Answering Service - Dealing With Nasty Calls
Agents at the phone answering desk may try their best to interact and solve the problems of the customers in the best possible way.
But there will be those customers that are really sore with your business.
They will make those aggressive calls at your inbound call center desk.
While some of these calls may be deliberate and done with a purpose to rattle cages, there are still many who are not happy with the BPO agents.
Call centers have a field day handling such callers and though they have become a part of their jobs now, such calls manage to leave one shaken.
Let's look at some industry-recommended tips to help agents to deal with aggressive calls.
The cardinal rule for dealing with aggressive calls at the answering service desk is to keep calm.
Call centers are very particular about how agents react and respond to such calls.
The agent is not supposed to snap back or react strongly to a caller, even if the caller is not really on his/her best behavior.
The phone answering agent is expected to try and cool things down and to push for constructive discussions.
The agent must not lose sight of the telemarketing angle.
Their job asks them to sell things, whatever be the circumstances.
A good way to calm an aggressive caller is to listen to the caller patiently.
The caller might calm down after letting off the steam.
If the BPO agent can hold his own against the tirade of complaints then it might turn out to end on a positive note.
However, some callers are not interested in a discussion.
All they want to do is abuse and rant against the call center.
In such cases, the inbound call center agents have no choice but to press a button that tags the call as a 'crank call'.
This automatically disconnects the call.
Of course, the BPO agent flags off a warning signal to the caller.
If that doesn't stop the abuse, then the agent disconnects the call.
Call centers record the number to stop serial offenders from the calling their numbers.
A number is blocked after 5 attempts.
The margin for tolerance is higher for the male answering service agents.
They issue three warnings before hitting the button.
Female agents can reach for the crank button after a single warning.
The nature of such calls is the greatest source of stress in the answering service sector.
After fielding such a call, the agent is more likely to lose focus and become distracted.
This, in turn, affects the performance at the phone answering desk.
Such calls serve no purpose, either for the BPO firm or for the caller.
Telemarketing agents are known to quit their jobs because they couldn't handle the abuse any further.
Other than personal insults, there are boos for fake accents and pseudonyms that these telemarketing services agents use.
Only the mentally tough can stand up to this constant, continued challenge.