Three Tried and Tested Tips for Preparing Agents Before They Take Their First Call

The call center industry attracts maximum proportion of newcomers. People who are fresh out of college and have no prior job experience are often recruited to fulfill the requirement of manpower. And these people cannot be straightaway given the task of handling calls, unless adequately trained. Simply because a call occurs in real-time! If the customer asks a question, then the agent doesn’t have the luxury of time to search for the answer and then get back to customer. The answer must be given within seconds. And the correct answer can be given instantaneously only if the agent knows what to say.

The need for training doesn’t mean that recruited agents are unskilled. Because cracking the interview of a call center is no mean task. Candidates undergo a three-level testing: a written test which checks grammar, a group discussion task which checks communication skills and then finally face to face round which is to evaluate their personality. Only those who are found suitable for the job are finally selected.

So certainly the agents already have the required capabilities. The purpose of training is to further build upon their capacities. So before you ask the agents to take their first customer service call, make sure you have prepared them well. Here are some tried and tested tips that will surely help:

1. Provide Detailed Reading Material:
Many trainers give only very concise nuggets to the agents. This might be easier to learn, but it does not give them an in-depth understanding of the whole issue. If you want your agents to have clear concepts, then you should provide them access to detailed information.

2. Use Mnemonics While Training:
Mnemonics is basically a technique to associate a new piece of information with something already known. Or convert a difficult to remember information into an easy to remember format. Trainers could develop mnemonics for the sequence of steps which an agent has to follow. With help of a mnemonic, the agent will always remember the correct sequence!

3. Ask The Agents to Give a Presentation and Have Mock-Calls:
It is important to know what the agents were able to understand after the trainer explained everything. This can be known by asking them to deliver a small presentation to the class. Explaining to others will reinforce the knowledge of the agents. The agents can finally be given some mock-call sessions, to test whether they are able to apply knowledge in real-time situations.

After these three steps, agents are now finally all set to take their first customer service call. Rest assured, they will do completely satisfy all the queries of the customer and resolve their problems. After all the agents have been trained to dos so!