phone will distribute the phone according to who is available.  Recording capabilities are featured on the phone along with IVR and ACD components.
• Predictive dialers - Used for dialing several numbers at once.  When the end receiver answers, only then does it transfer to an agent, thus avoiding busy signals and answering machines.
• IVR phone system - An automated service that collects information before transferring to an agent. 
• Complete computer systems for data collecting purposes - Telemarketers can be on the phone while typing the needed information.
• Microsoft phone dialer - Gives the capability of making voice and video calls from your computer.  With an IP address of the recipient’s computer and a click of a button, you can be connected.
• Auto alarm phone dialer  - Calls pre-programmed numbers when there is an emergency.  This is an elite security system for call centers to protect their equipment.

Marketing is one of the unique functions that are performed for the businesses. Marketing can be done directly or indirectly that is largely dependent on how the sales man carries it out. Telemarketing is one of the methods that is used for direct marketing where a salesperson makes use of telephone for satisfying the prospective customers and also persuades them for buying services or products. 

Telemarketing requires quick and effective calling that can only be achieved with the calling services that are made available to them at competitive prices. For the telecommuters and also for the business travelers, calling cards can prove to be highly beneficial for making the business calls. The telecommunication services that are provided for the people involved in telemarketing have adopted the new of calling cards that allows the people to make their phone calls at comparatively cheaper price.

With calling cards, the lives of the telecommuters and business travelers have become simplified as it has become easier for them to make long distance calls from almost any part of the world. With the calling cards, the telecommuters have an easy access to make calls at an affordable price that can hence prove to be fruitful for the business.

Also there are numerous other alternates that are used for carrying out the telecommunication services in the telemarketing services. Though the calling cards are one of the most popular services that are made available, there are other more powerful tools and services that are used by corporations for providing these capabilities by making use of the new telecommunication technologies and platforms. These platforms provide the business organizations to manage the outbound and inbound calling requirements that also includes fax, paging, phone and calling services. This enables the person to check the fax and voice messages with a single call that is made.

By making use of the calling cards, the corporations and organizations can save up to approximately 25% in a year. This can be done only when the intelligent telecommunication platforms are implemented.

There are numerous advantages that can be availed by making use of calling cards in the telecommunication industry. Consistency that is provided by the service providers is one of the major advantages that can be easily availed by the users. With no concealed fee amount, the people can enjoy uninterrupted services. The calling cards are easy to buy and also allow the users to have excellent connectivity that can let the user to stay connected at all times. With the easy availability, calling cards are made available for the people at smaller price range also.

The services that are offered by calling cards can let the people stay connected in almost all the countries and that too at the standard rates that are applicable for making calls. There is no need for you worry about the working of calling cards as they can work equally well from cell phones as well.

Charges that are levied for the calls that are being made are not only are the standard prices that are applicable but also same charges are levied at all times of day.  

Customer satisfaction holds great importance for a business or a company, as it brings returning clients or customers. When it comes to discerning that whether customers are satisfied or not is to ask the customers themselves. While you conduct the customer satisfaction survey, the questions you ask from customers are important. A satisfied and contented customer brings twenty more. 

To stay successful and be successful- your business should cautiously adapt its service or product as per the reply of the market. For numerous businesses, it means highlighting various advantages of service or product to the people using. If the customer using your service or product is not satisfied then you require modifying existing services or products disliked. Several times, it means making totally novel services or products. To make your brand recognition and business a hit, it is imperative to please your customers by providing in the best quality and finest service or product. 

How can you compel your customers for using your service or product faithfully, repeatedly and most importantly with satisfaction? You require engineering your product and orchestrating your service in a way that it is coveted via your target audience. How can this be accomplished?      

When it comes to customer satisfaction, many large and renowned companies attempt and try novel methods to make their product or service a hit. It is essential to provide maximum value to customers. Forget about your desires and wishes and give priority to the needs of customers to get the leadership secret in market. Sell or make a product, which satisfies the physical and emotional requirements of customers. This way, the customer will come back to you and stick to you, additionally spend truckloads of bucks on your service or product.

