We phone Call Centres because often there is no other way of contacting organisations to exchange information. The high street branch or local office no longer exists and writing letters does not produce a timely response, so love them or hate them Call Centres are here to stay. They are, for most people, the prime point of contact with their banks, utilities and other service providers.

What are the main reasons for calling them?
We either:

• Need information on a service or product

• Want to buy a service or product

• Have a problem with a service or product

• Want to relay information such as a meter reading or setting up a standing order

From the organisation's viewpoint, they want to provide this support service to maintain customer contact and they may want to sell further products or services.

All of the above involve the exchange of reliable and accurate information to answer questions or solve problems, and requires the establishment of trust and confidence. From both points of view then it makes sense to have calls that develop a good working relationship. This is based on relaying accurate information both ways and promoting good empathy between caller and adviser. The caller in particular wants to feel confident at the end of the call, that the information received is accurate and reliable – that is they trust the adviser. The situation must as far as possible be resolved in one call – get it right first time – neither side wants to have call backs.

How can this be achieved?

The advisers need to be well trained in the products and services they support and have ready access to the latest information on changes to the products and any problems with them. They need to be effective in the way they present information, - that is get it right, complete and accurate. There may be conditional statements that have to be made for regulatory purposes – 'shares may go down as well as up'.

To present the right information for the caller's circumstances, the adviser first of all needs to be able to diagnose the problem the caller has. This involves using good listening skills but also the ability to ask the right questions without jumping to conclusions. One of the most frustrating things for callers is to feel that they have not been understood or that they haven't been listened to. Now it may be that the caller can not explain their problem or situation well and this means that the adviser has to be even more skilful in questioning and listening techniques. Problem diagnosing or situational probing are therefore extremely important skills for the adviser. At the end of the understanding the problem phase of the call, the advisor should summarise their understanding of the situation.

The next phase is 'problem resolution' or 'answering the question' after having confirmed that the position is understood. Now it may be that there is no answer to the question. What the caller is asking for is not possible or not available. The adviser then has to explain this tactfully to the caller, with suitable explanations and apologies. This is where the empathy established between caller and advisor during the call really comes into play. If they have already developed a good relationship and understanding during the early part of the call then this part will be easier. Good empathy is important anyway and is key to establishing a longer-term relationship. Good questions to ask are 'Would the caller be happy to call back again after this call?' 'Would the caller recommend to others to phone this call centre?' 'Does the caller have to call back to try to get the correct information this time, in spite of the way they were treated last time?'

Developing good empathy based on effective responses is therefore key to the call centre's perception with callers. There are well established techniques to measure both of these aspects, but so far little has been done on the two areas of measuring the immediate and initial response that the caller has to the call and also in developing first class situational probing or problem analysis. Too often advisers get the wrong end of the stick, jump to conclusions or follow the script or company policy blindly.

To develop empathy the adviser needs to be sensitive to the needs of the caller and understand the situation from the caller's point of view - to feel the caller's emotions. This is not done by following scripts or trying to pigeon hole callers. It is certainly not done by using computers or advanced switching systems. Who ever developed a meaningful relationship with a computer or automatic response system?

Now it may be that very simple transactions such as supplying a meter reading or ordering tickets for a cinema can be done via automated systems, but it doesn't mean that people like doing this or will readily use them. Also the organisation has lost the opportunity to develop the relationship in order to sell more.

The exchange of information highlighted in the first part of this paper can be done by other means for example:

• Letters

• E-mails

• Web sites

None of these are really good at situational probing and developing relationships. For factual information it may be possible to use these approaches and even provide a 'flow chart' that guides people to the right answer, but they do not solve more complex questions or the situations where the caller does not know where to start. A Google search may come up with a thousand sites but which is the one you need and is it relevant, accurate and trustworthy?

One final point that advisers need to be encouraged to do is to feed back information on problems that customers are experiencing. Call Centres should be the eyes and ears of the organisation and where a process has broken down the call centre adviser should feed back to that part of the organisation the problems that the customers are having. It may only be that customers are having difficulty in understanding the latest information leaflet and this is causing problems. It is not good enough for the adviser to say 'yes we know about this'. They should be able to say 'it has been reported to XYZ department and they are sending out a new leaflet'. If it is a new problem then it is even more important to report it and follow it up. Ideally the adviser should take personal responsibility to get back to the caller with an answer. To do this they have to get the full facts and then discuss with department primarily responsible to get a solution or a work around. The advisers will need time to do this and this needs to be taken into account. When they are following up a call (wrap-up time) they are allowed time to record the details of the call. Similarly when they are following up a problem they need time to do this as well. However this does not have to be done immediately but can be done at any time within the agreed call back time to the caller. This then can be used to solve another problem experienced by call centres – how to resource peak demands. Advisers working on the follow up of problems can be called in at a few minutes notice to take calls. Advisers need to be motivated and recognised for solving problems and this is as important as the number of calls they take.