TABLE OF CONTENTS:
- Introduction to customer service call scripts
- Types of Customer Service Call Scripts
- Examples of Customer Service Call Scripts
- Customizing Your Call Scripts
- Best Practices for Implementing Call Scripts
- Conclusion
Introduction to Customer Service Call Scripts
Customer service teams are responsible for handling many of the inbound requests that an organization receives. And most often, customers are calling to complain about, question, or cancel their business. The person on the inside of the organization, the customer service employee, must always remain professional in their communications, follow the organization’s policies and protocols, and must try to sort out the customer’s concern – all while under the context of handling a difficult situation. Customer service call scripts come in handy to provide some guidance to this often tricky role!
Importance of Effective Communication in Customer Service
Because service teams communicate directly with customers, there’s an ability to influence success for other departments like marketing, growth, and even HR.
Swetha Amaresan wrote that well-equipped customer service employees can help drive higher sales through referrals, repeat business, or upselling. She also suggests, “Rather than spending time and money surveying customers constantly, you can have your customer service employees simply ask these questions while interacting with customers. Their response can give you many insights into improving your products, marketing, goals, and employee training.”
Effective communication also needs to be maintained regardless of the channel used, including email, text, phone, and in-person at help desks.
Overview of Call Scripting
Call scripting is useful for employees when they’re new to a customer service role or for when they’re overwhelmed and unsure where to lead the conversation next. A good practice is to establish a script for several different case scenarios that your business faces on a daily basis, such as calling for a refund, requesting product support, or inquiring about a recent purchase, for example. The call script for each scenario will give text prompts to say to the customer that are company-approved, and will also include bullet points of other ideas or offers that can be presented to the customer if needed.
Types of Customer Service Call Scripts
Because of the different types of inbound requests that customer service teams respond to in a day, it’s important to have different call scripts set up for each one. Below are a few common scenarios that all customer service departments should be prepared to handle.
Greeting and Introduction Scripts
Some organizations have an automated system that will re-route the customer to a specialized service team depending on their concern. Without this, it’s important to have a script to help the customer explain their reason for contacting support.
Greeting and introduction scripts can also be useful for setting the tone of the conversation right away. A positive and solution-focused interaction will show the customer that they are going to be supported and can help minimize the likelihood of aggression or outlashes.
Handling Complaints and Difficult Situations
Complaint management is a big area of concern for call centers, and a major focus in this type of script is customer retention. Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profitability between 25% to 95%! So when customers reach out with complaints, it’s important to always respond with empathy.
Try to offer personalization and understanding wherever you can so that the customer understands their connecting with a real person who cares. Another key tip is ensuring that you’re offering expectations along the way. For example, if you need to put the customer on hold while you find an answer, let them know approximately how long they’ll be expected to wait.
Information Gathering and Problem Solving
To best serve a customer, some time will need to be spent on information gathering. This type of script will give ideas on probing questions that will get the customer to open up about the root cause that’s affecting them. This allows you to craft a solution that actually helps them!
When talking through scripts that focus on problem solving, it’s important to avoid assumptions. This can make the customer feel like you’re just trying to close the conversation as fast as possible and not try to work out a solution that actually caters to their needs.
Closing and Follow-Up Scripts
Every interaction with a customer should have an appropriate close-out and follow-up to make sure the solution is a good fit long-term. It also presents an opportunity to collect feedback to improve the customer service function.
Examples of Customer Service Call Scripts
Jump to the specific scenario that applies to your business and team:
- Hello, my name is [Your name], and I am part of the Customer Happiness team at [Company name]. What brings you to us today?
- I’d like to make sure you get connected with the right team. Can you tell me if you’re calling about product inquiries, billing inquiries, or account information?
- For account security, we’d like to set up a verbal password to use. What would you like your verbal password to be?
- Where did you first hear about [product]?
- Would you recommend [product] to a friend?
- Are you familiar with the other products that we sell?
- Are you familiar with our warranty policies?
- Do you have an online account set up with us? You’ll be able to add, change, and view all of your account settings from there. It’s a great place to find all of our policies, new product offers, and your order history.
- Do you know which department or person you’re looking to speak with today? I’d be happy to ensure you get transferred to them right away.
- Can you please share your account number with me? It will be helpful so I can find specific product information from your purchase history.
- Since the last time that you purchased [product], we’ve had a few changes. Do you know about them already, or would you like me to review them for you?
- What parts about [product] do you love? What could we do to improve the product?
- Have you heard about our product referral program? If you’re interested, I would be happy to register you for it. Here are some of the benefits (explain benefits).
- Thanks for reaching out about your order issue. I’m sorry that happened to you. Let me find the answer to that right away.
- Can you please share your order number with me? I’ll look up the information to see what I can do to help.