Every customer wants a good product. The product you sell should be of superior quality as well as priced wisely. After that comes the significance of service. In case, the service of your company is not upto customer’s expectations, they will not buy your product, despite good quality. Thus, a product should be customer oriented if you want higher sales. In the world of business, only those people survive who take care of the needs of customers. Also, do not forget to do impressive but honest publicity of your product.

The ever growing and unstoppable competition (whether for nonprofit or profit) is forcing businesses to pay extra attention to the needs of customers. Many companies are taking the help of online surveys to measure the satisfaction level of a customer for a specific product or service. In fact, companies are exercising social media mediums like Twitter amongst the most common ones to discover and reply to the customer complaints. Research shows that businesses with high customer involvement enjoy significantly ROI, ROA, EPA, Gross Margin and ROE. 

As per the lately conducted assessment by the renowned J.D. Power and Associates, they received around 912 points from a total of 1000 in customer satisfaction. Brilliant dealership facility, finance process and simple paperwork, delivery process, vehicle’s price made them a hit amongst customers.     

Customer service training is very important for all the businesses that want to make a mark in their niche. In present economic crunch when companies are exposed to higher level of risks, it is necessary to do the needful for survival. Today’s client driven market demands complete customer satisfaction for getting successful. Businesses have to look after expectations and requirements of consumers in the best possible way. This runs through simple greeting to capable follow-ups and constant client services right from starting to the end of marketing and sales.

The present scenario calls for efficient customer service training for employees of every company. If you want to beak the clutter and enhance your brand awareness, you have to make your clients happy. Customer service training is not that difficult and can be taught by various programs. Programs are often designed for specific requirements. Typical customer training programs include listening skills, influencing skills, communication skills, complaint handling and telephone skills. Customer service can be tailored according to the needs of your company but the above stated elements are an integral part of all the client service training.

To handle the complaints of clients efficiently is the hardest and the most crucial part of any business. No business can run without facing complaints from their clients. Even most savvy businesses have to handle client dissatisfaction at some point of their professional life. Clients make or break any business, so it is very important to take care of all the clients associated with your business. A disappointed client can cause havoc for your business.

Apart from losing that customer, you might also end up destroying the image of your company. Your customer service training should include client complaints handling. Your employees should be well acquainted with a humble way to address client’s grievances. They should be modest and calm while dealing with these clients. Losing patience is not the solution and can add to disappointment of customers.

Most of these complaints from clients are due to miscommunication or lack of interaction. Fortunately training course with client handling tips is very effective in teaching the employees to handle complaints properly. Do not let communication become a cause to upset and irate your consumers. Agents are taught to interact in the training period. They learn to communicate capably with the employees and clients off course.

Customer service training involves extempore for polishing the communication skills. Topics are given on the spot and employees are asked to discuss them in a limited time. They are taught to present their intentions in clear and correct language. Communication is the key to a successful business. So make sure that your employees are able to interact successfully.

Listening skills are also important part of customer services. Training for customer service should develop listening skills among employees. For analyzing any problem, employees should be able to listen. In a lot of training programs, employees are made to listen to some audio and take notes of the vital parts of the conversation and answer them in test afterwards. Active listening skills are beneficial for helping the clients out. By taking these tests, employees are able to identify troubles of clients. Secret of clearing these tests is to pay attention while listening to the audio. Same applies to real situation when client is making some query or complaints; employees have to ensure that they listen to them carefully.

Attitude of the employees plays an important role in attracting clients to your business. There is no better turn off than bad attitude. Customer service training should inculcate attitude skills. Development of right and positive attitude is essential for getting to higher levels of success. Employees who consider clients to be stupid and annoying are sure to provide your clients with pathetic experience. Employee with a positive attitude ensures a great outcome. They should showcase empathy and sensitivity while handling clients. Teach your employees to have seeking mind and deliver their best to the clients. They should take clients feedback sportingly and drive improvements from them. They should believe in the services and products of their company and work hard to satisfy their clients.

