When a customer calls an inbound call center, more often than not it is because they aren’t in a great place. Maybe they received the wrong product, had a bad customer service experience, or are trying to get more information on an order that is not proceeding as planned. The specific reason for their call aside, most people are calling because they are struggling with something and that struggle is causing them strife. When someone calls a call center from this type of emotional place, there is one thing they are looking for (besides a solution to their problem): Empathy. They want to talk to a human being who will really listen to them and then make an effort to help.

Establishing a personal connection rooted in empathy on a call is key for a number of reasons. In the context of the specific call, being empathetic makes it much more likely that the customer is going to leave the call having had a positive experience, even if you were unable to completely solve their problem. Solving the problem is always first priority, but if that is impossible (or if the request is unreasonable), the customer should feel at the very least like you believe their concerns are valid and you wish you could help, even if you can’t.

In the context of your call center as a whole, agents who take the time to establish a personal connection with a caller will give your team a reputation as one that values its customers and their concerns. If you have this reputation in place, customers will call expecting a reasonable discussion instead of bracing for a hostile confrontation, which will make the call more pleasant for all parties involved.

While it’s true that agents will be following a script most of the time, the trick to creating empathy is to make the caller forget that the script is there, to make the interaction a conversation instead of an interview or a shakedown. One way to do this is by crafting the script in a way that promotes this type of interaction, which is easy to do with CallShaper’s interactive, easy-to-edit scripting interface. Interested in learning more about it? Contact us today.