How to Avoid Dead Air on Calls (3 Techniques with Scripts)

hey everyone it's sheena and in today's video we are going to talk about how to avoid or reduce dead air during calls by the way this video was requested by rachel gabassin or rachel gabassin so rachel if you're watching thank you so much for supporting my channel and this video is for you let's begin so you might wonder what the heck is a dead air a dead air is basically the awkward silence during your call where you don't really know what to say next and the customer also have nothing to say and you kind of feel that you need to feel that silence by talking to the customer and if you are a cousin and you be it's going to be hard because it will make you feel nervous it'll make you feel awkward overall you're not going to be able to focus on the solution so it is important that you take the time to avoid or at least reduce it also when you have dead air the customer gets the impression that you're you're disconnected or you're not listening to her or worse you fell asleep when the customer says hello are you there then it is an indication that the dead air is unbearably long and you need to do something about it so basically i can think of three scenarios where the dead air might be too noticeable and unbearably long and the first is when your system or internet connection is loading very slowly and the second is if you have to process something for the customer like for example a refund and you have to fill out a form for the customer and you need time to concentrate on that form before talking to a customer or third if you don't know what to say next if you don't know the answer to a customer's question and you need to check your products knowledge or knowledge base or if you need to ask someone like your team lead about the solution for the customer's problem so these are the three scenarios that i could think of and i have three solutions for that the first solution is going to be to put your customer on hold now what is a hold putting your customer on hold means that you have to press a button in your system what that does is you will be temporarily separated from the customer during the entire duration of the whole the customer is going to hear a music while she is waiting and for that duration you will have the time to to ask your team lead about the problem you will have the time to check your knowledge base so you might wonder how exactly do you put a customer on hold to put a customer on hold you need to ask for permission to put her on hold and then you have to state the reason for the hold and you need to give her the duration the expected duration that you are going to get back to her for example yeah so i don't really know how to return this thing because you didn't even include a return label will you guys send me one i would need to ask the returns team about that amber because normally you should have received a return label along with the package uh can i push on hold for one to two minutes so i can check with the returns team okay thank you by the way putting the customer on hold will solve all three of these problems but i don't really recommend that you put your customer on hold all the time as much as possible you want to use the hold feature when you really need it for the problem number one where you where the system is low and the internet is low i think you can get away with not putting the customer on hold especially if the delay of the system is just 10 seconds it's really fine to not put the customer on hold but if your problem is the number two and three where you really need more time alone time to check the customer's problem or to ask someone about it or to process something for her then in that case you can definitely put the customer on hold because the thing about putting your customer on hold is the more you put the customer on hold the more it's actually going to be really annoying for the customer so you want to do it as less often as possible by the way most accounts only allow a maximum of two minutes per hold once you reach two minutes you have to get back to the customer and give her the answer or the solution to a problem but if you need more time you can tell the customer so thanks for waiting amber i just talked to the returns team and they're currently processing the return label for you can i put you on hold for another minute by then i should be able to get back to you with a return number okay thank you don't make the mistake of telling the customer that you're gonna be putting her on hold for two minutes and then get back to her in five minutes because that you you cannot do that that is just a no-no you get back to the customer according to the time that you promised her period if i don't recommend putting your customer on hold for problem number one so what do i recommend in this case if you're just waiting 10 seconds for the for your system to load then in this case you can make small talks i know it's it's it's intimidating not everyone is really skilled at small talks i personally hate it but i personally know some agents who are really good at it who are really skilled at making small talks to customers and they are usually the extroverted ones where they have everything right to say to the customer they're not just talking about the weather they're actually talking about a lot and you know making small talks just comes naturally to them and i personally hate small talks it's not something that comes naturally to me i understand that it's not this is not something for this is not something that most agents could and want to do but if you can and you don't have a choice then practice making small talks to your customer and maybe who knows you can maybe master the art of it i personally know an agent who has stories about himself that he could share to the customers so if you really want to master it you could probably do the same you can prepare short stories about yourself and and say them at the right time maybe that could help too i also have another friend who had a laugh template what i mean by that is she he he has this specific graph that he only use when he's