10 Tips for Call Center Etiquette Excellence

Call center agents can be the first and only contact point for customers and are therefore often the
face of a company.
Every positive interaction a customer has with a company can turn them into a loyal customer and
evangelist. Thus, positive interactions with well-trained agent will increase customer lifetime value and
brand awareness.
Below are 10 tips for call center etiquette excellence agents and managers should always be aware of
when interacting with customers.

1. Be courteous
Agents should always treat each caller with courtesy. Ask how they prefer to be addressed, make every
attempt to pronounce their name correctly and use this name consistently. Talk with a smile, remain
calm and speak clearly. Wait for the person to finish speaking before speaking. These simple tips will
go a long way in interacting with the caller in a positive and professional manner.

2. Be professional
Agents should maintain a level of professionalism throughout the entire conversation. They are the
face of the company, so they should have adequate training and should bemonitored for adherence to
quality standards. All conversations should be in line with corporate values and goals.

3. Be respectful
All customers should be treated with respect. Throughout each interaction, agents should remain calm,
act rationally and treat the caller as if they were the most valued customer. Respect also involves
understanding the callers needs and making an effort to accommodate them. Agents should attempt
to understand the causes of the customers problem, realize how their problem affects their behavior
and respond with compassion.

4. Be honest
Agents should always be honest with their customers and with themselves. Agents should never lie,
guess or make up an answer. If the customers problem is beyond their competence level, the agent

should politely explain that they will transfer the customer to an employee who can better address
their needs.

5. Be trustworthy
Building trust is essential, not only for the interaction to progress smoothly, but also to build positive
brand awareness for the company. Trust is based on ethical principles such as character and
competence. It requires truthfulness, honesty, reliability, loyalty and integrity. In order to ensure that
your staff is trustworthy, monitor for their adherence to these character traits and the values of your
company.

6. Be confident
Confidence is critical for any productive interaction. Ensure that your staff is well trained, well
managed and properly equipped to handle difficult situations. This will instill confidence, interactions
will be more effective and the image of the company will be more positive.

7. Be competent
Agents must demonstrate a certain level of competence to adequately address the customers needs.
When the customers demands are too high, they must refer them to someone with more experience
who can effectively handle their issue or concern.

8. Be interested
Agents must take a genuine interest in the customers question or concerns. This will make the process
more enjoyable for both the agent and the caller. Call center work can be very monotonous. Agents
should keep it fresh by taking a genuine interest in each callers unique situation, asking personal
questions and attempting to make a quick connection.

9. Be neutral
Agents should not offer opinions or introduce their own biases into the conversation. They should
always take a neutral stance on issues, but empathize with the callers needs. Taking a neutral stance
will allow agents to more effectively solve problems in an efficient manner.

10. Be flexible
Agents should anticipate the unexpected and be prepared to change course when necessary.
Sometimes pertinent information will be obtained that can change the course of the problem solving

efforts. Agents should always be flexible, welcome the change and keep the customer informed of the
reasons for the change.
Providing quality service to each customer should be a priority of every call center. Managers and
decision makers should define call center etiquette guidelines, allocate sufficient funds for proper
training and monitor for adherence to the guidelines. When all agents adhere to etiquette guidelines,
companies will gain an image of trustworthiness, honesty and effectiveness. This positive brand
awareness is critical to any companys success.

3 Factors Influencing Service Quality in the Call Center

Service quality is a complex and multifaceted construct that has a major impact on customer
acquisition, retention and loyalty. Because there are a few different factors that influence service
quality, call center managers must know what they are before they can work to optimize them. This
blog post will help you do just that. It lists the top 3 factors influencing service quality in the call center
as well as information about how managers can work to optimize each.
According to a recent literature review conducted by researchers at Wharton, the 3 most common
factors influencing service quality in the call center are:

1. Accessibility of the agents

The first factor that influences service quality in the call center is the degree of accessibility of the
agents. This construct is positively correlated with service quality: the more accessible, the higher the
service quality. The degree of accessibility of a team takes into account the following:

How long the customers waited in the queue

How many customers abandoned their calls in the queue before speaking with an agent

How long the customer spent waiting on hold after speaking with an agent

The customers experience navigating through the IVR

The number of times the customer was transferred before being connected with an agent who
was able to meet their needs

When aiming to increase agent accessibility in the call center, consider the following:

Measure the above constructs

You cant fix what you cant measure. Thus, in order to actually improve the accessibility of your team
to their customers, you have to make sure you measure metrics like Average Wait Time, Longest Wait
Time, Average Hold Time, Average Abandonment Time, etc. In addition to measuring these, you also
have to make sure these metrics are accessible to agents, managers and supervisors in real time so
that they can make data-driven decisions that will have a measurable impact on service quality.

