It starts with setting the right mindset and the relationship you have with the agent.
Find out more from our latest podcast episode: Call Center Culture and The Secret Sauce of a Successful Phone Call, with Richard Blank
Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns.
Rhetoric and Phonetic Delivery: The Secret sauce of a Phone Call
Phonetic: a term ‘representing the sounds and other phenomena of speech’ (Merriam Webster Dictionary).
Why is this useful in the realm of call centers? Phonetic is a great contact center tool a fundamental part of good customer service, one that is designed to clarify communication part of a trainer’s toolkit.
Rhetoric: ‘the art of speaking or writing effectively’ (Merriam Webster Dictionary. In combining these two, you get the combination that prove itself to be very helpful in coaching and has a lot more benefits than just clearing up conversations. When a call center agent is paying attention to details, like introductions and descriptions.
Christian: One of the things, Richard, that you’ve said before is about integrating rhetoric and phonetic delivery and trainings, what is the methodology behind that that makes it unique?
Richard: It’s my favorite question and my secret sauce. And since you and I are friends, I’m definitely going to share it with you and your audience.
Positive verbal escalation
So it takes a lot of steps, but I’ll break it out for you simply: I always believe the beginning of a phone call, that somebody can start off the call by introducing themselves with a company name, that individual’s name. And you might say better than either the gate picker or the owner themselves. I also believe in introductions to gatekeepers or filters like Anda for example.
My communication with you was from an email after I listened to so many of your podcast, I was inspired to write you Anda wrote me back. And if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here today with you. So when people think, well, you probably just got Christian directly. No, no, I most certainly did not. In fact, I communicated with Anda about four times prior to you and I am reaching out on LinkedIn and then meeting today, not like we weren’t excited to meet one another. But once again, there are certain channels and individuals in organizations that are in charge of these things.
So I learned a very big lesson with NobelBiz as well. I also believe that a positive verbal escalation is important. That’s why in the beginning of the podcast, I made sure that everybody involved was thanked and, you know, once again writing it, I think that would separate you from any other company that’s contacting that individual.
And they will see how you work prior to a contract. So those are the sort of initial soft skills that I would talk about in let’s say, the first 15 seconds of a call, especially when you have your anonymity in the beginning, and you say the name of the company in a certain way that sounds great, you can almost get somebody out of that.
The balance of a phone call
I also talked about a certain sort of balance in the call. And I follow through with phonetics, that simple form of micro expression reading, you can usually read somebody’s body language. So since we don’t have the luxury of sight here, I decided that our other senses should be expanded. I believe that we should expand our rhetoric regarding our descriptions. And I also think our hearing should be expanded five times.
On the phone, you can’t taste, touch or smell. So once again, you’re in a controlled environment, it should be expanded, you just know how to tap into it. So this is the code that I think I cracked after 21 years in this industry. I have a phonetic lesson that I would like to share with you, one that can be manipulated, but then I have the ultimate lesson that I think is indisputable.
Phonetics: tone, rate, pitch, duration
Let’s begin with phonetics. The first four sections of phonetics are tone, rate, pitch, and duration.
The tone represents your emotion. In my opinion, it should always be confident and empathetic, like a doctor, like a lawyer or your caring parent that will tell you that everything is going to be okay. In focus groups studies, you need a consistent variable to see inconsistencies, I believe that your tone should always be confident and empathetic. You should match the client when they’re like that, but don’t match them if they’re in a bad mood, they’re angry or pessimistic.
Now here’s the part where you’d be able to mirror image your client I believe. And I brought some props to a party like this, my third grade teacher be proud, I gave you a simple XY chart, because this is how we’re going to be working here.
Your pitch here represent your speaking level. And you could be screaming at me, you could be whispering. Your rate here is how fast you speak and how slow you speak. And you can generally, it’s like eighth grade pre-algebra.
You can control your tone, you can control your pitch and your rate of speech. The one thing I believe subconsciously that you cannot control consistently is your answering speed.