talking to the customers when a customer makes a joke or initiate small talks then it's not going to be so awkward laughing to a joke that's not even funny because you know most customers actually make jokes that are not even funny or probably not something that filipinos could actually find funny and it's important that you have this kind of laugh template that you prepare and i think it works for her for him he could really small talk a lot of customers and customers would like them but again this is not for everyone i personally hate small talks and i try to avoid it as much as i can but if you are cornered in a position where you really have to do a small talk because the customer initiated it then oh god you just have to prepare a story about yourself that you're willing to share to the customer the problem with small talks though guys is not all customers could be small talked you cannot really small talk all types of customers depending on their mood maybe if it's an irit customer it's probably best to not small talk an irate customer or maybe the customer isn't isn't really talking isn't really that much talkative or maybe the customer is not really that open to you and he's a little bit more reserved then in those situations it's probably best to not make small talks it's something that you would you would learn with practice so it's fine you would know when and when not to make small talks so you're fine and the third and probably the best way to reduce dead air during your call is to update your customer on what is currently happening on your end to keep her posted of what you're currently doing on the line you can do this in two ways you can do something like this that's scarlett smith order number one two three four five six thank you let me just check that here okay i'm currently loading a database because the it department had us restarted 10 minutes ago so bear with me for a while it should open right about now okay and that is scarlett smith order number one two three four five six yep okay okay i got it but if you're not the talkative type and you really just want to concentrate on checking her account or processing the refund for her then you can tell your customer that she is going to hear some moments of silence but that's okay and you're not being disconnected that you're still on the line with her you're just processing her refund you can say something like this amber i am now going to process your refund um you will probably hear some moments of silence but know that i am just here on the other end of the line and if you need anything just just call me and i'll be there no that's not how you do it amber i am now going to process your refund and fill out the form so you're going to hear some moments of silence but no worries that is normal if you need anything just call me and i am listening i'm just here over the line okay that should already be fine for your customer and then your customer would already get the cue that she should not talk too much because you are filling out something so that is still good i also just want to remind you that if you do this make sure that you do not mute your headset because it would feel really unnatural for the customer because when you mute your headset the customer hears absolutely nothing but if you just uh you just remain silent the customer is actually going to hear your background she's going to hear the other agents she's also going to hear the clicking of the keyboard it gives the impression that you are doing something for her problem you're working on her problem that you're not just completely gone because when you put the customer on mute it's kind of a different effect the customer is going to to wonder sooner about where you've gone so yeah you know try to not put her on mute if she hears your background that you're typing something and you're doing something then it is definitely better than putting it your customer on mute i really recommend this technique if you are trying to reduce your whole time because remember most accounts have only two minutes maximum per hold but sometimes when the customer's problem is a bit complicated you could actually sometimes agents take three minutes and take minutes or longer and when this happens your team lead or your quality analyst could probably talk to you and would tell you that you should lower your whole time for each call and if this is the case with you you're trying to reduce your whole time then you really could use this technique because with this one you're not really using the hold feature the customer's waiting time is not really registered as a hold um it's registered as a regular duration of the call so this is definitely what i recommend if you're trying to reduce your whole time in your stat and lastly and probably a very common sense advice that i can give you is to obviously memorize the common issues that you might encounter when you're still starting out on the floor getting to know the ropes and familiarizing the problems you're going to encounter common issues that you know you will encounter every single day of your shift or every single night of your shift if you just familiarize the procedures the solutions and answer to those common issues and questions then you're going to be a lot better at assisting customers and reducing your dead air and hold time that is all for today guys if you have any questions suggestions you know what to do comment down below if you like this video give you this a thumbs up if you don't like this video give this a thumbs down that's fine either way is fine and yeah consider subscribing too that's all bye

Channel: Kwestyon

Views: 241,070

Keywords: how to avoid dead air, how to reduce dead air, how to avoid dead air on calls, how to avoid dead air when talking to customers, call center agent tips on how to avoid dead air, call handling tips for call center newbies, call center tips Philippines, call center tips India, dead air during calls, help with dead air during calls, call center tips and tricks, call center

Id: 0fSmHgOQy3Q

Length: 13min 28sec (808 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 23 2020