Today, call center scripting is used widely. To understand why that is the case, here’s the arguably five biggest benefits of using agent scripting in a contact center:
- Decrease agent training. Agent scripting will give new hires the guidance they need to start handling interactions confidently on their own earlier.
- Maintain regulatory compliance. Script with compliance in mind to help your agents manage the regulatory jungle.
- Promote consistency. By scripting calls you ensure that all agents provide a similar level of service and customers are treated consistently, regardless of agent.
- Avoid human error. With automation for simple, repetitive interactions, agents tend to handle more difficult issues. Scripting can help them deal with those complex situations.
- Integrate systems. Scripting enables you to directly tie back whatever information your script requires the agent to collect to your systems of record.
Let’s look into how you can make sure you actually reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls.
Decreasing agent training assumes that your new agents can profit from the experience of your more seasoned employees. Involve your expert agents into script creation, and continuously monitor how your scripts perform. Collect feedback from customers and agents – your scripts are not carved in stone.
Use your analytics and quality monitoring to review script-based interactions. Sentiment detection can be very helpful to select which interactions to review to get actionable results faster. KPIs such as Customer Satisfaction (CSat) and Net Promoter Score (NPS) should also influence agent scripting, as low scores may be partially a result of less than ideal scripting. Needless to say that surveys are a great tool to collect customer feedback, too.
When creating scripts, understand that for some calls following the script may be obligatory. For other interactions, a script may be more of a recommendation for the agent. A script should not limit the agent from showing empathy or taking their clues from the customer; agents must be able to opt out of the script when appropriate. Scripting can be an art more than a science; forcing an agent to comply at all cost can be detrimental to the customer experience.
Keep it simple. Look at your script from the customer’s and the agent’s perspective and read it out loud. Agents should be able to memorize scripts for more natural interaction. If you have trouble reading it out, then your script is likely too complex.
Lastly, make sure that you have an easy to use tool that allows you to build and maintain scripts easily. Ideally it should come as part of your contact center solution. Programming a script should not be rocket science; options such as checking whether content entered into a script field is in the correct format, as well as the ability to pass collected data into, for example, a CRM, should also be available. That way, your contact center agents, managers and your customers can all benefit from agent scripting. Happy Scripting!