Business writing skills should also be imparted to employees. Professional writing is very different from usual writing; one has to maintain a formal tone. While writing emails to clients, employees have to make sure that it has proper language and should convey the company’s intentions effectively.

Whatever may be the case, customer service is a fundamental determinant for the overall performance of a company. Success of any company is marked by the performance of its personnel. With correct customer service training, you can not only offer satisfactory client services but help your employees perform their jobs in better way. Implementation of these training programs boosts the morale of employees and improves job satisfaction. You can enhance the image of your company by equipping your employees with a proper training program.

All of us pay emphasis on finding new clients for the company. Most of us are always hunting than farming. Attracting new clients for a company is very important but satisfaction of the existing clients is equally important. By integrating all the above stated skills in the customer service training, you can get away from a lot of problems. The problem of high employee turnovers that occurs due to stress created by job is solved too. You will witness a hike in profits without any loss of revenues cause by client dissatisfaction. Do not waste money irrelevant and inadequate training programs, rather offer training that is focused and comprehensive.

Call center management needs the aptitude to juggle loads of aspects of the call center operations, promptly. The call center managers are generally faced with the duty of foreseeing call volume, plummeting the cost of contact center, conducting the quality monitoring, measuring the customer satisfaction as well as motivating the agents, all at once- serving as head and issue solver for their staff. Thus, it is very important for the call center manager to keep the staff motivated as well as ensure superior productivity and results.

Need for Management Training at Call Center 
The management at a call center is delegated with responsible task of hiring, training, coaching as well as motivating the employees. It is the responsibility of the manger of the call centre to train the staff adequately so as to increase the productivity and at the same time keep the staff motivated. Training of the employees is imperative to make sure that the procedure of taking and answering the queries is handled with great care.

The call centre staff gets very less time between the calls. Generally, the work is stressful and repetitive, as the representative requires reducing the length of every call devoid of seeming impolite to the customer on the call.

It is the duty of the manager to provide proper coaching and training so that the staff can effectually manage the time plus deliver desired results as well. The manager also requires motivating the morale of the employees, which might receive a blow due to their job profile. Thereby, the call center manager must emphasize on the following areas, including:  
    
When giving call center management training, the manager should focus on assisting the trainee to develop skills, which are required for fine management. The management training varies as per the needs and size of a call center. Generally, the managers should assess the call center’s state, plan ways to provide effective services to the customers, prepare guidelines to facilitate effectual training meetings and introduce retention and motivation plans.        

It is also the responsibility of the manager to make a training budget for the newly hired people or also for sponsoring on going training. Foreseeing the volume of calls, the anticipated load of work or making presentations, which justify the needs of the staff are various other tasks for which the manager of the call center is responsible. Performing all of these duties will lead to better productivity and superior performance.    

Along with knowing the professional ways of keeping the call center employees motivated, it is necessary for the manager to include some fun ways as well to keep the staff interested. Frequent breaks in between the work can enable the employees to give in their best performance and thus resulting in making extra proceeds. The breaks can be in form of entertainment, cultural activities and reward programs. Also, you can offer the staff festive bonuses. Picking the employee of the month too can assist in incasing the productivity.

In business, all leads hold great significance and no sensible businessperson would ever like to forego even one single lead. When it comes to making lead generation, call centers can be really useful. For catering to the requirements of the customers, majority of the call centers boast a talented team of lead generation professionals who work hard to get qualified leads. Lead generation through call centers proves is advantageous, as professionals in call centers work day and night with the main aim to aid you with designing, developing, delivering and promoting your content.  

Majority of the companies require adequate and perfect marketing back up in order to get familiar with their target customers as well as develop target sales. But, time deficiency and lack of resources make them hopeless. Such companies also lack resources and time to deploy or train sales and marketing professionals for making a proper pipeline.      

This is when, the call centers draft and deploys marketing campaign, plus within the sales professionals gives expertise to execute and design desired campaigns. Some specific types of products require exclusive marketing activities for effectual lead generation service. There are numerous areas, which require services of call center.
 
