We have stepped into the digital age, and even though most of our operations are automated, we still need the human element to keep customers engaged. For example, a survey found that 90% of respondents aged 18 to 85 years preferred talking to a live call center agent rather than an automated response system. 

As automation grows, several businesses are trying to shift to labor-free processes. However, as shown in the survey, sales services and call centers can't be automated easily because customers want to talk to another person, not a robot. 

If your script is effective, you can assist customers at a much faster rate, offer complete information and decrease the time taken to resolve an issue. So, the question is, how do you make an effective call center script? Experts have given several strategies that an organization can adopt to make their scripts more effective.

• Designing a call center script can help your employees in the following ways:
• Provide a step-by-step process to troubleshoot common everyday problems
• Explain to the customers any technicalities in a way that will be easy to understand
• Protect the company from any legal issues 
• Provide accurate information to the customers 

Seven Strategies of Creating a Call Center Script

Creating an effective script means that your live agent does not sound like a robot reading lines off a piece of paper. These seven strategies are designed to help you create a good call center script that serves all the purposes of compelling conversations.

1. Add a Personal Touch

The first step towards making an effective call center script is personalizing it for the situation and the person delivering it. 

No customer wants to talk to someone reading lines off of a piece of paper. Repeating the same thing, line-by-line is ineffective communication and makes the conversation sound mechanical. It would be best to make more of a guide than an actual dialogue-led play script. 

This will give your script more personality, helping your sales teams avoid long, dry, and overrun conversations. An automated script might make problem-solving easy, but it might leave a sour taste in your customers' mouths. This can affect the reputation of your brand and its customer service.

Try not to give them paper pieces with authorized lines that they can regurgitate to the customer. Instead, use this opportunity to offer structured autonomy to your agents. But show them a guide and some best practices, for example, using the caller's first name to build a level of personalization and creating a relationship with the customer. Of course, it is also essential to give your agents appropriate training to best use this guide.

This also helps you identify the customer in your CRM platform, such as Salesforce. The script should only offer solutions to common problems rather than entire paragraphs to recite to your customers. A compelling script should allow agents to fill out the details on their own to give a natural interaction. This makes the caller feel like they got personalized services and undivided attention from the call center agent. 

2. Refrain From Using Fancy Words

No one wants to understand what a "full-stack support vehicle with omnichannel functionality" is, especially not your customers. Therefore, steer clear of technical terms and jargon when talking to your customer. 

Instead, speak in a way that allows your customer to completely understand what you are saying with the help of simple English. Using simple language helps avoid confusion and enables you and the customer to reach a solution quicker.

3. Give Positive Vibes

It is important to use our words wisely. The terms you use to communicate with your customer dictate the nature of the interaction. Using negative words and phrases can leave a negative impression on your customer and leave them angrier and more disgruntled than before.

Consequently, if you use positive words and phrases such as "I am happy to…" or "I understand your concern…" you can expect to see positive reviews about your brand and its customer service representatives. 

An effective call center script instills positivity in customer interactions, but it needs help from your agent. They should have a cooperative and optimistic demeanor when talking to new or old customers. 

For example, when a customer calls in to order an out-of-stock item from your store, tell them how soon you expect it to be back in stock and that you'll call them as soon as it is. This is a better approach than telling them that you're out of stock and they should call back in a week to check. In the latter case, the chances are that they'll call your competitor to have it delivered right away. 

4. Analyze Your Call Recordings

You must have heard the automated system tell you the call is recorded. These recordings improve inefficiencies in existing scripts and train sales teams to get better at their jobs. 

One of the best practices to check your scripts is by A/B testing them. Design two different types of scripts and see the efficiencies that they offer. When you determine the superior script, you can take the positives from both options and incorporate them. This can help you get a better script by the end of the testing.

You can examine your call recordings even further to uncover specific areas of improvement. For instance, if most of your calls that take an extended time to resolve are all about the same problem, you can add the section in your script that specifically deals with that problem.

5. Keep It Short

Usually, when a customer rep calls, they just want their query answered or the issue resolved. Asking irrelevant questions and overrun explanations can lead to a disgruntled customer. The best course of action is to keep your script short to save your customers' time, as well as yours. Also, bear in mind to take a look at call center analytics for extra information about any inefficiencies in existing scripts and any common challenges customers face. 

6. Maintain Consistency

To get feedback from your customers and provide a premium customer experience, call center scripts should have consistency. Creating more than one script can be confusing for the employees and the customer, which will ruin the customer experience and brand image.

7. Diversify Your Script

No two people are the same; you can go from talking to a sweet old lady to an angry business person in a matter of minutes. Adapt to what you learn and keep updating your script by adding different scenarios. This will serve as fuel for your customers' reps to tackle any situation.

Bonus: How to Create Call Scripts and Email Templates in Salesforce

As a bonus note, we included a small tutorial on creating call scripts and email templates for your sales cadences with Salesforce. 

The 3-step process is simple:

1. Start by clicking on the Navigation Menu dropdown. 
2. Select Call Scripts or Email Templates.

3. Click on the relevant icon to create a new call script or email template. If you're using the Split View, remember to click the action dropdown. From there, select New.

Wrapping up

Call scripts can make or break your customer trust, and even though people are more inclined towards automation, having a real person deal with their queries is still preferred by the majority of the customers.

People have integrated their call centers into CRM platforms such as Salesforce. This allows them to have all the customer's information in front of them before they even pick up the call supervisors to monitor every call and keep track of call outcomes. PhoneIQ allows organizations to streamline their call centers with Salesforce to improve response rates. Visit PhoneIQ today to see how it can help you take your call center to the next level.