JobsAndCareersWithSarahWillingham2016 - 179

FOCUS :

CONTACT
CENTRE

serious career path. The world of
telephone customer service is becoming
increasingly skilled and varied. There
are even degree courses in contact
centre management available.
What's more, these kind of jobs give
you a chance to develop other skills
including IT, sales, communications and
management ability - all valuable and
transferable to other sectors.

Call centre work
is often seen as a
short-term option
but it can shape into
a serious career path
The UK has a million people working
in an estimated 5,675 call centres. There
are two main areas: working within a large
organisation such as a bank, utility firm,
manufacturing or retail business, or as
part of an outsourcing bureaux where
you'd handle customer service, telesales
and debt collection for corporate clients.

The quicker the better
During your initial call-centre training,
you'll be encouraged to turn calls around
as quickly as possible. In a typical day,
you may be expected to deal with up to
100 of them. This means it's vital to be
able to find information quickly, respond
clearly and solve the customer's problems
promptly and efficiently. Good keyboard
and typing skills are therefore a bonus.
The ability to input data accurately
while speaking to a customer will speed
you up even further.

Tricky customers
Customer service advisors need to be able
to work well under pressure - and that
means staying polite, respectful and calm
even in the face of the most annoyed,
impatient, irate or just plain objectionable
caller. But you will be given coaching on
how to cope with tricky customers.

Chances to progress
Promotion means becoming a team leader
and that role will include monitoring your
team and delivering feedback; so you'll
need to be a top motivator and organiser.

5 MUST-HAVES
FOR CONTACT CENTRES

You'll need these skills and qualities to get going as a customer service advisor:

Clear, friendly phone manner
Working in a contact centre
means spending a lot of time
on the phone, so it's a no-brainer that you'll
need an excellent phone manner. If you can
be clear, friendly and enthusiastic during calls
- and still stay respectful and professional
- you've got the basics. Remember the
spoken voice is all the more important
in this sector as the caller can't see you smile
or gauge your body language.

Rapport-building skills
Acting as your company's
representative makes building
a rapport with the caller vital. That means
being able to listen without interrupting as
they tell you why they're calling, and reflecting
back the information they present to you.
If the caller is feeling emotional around this
issue, it's also about showing empathy
towards their situation. Plus, you'll need to
be able to explain complex information in
ways the caller will understand.

Sounding like a 'real' person
Call scripting is used in around
half of all contact centres
according to www.callcentrehelper.com. It's a
way to guide the customer service advisor
- and also the caller - through the

The next move up would be to senior
management positions - for example,
operations manager, which covers
handling the contact centre's scheduling,
forecasting and productivity reviews.
You'd also oversee the centre's
technology - from the software that
analyses issues such as call volume and
agent productivity to the interactive voice
response systems.
The contact centre manager sits on the
top rung of the ladder. This role means
overseeing all the call-centre functions
with responsibility for everything from
budget control to strategy for growth.

conversation so they end up reaching the
right outcome. But reading a static script
word for word risks making the advisor sound
like a robot. Although nowadays, more
companies are making scripts more fluid,
the trick is still to inject your personality into
calls and sound like a 'real' person.

Multi-tasking
You'll be kept on your toes dealing
with even the simplest caller
request, so it helps if you can multi-task
- and in the contact centre world that means
being able to type, listen to the caller, refer to
your script and reply in a natural, friendly way.
You need to be fast, too. Callers may have
had to wait in a queue to speak to you and are
more likely to start to lose patience if they
feel you're holding things up your end. You
will get proper training to handle this and it
gets easier with experience.

Ease with computers
Although there'll be training on the
computer systems you'll need to
do your job, it can help if you have a good
grasp of common systems like Word and Excel.
Much of your time may be spent working
on databases. This means either taking and
processing customer orders, retrieving caller
details or entering new information.

How much can I earn?
Customer service advisors can earn
around £15,000 a year, which may include
commission, and this figure can rise
up to about £19,000 with experience.
Team leader salaries are usually between
£19,000 and £24,000 - more with bonuses.
Contact centre managers can expect
to earn £50,000 a year, plus benefits.
There's useful information on roles,
job vacancies and industry news on
www.callcentrehelper.com

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