When you’re starting out in customer services, it is very important to have reliable scripts for cold calling, since it provides your team with a way to build and maintain conversations with clients, as well as something to fall back on if things go wrong.
But where do you start? There are tons of different types of call scripts that customer service agents use on a regular basis, such as scripts for real estate cold calling, general sales calling scripts, the Hail Mary script, the call me by your name script - there’s even prank call scripts! (Though we wouldn’t recommend using them!)
So it’s clear there’s a lot of choice out there, but our article will focus on some of the key points that will help you to curate the best possible one for call centre scripting, and other forms of outbound calling within customer services.
Do your homework
Sounds obvious, but many outbound sales script examples (i.e. templates) require you to at least have some background on your client before you proceed any further, and while you can use cold call appointment scripts and other similar variants to some degree of success, chances are that people will not want to remain on the phone unless there’s a genuine link or connection of some kind.
So you could do some light research by searching your client on websites such as LinkedIn to see if you might have mutual connections, or perhaps a business or school connection that might provide you with some points to relate to them on, or at the very least, it’ll give you some discussion points!
Keep it brief
You don’t want to bombard the client with information, because that could have a detrimental effect. So instead, why not pick some key points about your products and services that you think your client needs to know? As well as any things that you know your client is interested in (perhaps they enquired on a webpage, or signed up for more information).
This initial script doesn’t need to be long, and if done well, can set up a solid conversation with your client. Moreover, let them ask the questions and seek to guide the conversation, instead of dominating it.
Follow up with steps
When building a follow-up script or simply following up on a sales lead, don’t start trying to sell immediately. Instead, ask where the client is in terms of needing more information or where they are on a decision, and then present the next steps to them in terms of the customer journey that they will follow as a result.
Don’t talk negatively about your rivals
This sounds obvious, but you may find that your clients will bring up your competitors, in which case it’s important to remain neutral and fair to your business rivals. Saying anything negative makes your brand look unprofessional, so try to focus on your business’s place in the market, and if you need to, use this to compare to your rival.
That way you can establish that you are simply an alternative, which means that you don’t have to say things like ‘we’re a much better option’, whilst also giving out accurate information about what exactly you offer in comparison to your competitor.
