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Ludicrous as this scenario might seem, it’s not all that
different to the manner in which a lot of today’s outbound
telemarketing is carried out. Indeed it’s widely accepted as
the ‘right’ way to run most work. This idea is so entrenched
that most managers, who wouldn’t dream of asking anyone else
in their organisation to interact with clients using a
script, are quite happy to enforce this method on their
outbound telephone teams.
The notion of scripted telemarketing has a great deal of
appeal and some undeniable advantages. It guarantees a
consistent approach. It gives clients who are outsourcing
their telemarketing requirements the comforting knowledge
that their sales pitch is being made precisely as they’d
wish. It offers reassurance and security to inexperienced
agents. For some types of campaign, in the heavily regulated
medical or financial sectors, for example, it can often be
the only way to work. Nonetheless, an enlightened minority
of organisations are realising, in every sense of the word,
the benefits of throwing away the script and trusting their
telemarketers to actually have conversations.
The difference between the two approaches is huge; they are
effectively different disciplines. For organisations that
are used to scripted calling, giving conversational freedom
to agents can be a frightening prospect, but read on -
unscripted calling has many advantages.
One of the biggest problems with scripted work tends to be
the scripts themselves. Many consist of little more than a
breathless, lengthy introductory sales pitch followed by a
series of scripted responses to objections. Scripted
telemarketing practitioners frequently use pseudo-scientific
language to describe the methodologies by which their
scripts are devised and run, but the reality is often far
more prosaic. It’s hard to deny that there have been many
advances in dynamic scripting over the last few years. Even
so, in the final analysis, few people are able to accurately
forecast all the branches that a conversation with a close
relative would take, never mind a sales prospect (no matter
how well they are profiled). Inevitably this means that most
scripts fail to create a convincing illusion of
conversation, instead using closed questions to drive the
dialogue in a way that tends to be fairly crude. Indeed,
some scripts are so badly constructed that they manage to
snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, frustrating and
alienating contacts that would otherwise be quite responsive
to the proposition. Worse still, by its very nature,
scripted work rarely encourages or requires strong listening
skills, meaning that scripts are often badly delivered. This
can only heighten the prospect’s sense that they are being
spoken ‘at’ rather than ‘with’.
The fact that most receiving parties can detect a script is
another problem in itself – many senior prospects, such as
senior IT or Finance decision makers have been so heavily
targeted that they are now highly resistant to scripted
calls. Generally speaking, they are fed up with answering
the phone to ill-informed, poorly trained agents reciting a
set of features and benefits. In all probability they will
attempt to extricate themselves from the call as quickly as
possible, even if they have a genuine interest. Even with
more junior prospects, as soon as it becomes clear that they
are being led through a scripted conversation, the ‘hard
sell’ connotations of scripted telemarketing are likely to
lead to a defensive response.
By contrast, an unscripted call, handled well, will allow a
flowing dialogue. In the absence of obvious efforts to
“steer” the conversation, prospects are more likely to relax
and have an open discussion, to give vital market
information which a script might not bring to the surface
and, ultimately, to agree to buy or to meet. Calls can still
be structured around a few bullet points, to ensure that key
points are covered or that required profiling information is
captured. With a skilful agent, it’s unlikely a prospect
will notice that the call is being run to a loose structure
at all.
The other great benefit of unscripted telemarketing is that,
generally speaking, agents find it more challenging,
satisfying and enjoyable. By its very nature, there is
plenty of scope for boredom in call centre work without
exacerbating the situation by forcing people to work within
a linguistic straight jacket. It’s hard to imagine anything
more tedious than having up to eighty conversations a day
that are almost exactly identical and even the best agents
will struggle to sound happy and enthusiastic as the clock
hands slowly creep towards the end of the afternoon.
By contrast, unscripted work allows a degree of freedom,
some variation in opening, rhythm and language. Agents can
find the approach that works best for them, based on
listening to responses, modifying what they say and the way
that they say it based on live feedback, just as one would
in a face-to-face conversation. Unscripted agents actually
get to use and develop their listening and closing abilities
and will develop skills which apply outside the call centre
environment.
It also takes a lot of trust to allow agents to make
unscripted calls. Even with sophisticated call monitoring
and continual coaching, a certain amount of control
inevitably passes from managers to agents. This is the
biggest area of concern for most ‘management’ script
advocates. However, a good agent will respond well to the
additional trust they are given. If they don’t, then it may
be worth considering whether they are the right people to be
calling on your behalf in the first place. A good unscripted
environment, with coaching and support, will allow strong
agents to blossom.
Moreover, most observers would agree that there’s already so
much control in most call centres that there’s a danger of a
counter productive atmosphere of oppression. The reasons for
the ever-decreasing staff retention rates that the industry
is experiencing are manifold and complex. Nonetheless,
“boredom” and “frustration” are two words that surely
feature on many of the hundreds of thousands of exit
questionnaires that the industry generates every year. Most
call centres agonise over incremental percentage gains in
productivity, represented by quantitative increases in
crude, short term measures of output. What the industry as a
whole is rather less good at measuring are the true costs of
staff turnover. There are so many visible and invisible
costs associated with replacing quality, trained agents that
retention deserves even more focus than it gets. If one
accepts that scripts make the work less interesting, then
intuitively unscripted work should correlate with higher
retention rates. Whilst there’s little empirical data in
this area, anecdotally it appears that unscripted
environments often have far better staff retention than
their scripted counterparts.
It’s worth pointing out that unscripted work will not sit
well with every agent. Many lack the confidence, training or
commercial awareness to hold an effective dialogue. Some
agents simply prefer the comfort of a script; it takes a
certain amount of maturity to cold call an IT director and
have a productive, free flowing conversation. However, for
most experienced callers, the limitations of scripted work
are a great frustration.
As the industry matures, it seems likely that unscripted
calling will become less a niche area and more mainstream,
whilst scripted calling may well be relegated to lower value
propositions. This will require a move towards better
trained, more capable and better rewarded agents, but this
is surely the direction the industry must take anyway. In a
competitive global environment, finding ways to add value is
key to the future growth and development of the industry in
South Africa."
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