3 Top Skills for a Call Centre Agent

If you run a business that requires a lot of phone conversations with customers, you want to ensure that you hire the best agents or contract with the best call centre in Calgary. While many companies provide telecommunications and answering services, the best agencies will ensure that their agents have these top three skills.

Good Communication Skills

This skill encompasses many qualities and while some agents may have a few of them, the best agents will have all of the traits. They include:

• The ability to speak in a clear voice
• The ability to listen and understand what the caller is saying
• An understanding of the tone of voice to gauge mood
• An ability to provide clear answers that the caller can comprehend

These skills can be developed with training and practice. They make the difference between an irate customer who takes his or her services somewhere else and a satisfied customer even when the answer is not what the person wanted.

Patience

Many calls have an unhappy, angry or confused caller on the other end of the line. A professional call centre in Calgary will train agents to be patient even when the other person is upset and even irrational. The agent may have to explain the same information several times in different ways to help the person understand. They cannot show in words or tone of voice that they are losing patience or becoming frustrated.

The agent must remain calm and find new ways of saying the same thing over and over or finding a better resolution. The best agent also knows how to calm the caller. What starts out as an angry customer yelling into the phone can quickly become a customer who is speaking in a civil tone and understanding the agent’s responses even if he doesn’t agree. This is what often happens when you have a trained agent on the call.

Think and React Quickly

A trained, experienced call centre agent is able to process information quickly to provide an answer that is accurate and positive even if it is not what the customer wanted. He may often use his own experience or knowledge to handle issues even when there is no script for the situation. The agent also knows when it is time to take the issue to a superior, but he doesn’t bother them for every unresolved disagreement.

The ability to craft a quick response comes from understanding what the customer means as well as what is being said. The agent reads the tone and phrasing from the customer and can often determine what the customer really wants even if he is requesting something different.

While most call centres have staff that are trained to take calls from customers, not every centre has agents that possess all of these traits. These skills may be intuitive for some agents, but they can be learned by every agent in the call centre business. Having these skills for your call centre agents can give your business the edge over the competition for excellent customer service.

Ashley Meszaros is the Owner/President of We An-SerCommunications in Calgary. We An-Ser Communications provides award winning call center services in Calgary, dispatching, medical answering services, man down services, lone worker support, wireless panic services and more. They service the North American market.

Ashley Meszaros is the Owner/President of We An-Ser Communications in Calgary. http://www.wean-ser.com/calgary-call-centre-services/