Call center? Say what? What do I say?

Question

How can someone cope with situations such as cleverly overcoming a question where he or she doesn’t know the answer?
How can he/she come off as confident?
The actual complain here is that “the call center agent doesn’t know what the customer is talking about”.
Any help? What should the agent say? How should s/he overcome such situations?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,
I suggest that the most important thing is to help the customer, rather than to simply appear confident.

How about passing the call on to be handled by one's supervisor?

Best wishes, Clive

Samwalker · Answer

Of course helping the customer is better than just appearing confident. But the issue is they don'tknow what to do but they still keep trying to help, thus, they stutter and have much fillers. So the client said they have poor communication/language skills. Could you help me come up with the right words? Something like 'Please hold while I look that up'. Something better than 'I'll trasfer you to the right department.'

BarbaraPA · Answer

I think it depends on what they don't know and why they don't know it.

Did they simply not understand? Is the customer asking about things they haven't been trained to handle?

There's nothing wrong with being told "I'm gonig to transfer you to the department that can take of that for you."

Clive · Answer

Hi,
'Please hold for a moment' sounds fine to me, if they don't know the answer to the question.

If they don't understand the question, that's another matter.

Clive

Samwalker · Answer

Unfortunately, all of the above - they simply don't understand, customer asking about things they haven't been trained to handle (or they have forgotten how to handle such a scenario) and they have a hard time expressing themselves...

Clive · Answer

Hi,
They can't really look it up if they don't understand the question.
That's why I suggested passing it to a supervisor.

Clive

CalifJim · Answer

samwalkerthe issue is they don'tknow what to do but they still keep trying to help, thus, they stutter and have much fillers. So the client said they have poor communication/language skills. Could you help me come up with the right words? Something like 'Please hold while I look that up'.

Perhaps they don't have the aptitude to do this kind of work.
Further training may be needed to suppress the stuttering and filler talk. But what exactly to say in such situations is not the prerogative of an English forum, but of the employer.
When customers begin to hear "I'll look that up" too often, complaints will increase.
When agents begin to rely the supervisor to answer a large proportion of questions, they will soon be fired.

Personally, I find all those call centers annoying, if not enfuriating, for all the reasons you touched on in your post!

CJ

Samwalker · Answer

To Clive:
Unfortunately and surprisingly, they were trained that way. They tell the customers they will look it up when they really get off their chairs and ask help from others.

To CalifJim:

We've done further training but nothing seems to work. Hence, I get more and more frustrated.

"But what exactly to say in such situations is not the prerogative of an English forum, but of the employer." - I have told the vendor manager this line a million times but she always puts the blame on the English team.

When customers begin to hear "I'll look that up" too often, complaints will increase. - Precisely.

When agents begin to rely the supervisor to answer a large proportion of questions, they will soon be fired. - They hardly ever escalate a call. Most of them would do everything to help the customer no matter what. They do everything they could even if they don't really know how to solve the issue. More often, they ask their supervisors what to do, try their hardest and all. Of course you'd freak out if you don't know how to handle the concern but you don't seem to have a choice but do everything possible thing.
Personally, I find all those call centers annoying, if not enfuriating, for all the reasons you touched on in your post! - You can say that again. What you feel is exactly what I'm feeling now.

Call center? Say what? What do I say?

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