I just listened/watched a fascinating webinar about scripts-or so I thought! The presenter was Plantronics – notable headset provider – it was based on research they had done in Europe.

Over the years I have always maintained that anyone who “touches” a prospect or customer should be trained. It seems that that has never been truer!

Why?

Today’s customer is coming to you more educated than ever before. They are also coming to you with expectations based on interactions with other vendors. The customer has the power!

This power now demands that everyone in your organization; from a contact center perspective through to reception; warehouse; accounts; product manages; marketing – might well be engaged with the customer. If you’re a small business, you do not have a contact center – but you will have staff who speak with your customers.

If the customer has a problem, they are more likely than not to research this before they call you, or attempt to connector with you. They have access to an international network of your customers and they very often will reach out to you as a last resort. Therefore, the level of help that they will expect is high and very often surpasses the basic knowledge that you would find at an initial point in an organization.

Customers expressed dissatisfaction loudly thanks to social media; this is generally a gap in either your company knowledge or in your process for handling an escalating these inquiries.

A second reason that customers will reach out to you is the degree of complexity in your products and services. Customers do have a lot of patience and very often can work their way through a maze of information but, at the end of the day, want to reach out to you. The person taking the call needs to have a great deal of information and knowledge to satisfactorily engage the customer.

What does this have to do with scripts? Very simple. You need a process for handling customer calls; we need to understand the customer is changing on a daily basis and expectations also. You cannot script every situation and nuance about your product or service. Therefore, there is a higher demand than ever before for solid communication training (the soft skills) and also the ability to provide ‘ad hoc’ training as the occasion demands.

Believe me, the customer will shout to the world to they feel you do not listen! The customer is empowered to make or break your brand and you should empower your staff with the right skills and processes to represent your company in the best possible light.