?Empathy?, ?flexibility?. When professionals present call centres to their new recruits, especially those specialized in help desks, they always focus on the aim of these telephony-related services. The real focus is on the customers? expectations, his profile. This may not be as simple as one would think. Because we are dealing with outsourcing, that is, subcontracting of a service. Just imagine what happens when confronted to unexpected demands from dissatisfied customers.

Whether Business to Business (B to B) or Business to Customer (B to C), telephony is diverse in its services and the profiles and talents it requires. In telemarketing, agents most of the time call a prospect to sell services or goods. Then there are all the services provided by reception desks: from information to booking or towing? ?Some are referred to as virtual reception: after office hours, any incoming call is automatically transferred to an agent, who may execute part or all services normally provided by the company?, explains a developer.

Thus working at the help desk may not mean living on the easy side of telephony. ?Whenever dealing with money transactions or high security operations as in the case of telebanking, the agent will need to be accurate and to put the customer in confidence.? This supposes from the call-centre staff enough familiarity with the business, some verbiage and a lot of training. ?We never give an operation to someone without being sure he masters it.?

Tackle dissatisfaction

Yet, some clients may call for unusual purposes or may have unexpected profiles. ?We are aware that customers calling from America may speak Spanish, for instance. So that we have a special translator department at reach?, explains a supervisor. ?Any agent is conditioned to understand our customer?s culture, his place of living, his way of thinking.? But the unexpected may be more subtle. Incoming calls are normally processed in a call centre in a random way: if a client who has just chosen to rent a car calls back to change his decision, he will rarely fall on the same agent. How to be customer-friendly then?

?We assume that the agent has a software that allows any agent to enter comments or remarks in a customer?s file so that the next agent may know enough to deal with the client?s requirements. This is the ?law? in most call centres to monitor a client?s file but alas it is not done everywhere?, says the developer, who wants to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

More difficult is to tackle dissatisfaction. Some centres have specialised departments like the refund sector. The agent can reply with the help of a ?trouble shooting questions and answers?. But, even within written frames, some situations require a certain amount of psychology and commitment. That can also be described as ?empathy?, ?personal investment?. ?The great difficulty for a supervisor is to ensure that everyone in his team is working to the best of his abilities and to address some inequalities that may occur in the staff productivity. This is rare with teams that are very familiar with an operation?, explains the developer.

It is during the training sessions that newcomers may acquire the soft skills to solve inextricable situations. These include listening to other colleagues dealing with clients (audit), the latter?s reactions, understanding the way agents themselves listen to the customer and how they can guide him. ?This does not necessarily need a diploma but a certain amount of good will. Most of the young employees I train are strongly motivated by their need to work and earn a salary. But, at the same time, you stay human and may have some moments of unevenness.?

Know-how is essential when the client has been waiting for long minutes before his call has been addressed: queuing, lack of ?smile? in the voice, and disinterest are fatal when working at a helpdesk. ?Training may help to achieve some quality, but empathy makes the difference at the end of the day?, stresses the developer.