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usefulness of call whispering in contact centers

Ways In Which Call Whispering Is Useful For Contact Centers?

Abhirami

28 December 2022

While the purpose of a contact center is to resolve customer queries but the end game is to provide customer satisfaction. Have there ever been times when as an expert in the field you wished you could help your contact center agent give better clarity on a subject to win over a customer? Call whisper implementation can help you and your team achieve this.

 

Content:

1. What is Call whispering?

2. Different techniques to help the agents

3. Call Whispering advantages for businesses

 

What is Call whispering?

Call Whispering is a contact center feature that enables contact center managers to listen to calls between agents and customers, whisper relevant information to the agents, and even barge into calls and take prompt action to address client concerns. This feature enables businesses to offer their customers excellent customer service, which is widely regarded as the key to every business’s success.

A call whisper allows you to direct and coach your agents through a live conversation with clients or potential clients. This is why call whisper is interchangeably called call coaching. When you activate the call whispering option, the customer only hears the representative's voice but the agent can hear the supervisor’s voice as well. This ensures smooth customer handling. With call whisper enabled, a contact center agent is better equipped to have an effective discussion that may convert leads to customers in a quick span.

All agents must go through a training and adaptation phase to become familiar with the contact center’s work. Suppose you have a recently trained agent, obviously, the first time when the client responds frustrated, you can't expect your fresher agent to keep calm right? Here's where the call whisper feature can help. A call whisper feature saves this situation by live coaching to handle the client. It is essential to note that only the agent will hear the admin’s whispers, so the client can’t hear the whispers at all. Call Whispering empowers employees to solve problems with the help of the admins, it reduces the agent’s anxiety, stress, and lack of motivation during calls.

For a supervisor or team leader, usually there are three options to monitor a call.

a. Call snooping

b. Call whispering/coaching

c. Call barge-in

Call snooping features allow the supervisor to just listen to a call, while with call whispering/coaching the supervisor can speak to the agent during the live call (without the client hearing the supervisor’s voice). With call barge-in, the supervisor can directly speak to the client on the call and both agent and client can hear and speak to the supervisor.

Along with the above features, the C-Zentrix contact center solution offers a very useful capability to trigger or flag a call to the supervisor using CZ Hotword. It is an AI-based live call monitoring and can be trained to pick up certain words, phrases, or intents. As soon as the criteria match it flags the call to the supervisor. Instead of calling snooping (where the supervisor has to listen to the call), CZ Hotword provides live call transcription for the supervisor to review the call and he can scroll up or down to find out how the discussion was initiated and the current status.

Based on the situation, the supervisor can do a call whisper or call barge. CZ Hotword also provides an SOS feature to the agents, so that if they need any assistance during a live call, using the SOS button, the supervisor gets notified and can start monitoring that call.

 

Different techniques to help the agents:

While call whisper has significant benefits in providing training or guidance to the agents over a live call, here are some more techniques that can help the agents learn while on the job.

1. Call Recording

Usually call recordings are done for compliance, quality checks, and training purposes. New and in-training agents can benefit by having access to call recordings which can show them how efficiently calls are handled. Newly hired staff lose their confidence due to a lack of information and orientation, even sometimes they have no choice but to end the call. A good practice is to listen to call recordings and mark the calls that are well-managed. Such calls when shared with the team help them realize how their colleagues have efficiently handled the call. This is a smart way to train the new agents and also recognize the good performers.

 

2. Scripting tool

While it is not advised for agents to read out a pre-written script during customer interaction, but it helps as a quick guide so that all necessary points are covered. The scripting tool is much required in sales exploration calls or for customer service calls related to the standard process of refund or troubleshooting. Newly trained agents or agents who are just put into a new process (maybe because of high call volume) will find it very useful.

 

3. Agent assist or rebuttal engine

This AI-based feature is catching up fast. The rebuttal engine not only monitors the call but provides suggestions to the agent for the next best action. This uses supervised learning models and gets trained from an existing knowledge base. So based on the customer response, it provides real-time assistance to the agent. It can also note the agent’s response and qualify/score the call from a compliance standpoint.

Call whispering has the potential to be a game-changing feature for any company that values customer service.

 

Call Whispering advantages for businesses:

 

1. Improve call quality and enhance sales conversations

A significant sales objective that is supported by call whispering is making sure that agents can generate qualified leads. Enabling the call whisper function can help the agent answer the objections raised by prospects. The supervisor can suggest the answer which helps the agent in real-time. A contact center agent's confidence can be instantly boosted by knowledgeable advice, and it is further strengthened when they can receive the assistance that can help them convert leads into customers. The call quality will ultimately improve as a result of this. Raising call outcomes has always been a challenging benchmark to overcome, however, call whispering easily resolves this.

 

2. Aids in agent efficiency

Call whispering is a feature that lets your managers monitor contact center representatives' overall performance. While agents interact with clients, their efficiency is assessed based on various factors. like Average Handling Time, First Call Resolution Rate, Customer Satisfaction Score, etc. Timely intervention by the supervisor and providing live coaching aids in agent efficiency and improve their scores.

 

3. Improves agent performance

Coontact center representatives will gain knowledge from live training when they are suddenly confronted with a complicated issue. With the use of the call whisper function, supervisors can give the right guidance at the right time. The most notable benefit of call whispering is that it enables practice in a real environment while presenting real challenges without requiring the agent to handle the scenario alone. Knowing that a supervisor is on call can make agents feel more at ease and enable them to act faster than usual in the event of a crisis.

 

4. Saves agents’ and customers’ time

Managers of contact centers can give quick live guidance. Trying to convince an already disturbed client without necessary information or proper knowledge does more harm than good. Additionally, it can eat up a lot of customer and agent time. But the call whisper feature allows you to reduce the length of a call. Since only valid points are being discussed, call whisper saves customers’ valuable time.

 

5. Raise customer satisfaction and agent confidence

Customer satisfaction is significantly impacted by how your agents handle the calls. Customer satisfaction levels are influenced by the language, tone, and interactions of contact center agents. Therefore, attaining those benchmark standards requires appropriate training. Since it is better provided via a call whispering feature, thus benefiting businesses with higher CSAT and retention rates. Employees satisfied with their jobs display a 32% increase in their commitment to their companies

 

Conclusion:

Efficient training and live guidance can have a significant impact on a contact center's success. If implemented, the call whisper function can help you increase sales and profits.

So, why not give it a try?

 

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