12 Most Effective Ways To Avoid ‘Scriptease’ In Your Business

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Have you ever experienced ‘Scriptease’? It’s that most frustrating of things when the customer service person you’re trying to engage with doesn’t listen, engage back or care about you as a customer.

Why does it happen? Well, often it’s simply because it’s easy to ‘follow the script’! They are allowed to do it, and scarily, in some businesses they are encouraged, even instructed to do it! It can occur in any business, even yours!

Here are the 12 most effective ways to avoid it in your business and improve your customer service levels!

Let’s start with a definition:

‘Scriptease’ n; A performance, often on the telephone or in a retail outlet, in which a person doesn’t think for themselves, but sticks to a script and leaves a customer unfulfilled. See also: Sales Prevention Officer.

1. Spot it happening

Get someone to ring up your own business or visit it to make an enquiry. How good are your people at dealing with enquiries? Ask them to feedback on their experiences. Consider a ‘mystery shopper’ exercise. Establish ongoing feedback systems that allow customers to tell you when it’s happening – reward them for spotting it!

2. Throw out the rule book

In your business exists a book. It’s a book of rules, regulations and procedures that people quote from verbatim and use daily. You’ll never find it! It’s invisible, but somehow it lives, breathes and influences behaviors in your business. Some of the rules are good, many are limiting. Your challenge is to discover its negative contents, and throw them out. Examples include ‘We can’t…’ ‘We must…’ and ‘I’m not allowed…’ Ask your people about it – many will quote it word for word!

3. Champion your customer champions

Who creates the best reaction from your customers in your business? Work out what they do, how they do it, what they say and how they say it! Replicate it! Get others to learn from them. Encourage (and reward) them to share their experience. What’s the reward for being great with customers in your business? (In too many, it means you get to deal with more of them, i.e. lots more work!).

4. Empower your people

It’s a ‘buzzword’, but true empowerment is about giving people the confidence, skills and permission to think, anticipate and actually do things. Confidence is about support, encouragement and leadership; skills is about training, development and learning; permission is about setting and communicating clear guidelines for all. Here’s a simple test to see how ‘empowered’ your people really are. How much can your people spend or authorise without having to come to senior management for ‘permission’? For example, Ritz Carlton Hotels give everyone in their business authority to spend up to $2000 to resolve a customer’s problem or deal with a complaint on the spot without having to get permission from a manager. Now, THAT’s empowerment!

5. Hire for attitude

Recruit frontline people who can demonstrate their listening and conversation skills. Assess their ability to build rapport, think on their feet, identify problems, be spontaneous and generate ideas. Do your recruitment processes find these aptitudes? If not, change them! “We don’t look for high systems knowledge and 80% of our recruitment is NOT from banking. The ability to speak their minds, project their personality and high levels of resilience are much more important” David Mead, when he was Customer Service Director at First Direct, the UK bank consistently voted as number 1 when it comes to customer service.

6. Ban scripts

Simple. Let’s move on.

7. Generate alternatives

Get your team together and encourage them to come up with ‘conversation generators’ ideas for dealing with specific scenarios, problems, and enquiries. ‘Role play’, work out what works, replace what doesn’t. Train people, encourage them to experiment, set challenges, have fun!

8. Role model

Sometimes we need a ‘spark’ to help us. Sometimes we need some inspiration. Other times, we just need someone to learn from. Who sets the standards that wow you? Don’t restrict yourself to your industry (you might all be poor!). Get your people to call, visit and talk to them. What do they do well that impresses you? What can you learn? No, don’t simply copy them… work out what you can ‘borrow, ‘amend’ and ‘improve’. Encourage your team to do the same. Why not ask your customers who they think you can learn from?

9. Measure impacts

Monitor and measure levels of customer satisfaction, loyalty, repeat business, conversion rates, sales, not just length of calls, number of calls, or number of rings. Remember it’s about quality and quantity. What gets, measured, gets managed. Let your people know what’s important. If they understand its about customer engagement, satisfaction and service, they can adjust their behaviours accordingly. Consider Net Promoter Score as a way of measuring what customers really think.

10. Get your personality across

How do you want people to feel about your business? What lasting impression do you want to make? What is your competitive advantage? Answer these questions and then answer this one… “Does the way we interact with our customers totally reinforce this?” If it doesn’t, then do something about it today.

11. Encourage customer delight

It’s all about ‘exceeding expectations’ – generate ideas to ‘delight’ your customers. Generate ideas to do this by getting your people to complete this sentence (courtesy of Seth Godin!) “ they handled my enquiry / delivered my product / provided their service competently and professionally, but what completely blew me away was…..’

12. Create an UBER culture

Culture is ‘the way we do things around here’ and in winning businesses this is not left to chance! They establish UBER ‘culture’ that creates real competitive advantage. They ensure that: everyone Understands what’s expected of them and behave accordingly and consistently; systems and processes are Built to reinforce and support the culture ;people are Engaged, Empowered and Encouraged to deliver them; people are Rewarded and Recognised for doing it!

So go on, you know it makes sense…. Scriptease? Make it difficult, even impossible to happen in your business! It starts with you!

Featured image courtesy of by neil cummings via Creative Commons.

Andy Hanselman

http://www.andyhanselman.com

Andy Hanselman helps businesses ‘think in 3D’! That means being ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different’! He researches, speaks about, writes about and works with high performing businesses that are winning in today’s ever increasingly competitive and crowded marketplaces! Andy highlights how winning businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors, how they create remarkable customer experiences and relationships, get the best from their people and create a sustainable culture that completely supports this. It’s about leadership, it’s about innovation and it’s about ‘doing stuff’!