Creating customer service scripts helps agents quickly respond to service requests. But these scripts can sometimes feel dull, uninspired, and, and ineffective at connecting the company with its customers. What you need here is to explore positive scripting. Here is how you can make more effective use of it.
What Is Positive Scripting?
Positive scripting is the process of writing scripts intended to turn customer frustration into a more desirable outcome. It also works to guide customers towards specific goals, such as marketing new products. There are several benefits you can gain from using this strategy.
Accurate Messaging
One of the biggest draws to positive scripting is that it helps companies build a more unified response for their team of agents. With that, everyone will have an accurate grasp of the kind of messaging they should deliver to customers. It also helps customers have a clearer idea of what to expect from companies.
Faster Customer Issue Resolution
Agents can often take time handling service requests as they find the right response to questions. With a positive script, that response is already right there in front of them. And with a carefully constructed one, they can get customers moving towards solutions faster.
Reduce Human Errors
Mistakes made by your agents during customer service responses can greatly affect the effectiveness of the effort. With scripts, you lessen such chances since they only need to follow these. Scripts also help you better control the service process and streamline it.
The Cons of Positive Scripting
Despite the benefits, you should also be aware of the negative aspect of positive scripting. One of the main disadvantages of using a script is that it might make your agents sound robotic. This is especially the case when the script is too positive. That can quickly cue customers that the agent is reading off a script.
When customers know that, they become less enthusiastic to engage. This negates the very purpose of the script. Furthermore, they become less trustworthy of your ability to resolve the issue.
Additionally, certain strategies for positive scripting might alienate customers if done wrong. For instance, calling them by their first name (as often suggested) can sound disrespectful to certain customers. Your agents might also end up leaning too much on the script that they become less flexible in different customer scenarios.
Positive Scripting Done Right: Developing Your Scripts
With all the things to consider, you need to carefully build your scripts. Your goal here should be something that would still feel natural to your customers. Remember that your agents are humans and that they should converse as such.
Understanding Positive Language
One thing you need to understand when building your scripts is how to incorporate positive language the right way. It isn’t just about stuffing your phrases with positive words. You also want to use these words in the right combinations to elicit the customer response that you want to get.
Verbs are some of the essential words that you need to pay attention to. Here, you want to use them more positively. The idea is to say the actions that you would want the customer to do. For instance, your agents can tell customers to “check out the better option we have” to guide them to their desired offers.
You would also want to avoid double negatives. Phrases like “no fewer than..” or “may no” signal these. They make your sentences sound too negative even if their message is a positive one. You can instead opt to use more affirmative words to better express the intent of your sentences.
Using Power Words
Powerful words like imagine, discover, and proven help make customers feel confident about the actions they are taking. But be careful when incorporating these words. Put them in sections where you expect customers to have a stronger reaction.
Image from Call Centre Helper.
You should also use so-called “in:’ words sparsely. These are words like “obviously,” “absolutely,” and “It’s like”, which do not add much to your script’s impact. Opt for simpler alternatives that convey your ideas better.
Don’t Ban Words And Phrases
This might be a bit of odd advice considering that you have the above types of words to avoid when doing positive scripting. But as said earlier, you want to create scripts that sound as natural as possible. Outright banning words and phrases end up giving your agents a limited vocabulary to work with.
What you should do instead is teach your agents to look for better alternatives to the words and phrases that they use. Give them useful pointers during your coaching sessions to help them refine their vocabulary. This lets them become less dependent on your prepared script while understanding the logic behind it and applying it on their own.
Other Positive Scripting Strategies
Creating positive scripts for customer service isn\’t just about using the right words. How you frame the responses also affect how well the customer responds to them. Future pacing is one framing technique that you can use.
Here, you emphasize the outcome of customers’ actions. When they see the positive results in store for them, they will be more inclined to take that action you are guiding them towards. A useful tip here is to use the phrase “you’ll” instead of “you will”. The former is softer and more encouraging to hear for customers.
Know When To Ditch The Script
Creating a positive script is an effective way to control the conversation and keep it moving forward. But there will be times when it might not be a lot of help. At this point, your agents should know when to break off the script and communicate more personally with customers.
In this case, you want to be more holistic in teaching the script to your agents. Talk to them about how genuine empathy is important for effectively delivering these scripts. When they understand this, they begin to see beyond the prepared script and understand how to construct their own responses.
Use The Perfect Phrases For Customer Service
Positive scripting can do a lot of wonders for your customer service. Be it helping your agents respond faster or getting them to better connect with costumers. But it also requires a good amount of thought. Follow the tips here and you can create scripts that people would want to listen and respond to.