Why is call scripting a misunderstood concept
It has been fashionable in recent years to deride the concept of call scripting as an archaic and crude
practice. Indeed, many organisations have tried to score cheap PR points by advertising the fact that
their agents do not follow a script. Not so long ago Lloyds Bank advertised through the media that
their call centres have “thrown away the script”. Despite its dubious actuality, it made the BBC news.
It is not difficult to understand why this might be the case. Listening to a call centre agent droning on
while clearly reading longwinded text from their screen is probably the second most annoying
customer experience, possibly surpassed only by the dreaded, yet strangely widespread IVR
(Interactive Voice Response) labyrinth (“press 1 for x, press 2 for y…”).
The main problem with call scripting is in its name. A script is essentially something that actors learn
by heart and then recite (with various degrees of skill) repeatedly, night after night, on stage. This
has very little in common with the technology known as call scripting.
Modern call scripting is simply a navigation tool. In the same way that a satellite navigation system
directs you through your journey to your chosen destination, a good calls scripting tool would guide
the agent with useful directions and hints from the first “Hallo” to the last “Goodbye”. The better
implementations of this technology tend to be non-intrusive and light in their touch to the point
where they are almost imperceptible.
And here is the main point. Call scripting (more appropriately known sometimes as “call guiding”) is
simply a way of enshrining best, consistent practice in the call centre while reducing the training
requirement at the same time. It has nothing to do with reading longwinded, tedious passages in a
monotonous voice. The advantages of good use of this technology are impressive.
Consider a typical collections call centre. As in most other outbound call centres, there will always be
some agents who outperform the rest. These are the ones that consistently manage to achieve
better results, more promises to pay and more actual payments. Some are more experienced, other
may be more charismatic, or more methodical. Whatever it is that sets them apart, these are the
kind of agents that you would like everyone else to emulate.
One way of achieving this is, of course, to train and re-train. However, this is an expensive and highly
inefficient way of setting about this task. Another, much more effective method is to analyse their
performance (by listening to their recorded calls), understand their methods and then set up call
guides which follow these methods.
In a way, you can think of it as a choice between replicating this knowledge in each agents head (by
training and re-training continuously) or simply giving them a tool to assist them do this. Going back
to my earlier comparison, you can think of it as the difference between giving your agents a satellite
navigation system to guide them through their calls or asking them to memorise the map or even
the entire atlas.
There are other advantages to using a modern call scripting tool. The system will capture the
navigation path of each handled call as well as all data collected by the agent in the process. This
provides a much higher granularity of statistics, compared to the “call outcomes” that are typically
stored by a non-scripted method. So in a way, instead of just knowing what the result of each call
happened to be, you can follow the logic that led to that result.
Of course, this would be meaningless when looking at individual calls in isolation, but when
analysing this across all calls, interesting pictures will emerge. An analysis of these navigation paths
and their related data will invariably deliver unprecedented insight into how to further improve your
practices and dramatically drive up success rates.
So what do you need in order to take the plunge? The main thing is a user friendly call scripting
(guiding) platform that does not require your staff to be technical geniuses to set up new scripts and
continuously refine the existing ones. The big idea is that this is not an IT task. It is effectively your
call centre managers, trainers and administrators who should be able to create and modify scripts,
do so quickly and without any noticeable disruption to the day to day work.
Such systems exist and are affordable. It is unfortunate that misuse, misunderstanding and certainly
misnaming of this technology, have relegated it to the status of a pariah. It is unjustified and
agencies everywhere are missing out on potential rich pickings as a result.