And consistently with the work that I’m doing on the CRM, I could be active listening, I could be also typing. But after about three weeks of paying attention to this XY chart that you’re doing to see if there’s a spike or a dip, it makes habit. Why do I do this? Because sometimes you’re not sure when to ask a tie down question. Some people call it a pin down question, a rebuttal, or confirmation question.
The main goal of this Christian, I don’t know this individual with whom i’m speaking. So I’m able to at least adopt, how they might be reacting, and when it would be necessary for me to interject and get some sort of confirmation to move forward.
So I believe that for individuals that are just starting out in telemarketing, or even seasoned professionals. I think you could use this from time to time in your performances, that this will at least give you a focused group controlled study 30 seconds to two minute attention span.
The theory of ‘No, Know, Now’
Understanding the theory of ‘No, Know, Now’. We have conditioned stimulation: a lot of the times when you walk into a store, someone will ask if you would like something. We’re conditioned to say, ‘No’. So no, to me, represents size, strength, and strategy. So no, turns into now your balance, I know how to talk to you for 10 minutes.
And I believe that if you have this sort of structure in the back of your mind while you’re working on your job, you will see the certain telesign that will enable you to prolong conversations to be able to eliminate any sort of rebuttals.
The 30s Rule Technique
Starting an initial conversation with a customer and breaking the ice can be nerve racking for most of the agents, because first impression counts.
And this is where training comes into play; by doing your homework and learning the methodology and structure of a phone call. It will oftentimes make things go smoother and increase chances for success.
Those first 30 seconds of a phone call can make or break the introduction and the purpose of the phone call.
Christian: One of the things that you’ve said before, is nobody guarantees time, you have to earn it. You’ve also talked about the 30 seconds rule. I know we’ve elaborated a little bit on some of the secret sauce that you were talking about earlier. But why 30 seconds? And you know, what do you have to do to earn that time?
Richard: You have to be sincere, and have no surprises. If you want to use a technique, then I would listen twice more than speak so at least you can lead the conversation on.
Focus on the pronoun
But if you’re asking me to speak, I think you do one or two things: I always believe in name-drops to keep your attention. So I would say Christian, the next point I’m making, if you’re not going to say ‘Christian’ five times in one minute, then I think you should focus on the pronoun.
So at least every sentence, I can say ‘you’re/your’ and do about a quarter second slide on that. Because I can’t see you. I can’t see you nodding right now, I have to ensure that my communication and the best words to use is your name or the pronoun which is still you to keep your attention for the 30 seconds because we’re going to zone out.
I mean, we’ve been almost conditioned to listen to things in sound bites, so at least what I’ll try to do is bring you in, ask a question and tie it down.
So I’ll take 30 seconds. And what I will try to do once again is to allow you to lead the conversation, I will make suggestions, I will actively listen, I’ll be your greatest fan. But I will also do a form of manipulation in order for you to once again control this conversation.
So I know when to ask you a question or keeping my mouth shut.
The structure of a conversation
Quality assurance is graded on so many KPIs depending on the client in the form of the speech. I give the most points, Christian, when the client says your name, the simple structure of a conversation is an introduction, a body, and a conclusion for anything.
If the client says my name, in the body of the call, I hit Nirvana, I got it, I nailed the bull’s eye. We can talk about Billy’s baseball game and your promotion that you just had or the company adversary for a second because I don’t feel like I’m angling a call or stuffing something in there. I believe that anybody has the chance to make that connection. And it just doesn’t have to be in an office environment. It could be at the supermarket, it could be at the library could be anywhere. If someone make such an impression where someone says Richard, nice to meet you. It’s a pleasure. I did my job. And then the rest just comes from that.
Per Gamification, Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America. Find out how this hobby turned into a big part of CCC’s gamification culture.
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NOBELBIZ Call Center Culture and The Secret Sauce of a Successful Phone Call, with Richard Blank.