Lead generation services taken through call centers are divided in different processes such as:

• Telemarketing services
• Web casting
• Outbound and inbound call support
• Novel client advertisement
• Database development along with its maintenance
• Database research programs 

All of these lead generation services and many more are conducted according to the details of the clients. A systematic marketing plan is drafted and designed as per the specifications of the client and professional expertise of the BPO. 

A majority of the call centers always thrive to achieve higher achievements, thus, they apply in innovative techniques for deriving maximum results. As the name says, the lead generation services is linked with wide marketing web to capitulate desired outcomes.

The marketing activities and deeds depend on the category of the targeted customers. A high-end service or product must be introduced among the most affluent individuals who have high spending capacity. Consequently, all the probable telemarketing actions are directed on the way to install a basic marketing plan, which will generate awareness among that specific section of the society. Making people aware is not sufficient. The call centers design the services of lead generation in a manner that it converts their telemarketing in absolute sales.     

Alike activities are performed for introducing products among other sections of the society, as well. Just the targeted customers are dissimilar.  

Several specialized lead generation services also need loads of effort from call centers. These incorporate services in travel, hospital services, insurance and various other related services. Few services are made especially for the upper middle class society. They are simply influenced, provided they receive value for the money. Subsequently, the mission of lead generation services becomes easier for the executives too.  

If you wish to run a successful business, it is vital to be expert in handling indifferent or demanding customers. Customer support is one of the imperative areas to be given noticed when it comes to functioning of the business smoothly.       

There are two aspects of dealing with the troublesome situations. The first thing that any customer care executive needs to take into consideration is that he should avoid getting into any scuffle with the customers as they are important from the business point of view. Also, he should know how to handle any situation that arises due to the problems of a customer. These two things will make sure that your customers do not get angry and account for more trouble.

Here is some important information about what needs to be avoided when dealing with a difficult or demanding customer. It is important to regain the goodwill of the customers and these simple steps would make sure that your business does that. The first thing that a customer service executive should never do is to tell the customer that he/she is wrong. This can make the customers fight with you as they are already angry over a service mishap. You should use phrases that do not make them angry and makes them realize if they are actually wrong.

Arguing with a customer should be avoided. It is difficult to change the mind of a customer. All that you need to do is to make sure that your customer gets answers and reasons for the mishaps that may have occurred in some of your service. You may have to pay a big price if you indulge in an argument with a customer. Completely avoid arguments. Never tell your customer to relax or calm down. When a customer is angry, he would not like to take your advice and be told what he needs to do.

Apologies work wonders. There is one thing that can certainly make the situation better for you and the customer; apology. Do not hesitate to apologize if you see that the customer is unhappy. This may also help your business to regain the customer and his goodwill. Apology should thus come naturally to you. If your customer starts yelling at you, it is advised to stay calm and not copy him. You have to be professional in your approach and thus stay out of the drama that the customer has created. Communicating effectively is your strong point and you have to retain it.

It is important to listen to what your customer has to say. It is possible that your customer comes across as a volcano and you have to understand that it can be tough to stop him from being so. You cannot tame the customer or order him to stop as he is angry. Let him finish what he has to say and vent out his anger. Give options to your customers in order to let them know what you can do for them. Listen to them and then start giving clarifications and facts. These simple steps are enough to make sure that your customers do not get angry any further and get answers to all their questions as well.

Is your call center using noise canceling headsets?

The degree of noise level in a call center may differ depending on the architecture of the call center. Generally call centers have 2 types of architecture –one where agents sit right next to each other or the other where they are distinctly divided.

For a pleasant call experience background noise needs to be filtered out. Professional call centers are very particular about this aspect; the customer at the other end must not be able to hear any of the background noise. It should be just the agent and the customers. A good chat experience motives the agent, reduces his distractions and increases his productivity.

Noise-canceling headphones come in all forms. They are full size to earbud forms. Since you no longer have to crank up the volume to overcome background noise, this type of headphone lets you listen at lower levels, which leads to reduced ear fatigue.

It has been proved in tests that noise canceling tests have reduced the average work time by almost 23%. That’s a lot of time when you are handling large volume businesses.