Utilize call center software features that will reduce wait time in the
queue
A great way to optimize the accessibility of your agents is to offer features that reduce the customers
wait time in the queue. By leveraging Callback from Queue, Queue Waiting Limit, Queue to
Voicemail, VIP Routing and other customer-centric call center software features, you will be providing
your customers with a more pleasant customer experience.

Ensure that you are adequately staffed

Another way to reduce the customers wait time in the queue and increase the accessibility of your
team is to make sure your call center is optimally staffed. You should be prepared for periods of high
call volume, agents to call in sick, system outages - basically anything that will come your way. One
helpful tool to increase your ability to staff optimally is workforce optimization. Optimizing staffing and
scheduling will ensure that your team is there for your customers when they need it most.

Optimize your Multi-level IVR flow

A great way to make your team inaccessible to your customers is to make your IVR impossible to
navigate. Thus, you have to make sure that your IVR is configured in such a way that customers are
able to easily reach the agent or department that is the best fit for their needs and that they can
navigate to self-service information when appropriate. The best tool to leverage in this pursuit is Multilevel IVR which allows for customized configuration of IVR prompts and messages so customers can
get to where they need to go - fast.

Use skills-based routing

Increasing first contact resolution is a great way to also increase the accessibility of your team to your
customers. What is the easiest way to accomplish this? Leverage skills-based routing that directs
callers to the most appropriate agent based on their IVR selections, demographics and contact history
as well as the skill and demographics of the agent. This will ensure that the first agent they are routed
to meets your customers needs and that customer satisfaction increases.
Keeping the aforementioned tips and tools in mind when aiming to increase the degree of accessibility
of your team to their customers can put you on the fast track to success - and to optimizing service
quality.

2. Effectiveness of the service encounter

The second major factor impacting service quality is the effectiveness of the interaction. In other
words, was the customers issue resolved on first contact, or was additional follow up or an escalation
of the issue required. This has an obvious impact on service quality as the more the customer is
transferred and the more follow-ups are required, the more service quality decreases.
Some hints to help you improve first contact resolution and service quality are the following:

Provide your agents with a comprehensive overview of the customer

Knowing how to adequately resolve a customers issue starts with understanding why they are calling.
How do agents accomplish this? By leveraging call center software that provides accurate data about
the caller in real time. Call center software with integrated business tools shows the customers entire
history - helpdesk tickets, CRM cases, chat transcripts, missed calls, voicemails and much more. With
this contextual information your agents will know the entire history of the customer and exactly why
they are calling - without having to open multiple platforms. This will allow them to effectively and
efficiently meet the customers needs - increasing the effectiveness of the service encounter.

Optimize your support structure to accommodate your customers needs

Another helpful step to improve first contact resolution is to optimize your support structure based on
your customers needs. To accomplish this, make sure that frontline support staff are only fielding calls
that they can resolve without transferring. Also, apply tags to your frontline staff based on their unique
training background, skills, languages, etc. and then have customers routed to these agents based on
their tags. You could also route calls that are typically escalated from the frontline staff to a specific
team (i.e., tech team) directly to that team. Another helpful tip is to provide all agents with access to
internal resources like step-by-step guides, a knowledge base and FAQ repository so they can easily

handle more generic issues. Finally, provide training to all agents that field calls to bolster their skill set
so they can handle more diverse issues. Optimizing your support structure will have a significant
impact on first contact resolution, the effectiveness of the service encounter and customer service
quality.

Optimize your company policies

The final step to help increase first contact resolution is to optimize your company policies that are
causing an increase in transfers, escalated calls and follow-ups. For instance if you notice that certain
calls are escalated to management (i.e., refunds, discounts, adjustments to billing, etc.) why not allow
the agent to handle them on their own. It will optimize first contact resolution and free up
management to handle more important issues.
While the aforementioned list of tools and techniques to optimize first contact resolution is not
exhaustive, it does provide a starting point for managers and higher-ups seeking to change how their
team interacts with their customers in an effort to increase the effectiveness of the service encounter
and service quality.

3. Content of the agents interaction with the customer

The final most common factor associated with service quality in the call center is thequality of the
content of the conversation. The higher the quality of the interaction with the agent, the more the
customer will be satisfied with the service. When aiming to increase the quality of the conversation,
consider the following:

Optimize training
The first step to optimizing conversations between agents and customers is to hire well and train well.
For example, you may want to consider the following when training call center agents:

Introduce to agents what their role will be in building customer relationships

Teach agents call handling best practices

Teach agents call center etiquette

Educate agents about the desired outcome of specific call types

Show agents how to find answers to commonly asked questions

Provide call recordings that demonstrate specific points

Making your call center agent trainings more robust using the aforementioned tips will go a long way
to ensuring that your agents will be adequately prepared to meet customers needs - and enhance
service quality in the call center.

