Taking inbound calls is a vital task for any business, whether the goal is to close a sale, schedule an appointment, handle customer service issues, or field common questions. Who you hire to handle your company’s inbound calls should be the ideal candidate to represent your company and have the ability to master these call center representative skill sets.

Answering phones all day can weigh on your overall mood, especially if some of those customers are calling to resolve a bad experience and are upset from the onset of the call.

As a call center agent, it is important to not let those few frustrated customers affect your mood for the rest of the calls that day. The professional inbound call center representative understands that positivity is contagious, and if you are in a good mood, you can influence the customer to be in a good mood too!

Call center representatives should always remember an irate customer is usually frustrated at their own circumstance or prior interaction—don’t take their mood personally and remember you have the opportunity to change their experience for the better. Use positive language often and never end a call without the customer have positive feelings towards their experience. 

Our call center employees are well trained at de-escalating calls and resolving customer issues. 

Customers always appreciate accurate information over sugar coating a scenario. It’s always better to give the customer facts up front so they understand what you can and cannot do to resolve their concern. Sugar coating or assuming facts can lead to misconceptions and negative reviews down the road. Keep the information you give to customer both factual and timely.

Being patient with your customers lets them know that you both take their situation seriously and that you are sincere about finding a solution. Make sure the customer feels like you understand where they are coming from when they explain their scenario to you.

A good practice of this is being an active listener when they are speaking. This means hearing what they tell you and repeating back to them what they explained (once they have finished speaking, don't interrupt to recap their story). This lets them know they were heard and understood.

Acknowledge their issue, try to understand where they are coming from and sincerely convey that to the customer along with potential resolutions you have control over—and be truthful if you cannot.

We provide customer support with a personalized approach for each customer—our answering service employees are skilled listeners and provide resolutions according to your company policy. 

There are many tips and training points for handling inbound calls; however, we feel that these three are the key to successful call center management of inbound customer service calls.

CallStar® has an outstanding track record as a call center answering service—we’ve even won awards for it. When you want to place your customer service interactions in good hands, you can rely on CallStar® to provide your business and its customers with superior customer service experiences. Contact us to learn more about our answering services or to register for your two free weeks of professional answering services.