- I found your order and I’ve identified [a problem]. It will take me 10-15 minutes to work out [the solution]. Are you okay to wait online or would you prefer that I reach out via email when I have the answer?
- It looks like your order is now being handled by [third party]. You will need to reach out to them for more information. Here is their contact information (share contact details).
- I found a solution (describe solution). Here is what I will need from you to move forward (list requirements).
- Good news, it looks like your order is on track. Here’s what you can expect next (explain next steps).
- I’m sorry to hear that happened to you. I know if I was in this situation, I would want it resolved quickly, too.
- What is the solution that you’re looking for today?
- Unfortunately, that is not something that our company offers to customers. [Here] is the alternative solution that we provide.
- According to our company policies, we’re able to offer [the solution]. Does this help resolve your concern?
- If you would like to escalate the issue, I can request for a manager to contact you. It will take approximately [waiting time]. Would you prefer to stay on hold or have them follow-up with you directly once they’re available?
- If you’re interested, I would be happy to send you a link to our company policy. What is the best email address to send this link to?
- Our company policy does not tolerate any customers who act or speak aggressively with our customer service representatives. Unfortunately, if you continue to yell, I won’t be able to continue this conversation and will need to end our chat.
Customizing Your Call Scripts
Customer service call scripts are not a one-size-fits-all tool. Every business, even those working in the same industry, need to have unique approaches. For one, it allows your organization’s brand voice to shine through. But it also allows you to communicate based on your specific niche, business needs, and the specific customer concerns at hand.
Adapting Scripts to Your Business Needs
Your business needs are related to the internal and external factors affecting the organization. For example, internal factors are things like the need to increase upselling opportunities or customer retention. If this is the goal, the scripts need to focus on referral programs, customer loyalty discounts, or feedback surveys. On the other hand, external factors are things like industry standards, market behavior, and competitor activity. For example, if other competitors are giving away free trials for anyone who calls the customer service line, your organization should consider if you should do the same.
Balancing Scripted and Natural Conversations
The best part about customer service scripts is that they can support conversations during tough situations such as handling a refund request or product complaint, for example. A lot of people struggle with those challenging conversations so it’s a helpful way to guide the flow of the conversation to maintain professionalism at all times. However, call scripts shouldn’t be used as a crutch. Great customer service representatives should be able to enhance the script with natural conversations. An easy way to do this is to find areas for personalization and mix it into the existing script. For example, when asking someone about their location, you can offer a quick question about how the weather is there or how the local sports team is doing.
Best Practices for Implementing Call Scripts
Whether you’re a customer service team leader, trainer, or employee, when it comes time to implement call scripts, you’ll run into a few challenges. Below are some expert-provided tips on how to overcome common challenges with learning to use call scripts.
Training Your Team on Script Usage
Travis Frost suggests utilizing the latest tech to pull new insights that customer service teams can use to build and practice scripts around, saying, “To enhance your customer service training, AI and social media can play a crucial role in gathering insights. Utilize AI tools to analyze customer interactions on social platforms, identifying challenges, expectations, and preferences.”
If you’re a leader for a customer service team, you can work directly alongside your employees to roleplay and practice the scripts together. Jeff Toister recommends this approach as it’s a great way for managers to connect with their teams, based on recommendations from a customer service trainer. From here, Rebecca Potou suggests focusing on creating genuine interactions, using non-verbal and verbal approaches, and prioritizing kindness.
Monitoring and Feedback for Continuous Improvement
As your team starts working with the scripts in practice, it will become apparent if there are any opportunities for improvement. Berenika Teter says it’s useful to plan calibration sessions with your team and decide which conversations to review together. You could opt to do this as a team or one-on-one with each employee, depending on the training needs of the group.
Customers are often willing to share their feedback about what went well or not so well on a service call. If you’re trying to collect more feedback from customers, Gene Strother says he collects the most when the request is focused on a specific topic, it includes a poll, and has an incentive such as a credit towards a future purchase.
When it comes time to analyse feedback and decide what to action, Keila Arriaga suggests, “Implementing feedback from your important & top customers right away. There’s a good chance that the feedback those customers gave is repeated among others.” Try to look for trends and requests from customers that drive the most revenue to your business as the scripts should be catered to keep those people happy. Those feedback requests are the high-priority areas that you should work on right away.
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Conclusion
Customer service call scripts can be a valuable tool to help new and overwhelmed employees navigate challenging conversations such as refund requests, order issues, and product complaints.
While scripts can be a great way to give guidance to how a conversation should be handled, it’s important to maintain a balance between scripted and natural conversation points so that the customer feels like they’re receiving a human-centered and personalized approach. Try practicing the scripts above right away – the sooner you start using scripts in real conversations, the sooner you can perfect your flow. That means the next time a hard conversation comes up, you’ll be ready to tackle it head-on!