Listen to live calls and call recordings

Once you have trained your agents to perfection, you must continually monitor their performance. To
do this, listen to live and recorded calls for the following:

Did the agent greet the caller by name?

Did the agent use personalized information during the conversations?

Did the agent use proper call center etiquette?

Did the agent smile throughout the conversation?

Did the agent interact with the customer in a pleasant tone?

Did the agent use active listening skills?

Did the agent summarize the customers issue and check with the customer for the accuracy
of their summarization before proceeding to resolve it?

Was the agent able to adequately anticipate the customers request?

Did the agent provide a clear explanation or justification for the issue?

Did the agent educate the customer on possible options to resolve the issue?

Did the agent provide emotional support to the customer?

Did the customer issue a complaint about the interaction?

How satisfied was the customer with the service that was provided by the agent?

Taking a systematic approach to evaluating all agents calls will provide you with more insight into the
quality of service your team is providing their customers.

Provide effective feedback during coaching sessions

Finally, it is not enough just to listen to calls to evaluate an agents performance, you must also
provide that agent with effective feedback based on their performance. Consider trying the following
during your agent coaching sessions:

Tie performance feedback to accurate data

Provide specific examples when discussing issues or points where they excelled

Role play with a call type or caller type that they struggle with

Ask your agent to evaluate their own performance

Formulate an action plan when there are issues

Discuss any foreseeable roadblocks to enhancing performance

Check in on their progress towards their goals and action plan

These tips will go a long way to ensuring that the content of the conversation the agent has with the
customer is optimal.

Increasing service quality within the call center is often the goal of many companies. Doing so requires
that managers know exactly what factors impact service quality and then work to optimize them.
Following the tips, tools and techniques laid out in this blog post will hopefully help in your quest to
optimize the quality of service your team provides their customers in an effort to increase customer
acquisition, retention and loyalty.

Top 10 tips for exceeding customer expectations

Surprising a customer by exceeding their expectation is a great way to make sure theyll be back in the future.
Matthew Brown shares ten tips on how call centre staff can go that extra mile.
1. Empathise
Earning customer trust is vital. Keeping customer interests at heart is an essential mindset for success, and that can
be achieved through empathy.
Try to think of things from the customers perspective and be more empathetic. For instance, for a customer service
inquiry or complaint , I would put myself in the customers shoes and ask how would I like to be treated? and then
figure out the best way to do that, says Nik Nesbitt, CEO of KenCall, East Africas largest call centre.
2. Take ownership of the problem
Customers can be passed around call centre departments without their problem being resolved. This can be
frustrating and time consuming for the customer. It can also damage a call centres reputation. But customer service

agents can stop the cycle of calls and buck-passing by taking ownership of the problem themselves. Call Centre
Helpers Agent of the Month for August 2010 is a prime example.
Thomas Middleton, customer service agent at HomeServe, took ownership of a problem validating an electrical
appliance guarantee. By personally ensuring that the problem was sorted out, Thomas impressed with his
professional manner.
3. Follow up
Even after a problem is resolved a customer service agent can exceed expectations by following up with the
customer. A brief call to check that the product or service is working satisfactorily can show the customer that the
business has taken their problem on board and is seeking to avoid similar situations in the future. It can also serve as
a useful feedback tool for the business as a check on the effectiveness of their problem-solving.
4. Treat customers fairly
Fair treatment of customers may sound obvious, but it runs deeper than just the dealings between agent and caller.
Maria Opuni, Call Centre Director at DDC Outsourcing, has developed a strategy built around treating customers
fairly (TCF), a phrase borrowed from the Financial Services Authority.
People often see customer service in a very linear way, as being just the conversation, but its a lot more. For
example, if a customer asks us not to call them again then we have a responsibility to disposition calls appropriately,
and if we dont we run the risk of calling them when they dont want to be called, says Opuni.
Ultimately, treating customers fairly is about putting them at the heart of everything, and ensuring that agents and
support systems can work around their needs.
5. Find a balance
Call centres often struggle to balance their business needs with the needs of customers. Performance monitoring can
place a certain set of pressures upon staff. For example, if a callers query takes a long time to resolve, the agent
may be tempted to provide a simple but not completely effective solution to save time, when the best customer
service outcome would be to take time to resolve the callers issue. Clive Turner, former customer care manager for
Nokia and now a consultant, sees this balancing act as a big challenge for both agents and managers.
That balance is incredibly important, and its challenging because not all products are the same. Depending on the
product or service you are supporting, those business variables can change tremendously, says Turner.
Agents should feel able to stay with a caller for a longer time than usual if required in order to solve the problem
properly.
6. Try to become an expert in your field
Customers can now find answers to their questions online, and only call in when a question is too complicated,
according to Joe Doyle, Marketing Director EMEA at Sitel.

