When used as a sales tool, scripting is nearly always a sales killer. The same applies when scripting is utilized in call centers.
The use of a script is traditionally based on the false idea that the agent, to be successful, must be somebody other than who they are. That idea might come from the company operating the call center, or it might even come from the agent themselves due to a lack of confidence. It is usually the former, though, as the call center company feels they can skip the vital step of actually training call center agents by having them read from scripts instead.
Again, though, the caller can tell when an agent is reading from a script, just like you would be able to. The thing is, if it sounds like a script, it probably is. Your caller is going to automatically reject it. People always reject other people who are not being themselves—that is a principle you can count on. Therefore, any company substituting a script for effective training is also losing a great deal of business and happy customers.
Back to this month’s topic: call center agents should be coaches, who coach callers to a rapid resolution of the reason that they called. They cannot possibly do that if they are simply reading from a script, for the particularly good reason that every caller is going to be different—will have a different problem, issue, or question.
Even if questions are similar, there will always be slight differences. And even beyond that, the call center agent is talking to a different person with every single call. A script tends to try and make every caller the same—and they are most assuredly not the same.
There is also a fundamental truth that if an agent is reading from a script, they do not have to bother understanding what they are reading—which is one of the reasons they sound artificial.
All of this adds up to the fact that a company operating a call center will have a much more successful call center if they actually train their call center reps as coaches. The agents will understand what they are talking about, they will not sound phony, and most importantly they will be able to provide genuine help to callers.
