"Don’t take that tone of voice with me!"

For many contact centres, the drive to cut costs has come at the expense of the quality of communication between frontline staff and customers. Beyond Philosophy's Steven Walden discusses his contact centre experiences - and why it's all about the agent.

By Steven Walden, Beyond Philosophy

Phoning a call centre IS the customer experience. This is a truism now for consumers of anything from insurance to travel products. Adverts such as, ‘Lucky’ from More Than or ‘Hastings Direct’ all promise convenience and ease at the best possible price. Indeed, such has been the success of this channel that for companies such as Thomas Cook, it is the call centre that has actually become a leading sales channel over the traditional retail store.

Too often, though, the desire to cut costs has led to the use of cheap staff, outsourcing overseas and a general lack of interest in how best to handle the communication between frontline staff and customers. The inevitable consequence is customer disgruntlement and frustration whether this is at the surly, uncaring attitude, the inability to understand an accent or the lack of knowledge on the other end of the line.

To put it simply, in the pursuit of the lowest possible cost, customer service has been neglected.

Yes, there are plenty of measures of productivity and satisfaction. But actually understanding the more qualitative side, how best to handle the relationship through the words you use and your tone of voice, seems to have been forgotten.

This is ironic. If call centres are about supporting a product that can be easily replicated, such as insurance, then one of your main differentiators is how your call centre staff handles customers. If customers no longer go into a branch then how else can they understand your brand values?

An experience for many products is also not just about the point of engaging when you buy but how you feel towards the company when things go wrong or when you need advice. Handle this badly and however good your product is "I may not buy from you again", "I may not recommend you" and "I’ll certainly look at your competition"; an easy thing to do as they are also just a Freephone call away!

So if the interaction with call centre staff is so important to maintaining a relationship, how can this best be achieved?

All about the agent

This is a problem we have come across on many occasions. You want to change behaviour but you don’t know how to measure it and if you don’t know how to measure then nothing gets done. Typically there are good training programmes for agents but too often once these have been completed you're out on your own, competing with other staff to upsell a customer or get that bonus for sale completes and satisfied customers. There is little in the way of understanding the best way to speak to customers, the language you use or the tone of voice. Yet it is our contention that it is these that make the difference.

For instance, recently I had to use a global finance provider. This experience exemplified these difficulties. Firstly, there was the Indian Call Centre. Pleasant enough but could not help me and rather too analytical in tone; others have issues such as basic understanding of an accent.

Secondly, there was the failure of the UK team. Again, lack of knowledge, analytical tone, the occasional comment that felt like they were putting the blame on me, all little things in the general flow of the conversation but highly irritating.

Finally we get to the light at the end of the tunnel, being put through to a genuinely excellent agent. And why? Well, if I was to just look at the words, she would have been good but none of her true value would have shone through. It was more a case of the way she spoke, the untroubled, helpful tone of voice, the caring nature not the analytical "here’s what the story is" voice; although in fact she provided far better advice.

I have met these sort of people before in listening to hundreds of calls. They are as valuable as gold dust and almost as rare. They make the difference to the bottom line and whilst it is true that they are difficult to recruit for, too often their learnings as exemplars of customer service are lost in the melee of targets and turnover typical of a call centre environment.

Do you think these people are identified within a call centre, their way of interacting spread throughout the team, their best practices used as standard? Perhaps not!

If you don’t believe me think of your own experience of phoning call centres. Yes there is the automatic menu system but this is something many firms are now aware of and are, at least a few of them, remedying. Isn’t the real deal the fact that you get what you want and you remember the excellence of the call centre agent? A phone is a phone is a phone, there is no merchandising, nice music or colourful design to distract you from the surly staff in a shop, it’s ALL about the agent.

So what can we do to improve the agent experience, identify and spread best phone practice? For us, we don’t just analyse satisfaction or study how to write a better script, we look at the subtext of what people say and the way it is said.

For instance, when a customer says "I have been with you 20 years" what is it they are actually saying? How can tone of voice and certain practices improve the emotional experience? And vice versa can such things as putting the blame on the customer and curtness evoke a negative response? Are there other difficulties in the way agents speak that drive customers away?

Interaction with call centre staff is critical to maintaining a relationship, and those firms that dedicate intensive listening and experiencing of customer interaction will be better equipped to evoke a positive emotional response from consumers. For instance, one that says "we value you".

Steven Walden is principal consultant and head of research at Beyond Philosophy.

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