The more sophisticated answers have become the domain of the call centre. Call centres need more skilled agents,
more judgement, more wherewithal to solve complex problems quickly and handle escalation in a valuable way,
says Doyle.
Agents could try to learn as much as possible about the products and services they represent. Learning about
competitors may also help. The more knowledge an agent has, the more professional they will sound during a call
when asked a question. Theyll also save time rather than having to look things up.
7. Make recommendations
Customers expect call centre agents to try to sell them things, but they wont necessarily expect to receive
recommendations for products or services from other companies. It isnt a good idea to glow with enthusiasm for a
direct competitor but during the course of a customer service conversation opportunities arise for agents to show their
expertise. If youre dealing with faulty electrical goods, for example, and a customer seems lost as to what to do, why
not tell them about any relevant experiences of your own? Alternatively, if you cant help with a customers query, try
recommending somewhere else to try. Honesty builds trust, and the customer will see that the agent isnt just a
company mouthpiece.
8. Ditch the script
Scripted calls can sound robotic. They also reduce the true engagement possible in a real conversation. Replace
jargon with clear, concise language.
Be human, not a robot, and say it like it is. Our customers expect us to say what were going to do, when were going
to do it and to actually do it within that time, says Emma Portch, Customer Service Advocate at Cable & Wireless
Worldwide.
I get a bit of a buzz from being able to call a customer and tell them that an issue has been resolved and that weve
been able to achieve that ahead of schedule.
That kind of buzz drives great service. A robot could never match it. Robots dont have emotions, after all.
9. Take time to reflect
Regular discussion with colleagues can help call centre agents discover their strengths and weaknesses. Cable &
Wireless Worldwide offers staff the opportunity to complete an NVQ in Customer Service.
It was a great opportunity to look at my skills, improve them, and look at the things I do really well that I can pass on
to colleagues, says Emma Portch.
Exchanging skills and knowledge will make a whole team stronger. If an agent shares an effective way of doing
something with the whole team, then customers will receive a higher standard of service consistently rather than
having very different experiences each time they call.
10. Stop trying to exceed expectations?

Maybe trying to exceed customer expectations isnt as effective as simply meeting them. A study published in
theHarvard Business Review earlier this year entitled Stop Trying To Delight Your Customers by Dixon et al. found
that the biggest factor affecting call centre customer loyalty was the amount of effort it took to have their issue
resolved.
In simple terms, less effort equals happier customers, and everything else is minor in comparison.
Matthew Brown is an up-and-coming writer and the latest addition to the Call Centre Helper team.

Ownership

Ask most audiences what trait or characteristic theyd like to see in their employees and youll notice OWNERSHIP floats to the top.
Yes, attitude is up there too, and a few others theyd like to see, but without fail OWNERSHIP wins.
If we asked 10 people, What does ownership mean to you? we might get 10 different answers. And theyd all be right.
So weve taken the word OWNERSHIP and labeled a thought to each letter. Enjoy!

Operate as though its your business. Take responsibility. Theres no, Its not my job in ownership. Theres only, I will help you.

Walk in the customers shoes. Thats the best way to be sure you understand whats going on and to help. Pretend its you calling
in and needing the assistance. What if this happened to you?

Never say NO. Thats right, even when youre not able to help or even when the situation is hopeless (and lets hope it never gets
to that). The word NO is offensive, abrupt, unfriendly, overused and tired. There are a dozen positive alternatives we can use to let
the customer down gently. To offer a few: I wish we could or Let me double check on that or Im going to take some time and see
if we can work this out. Bottom line, offering NO at the top of your conversation is useless.

Empowerment is strength. Having employees empowered to assist by themselves is a strong motivation to do well. The worst they
can do is make one mistake. Normally easily corrected and then move forward. Empower your folks!

Resolution. Sticking with the issue until it is resolved. No matter how many phone calls, how many times we re-check something;
its not over till its fixed. Resolved! The mentality needs to be: Your issues are our issues.

Sending confirmation of the resolution. This is so important. If something gets fixed or resolved and the customer isnt made aware
of it, they can still be upset. The other day we were to have been issued a credit from an airline. We never heard from them. After a
third call from my husband to the airline, we were told, Oh, that credit was on your bill a few months ago. But no one bothered to
let us know it was coming or that it had been done. Send confirmation or call! Then close the issue.

Happiness is key. Happy people love to help. Thats a fact. And your customers love to be helped by happy people. Thats another
fact. They can even make the bitter better. (Say that three times!) Walk into your job HAPPY!

Integrity. This is non-negotiable. Having integrity is a huge part of ownership. Do what is right ALL the time. And remember, having
the right to do it doesnt always make it right. Integrity!

Personal commitment. Each and every person helping a customer needs to make their own personal commitment that they will
take ownership. No more, Its not my job. No more, I wasnt here when it happened. No more, I dont know anything about it.