Can Better Grammar Improve Customer Service?
Gauging a person’s communication skills starts during the interview process. Businesses can use role-playing activities and see how potential hires would respond to a typical chat interaction.
Corporations also need to expand their agent training programs. In addition to product and voice interaction coaching, they must focus on improving employees’ writing skills. Many firms are now developing online spelling and grammar quizzes and tutorials. Trainers recommend that agents handle actual interactions during training because there is no substitute for real-world experiences.
Once on the job, the education process should continue. Some courses are available. eWrite offers such training, as do a number of other companies. The Business Writing Center, for example, offers two contact center–specific writing courses. The first course, BWC495 Basic Writing Skills for Technical Call Center Representatives, focuses on grammar, writing enough but not too much, writing concisely, using clear sentence structure, and avoiding common business-writing errors. The second, BWC497 Writing Customer-Support Messages, focuses on structuring the customer-support message for maximum clarity and effectiveness.
Other training options have emerged. Corporate trainers such as ACSI Translations, Circuit Media, Clear Writing Consultants, Resish & Associates, and The Executive Writer offer various business writing services and classes. Such programs feature group interactions, development of training manuals, online tests, and video aids.
Once training has been provided, the need for ongoing monitoring is clear. “Companies cannot hold one training session and magically fix their writing shortcomings,” Fluss maintains. “To be successful, the process requires ongoing quality assurance and follow-up.”
The follow-up can take various forms. A manager can consistently reinforce the need for improved writing by, for example, addressing writing problems during staff meetings. Firms can also provide agents with training materials outside of class so that they can study on their own. Or they can find ways to recognize agents who improve their English grammar and usage skills, presenting them with plaques, monetary incentives, or other tokens acknowledging their improvements, for example.
For some people, writing well is a skill that just comes naturally. For others, it takes a lifetime to develop. As customer interactions move from the telephone to the screen, developing strong writers is a noble goal for contact center management. Luckily, new tools and training are emerging so that when they are confronted with the dilemma of whether the sentence “Our contact agents needed help with their writing so we hired a consultant” needs a comma, most contact center agents will know how to respond. (A comma is needed before the word so.)
Paul Korzeniowski is a freelance writer who specializes in technology issues. He has been covering CRM issues for more than two decades, is based in Sudbury, Mass., and can be reached at paulkorzen@aol.com or on Twitter @PaulKorzeniowski.
Air Canada Takes Voice Lessons
Corporations today are increasingly recognizing the need to develop brand voices and to use them consistently across all of their communications channels. That was the challenge that Air Canada faced. Though the company has been in existence since 1937, it desperately wanted to change its tune.
The company has taken a leadership position in the airline industry—in 2015 it carried more than 41 million passengers to more than 200 destinations on six continents, employed 30,000 people, and generated $13.8 billion (Canadian)—but “we had a legacy way of communicating with customers,” admits Vicki Benoit, director of customer care at Air Canada.
In the fall of 2015, the carrier decided it was time to refresh its brand and searched for a third-party writer training firm to help it find its new voice. Many consultants came from the marketing side, but the airline wanted a firm that specialized in contact center interactions. It ultimately selected eWrite, which takes a look at companies’ written communications, hones them, and then trains employees in best practices.
Two hundred agents attended one-day training sessions. One benefit of the eWrite program is that trainers use real customer letters and Facebook posts during the course. “It was unusual seeing our own writing used for the training,” Benoit says.
Air Canada’s communications followed rules of formal written English, such as never using the pronoun I. The airline changed that rule and made other adjustments, such as replacing generic apologies with statements that specifically identify each customer’s individual complaints.
In 2016, the carrier held training sessions for employees in five areas, including claims and customer relations. It plans to roll out the training to other departments—such as the contact center, web content development team, and sales—this year.
Much work remains—not all agents felt comfortable with the changes. But the airline is hoping to gradually prod them away from the old to the new way of communicating. —P.K.