What Not to Say to Customers on the Phone
I’m a little amused by the fact that there has to be a list compiled on how to be nice to customers on the phone. Regardless, I’ll add my own to the list from personal experience.
DON’T SAY:
- No
- I can’t
- I won’t
- Uhh
- Let me ask my manager
- Maybe
- I don’t know
- Not sure
- Hold on [abrupt Hold]
DO SAY:
- Sure
- Yes
- Excellent
- Thank You
- Please
- May I …
- Let me check on that for you…
- Here’s what I CAN do
- Let’s do this
- Is it OK if I place you on hold…?
That’s pretty much it. It’s misleading to not say “No”, and remain positive about something that the customer doesn’t get; although breaking the difficult message in clear and positive way will benefit both of you. Sometimes, policies need to be broken to benefit customers. I often wonder why they have middle management if they couldn’t do a single thing to empower their employees to take care of the customer. Following my previous posting, some companies just don’t care about customers. It’s often an interesting paradox when you hear of other employees that had to call in and they automatically are the customer service “experts” and they had to be in the position of “customer”. Isn’t so fun is it?
Attitude is everything. If I was in a call center management position; I would revolutionize the industry by actually caring for the employees, which will pass down to customers. If you have a bad day; thats okay, take a break for a bit. Come talk, I don’t care. Sure, it’s time “off”, but its an investment from a Ferrari tragedy.
Pardon my ranting. 
[tags]Customers, Scripts, Phrases, CRM, Customer Service, Phones, Call Centers, Attitude[/tags]
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Hi Joe,
Thank you for your suggestions.
It is sad that customer service representatives need a list of things not to say and alternative phrases to use. I think everyone would like to assume they know what to say without having a guide about it. Unfortunately, they do not.
Employee empowerment is extremely important. Companies that do not empower employees to make decisions will constantly experience more frustrations than those who do not.
Many companies do care about their employees, particurally customer service employees. Unfortunately, though it is not as common in large companies as it should be and as a result of that, consumers continue to be frustrated with a lot of company’s customer service departments.