Yet another in the series...
Talk Is Cheap: Confidence Game
Throughout human history, as new technologies have been developed, so too have risen a group of specialists to support that technology. From early man: Ugg, I understand your fire is not working. Have you tried using two different rocks? To the stone-age: Growlf, ma’am, I’m sorry your spear points keep breaking, but they are not designed for hacking down trees! The Iron Age: I don’t know if you can put horse shoes on a Zebra, but let’s give it a go. Even more recent: SIR! My apologies, but if you mount the cannon on those walls, they will fall off after the first shot! The wall is not wide enough for the recoil! We are part of that long history of support people. We know how things work. It is our job to either fix the problem or explain why it needs another specialist to fix it.
For many customers, they do not understand what is going on. Customers who have enough specialized knowledge rarely call us; they are usually too busy fixing their own issue. For the rest, high speed internet, computers, telephone systems and cable TV are arcane mysteries: magic boxes that do mysterious things. This is why they call us. We are the wizards, priests, shamans, blacksmiths, doctors, engineers... use whichever title you like, we are the people who know the secrets to the technology.
Which means we should sound a particular way. When communicating with the customer, we need to sound confident. The callers do not expect us to have the immediate solutions available, but they do want us to sound like we know what we are doing. If we come off like we don’t know a coax line from a bit of pasta, then the customer is likely to demand to speak with somebody else.
Confident tone is all about certainty. From the very beginning, you should sound definite. It is difficult to have faith in someone who sounds like they had to look up their own name. Be definite: “My name is Jeff. How can I help you?” Why shouldn’t you sound like you can help the caller? You have helped a lot of people already. Why should this be different?
Avoid `uncertainty’ words: maybe, perhaps, hopefully, with any luck, and the non-responsive uummmmm. Misuse of such words and phrases make us sound like we don’t know anything; that we are just randomly trying things, hoping it will work out. Uncertainty leads the customer to believe they know more than us. We definitely do not want that! They called for specialized assistance and we are the specialists.
Confident tone and language also permits us freedom to admit when we don’t know how to fix something. If you have been certain and definite throughout the call, then an admission like “I really have never heard of this situation, but if we work together, we may be able to figure it out” is permissible. We are specialist and experts, but even Merlin and Einstein did not know everything. If the customer believes that you know how to approach the problem, they have faith that you can solve it. A customer calls us, thinking that they are an idiot for not knowing how to fix something. When you admit that you don’t know either, and you sound like the specialist, then the customer thinks “Oh! It’s not something I should have been able to fix! YAY! I’m not an idiot!” This makes them feel better. If you sound unsure, the customer thinks “Ok, I know I don’t know anything about this, but this lady knows less than me!”
There is an agent I know, who answers his calls “And who am I helping today?” in a friendly and confident tone and his calls are very smooth. Other agents speak authoritatively: “I know exactly what is going on there.” However you do it, it is important to be confident, definite, and helpful. How would you feel if your doctor said “Hi, ummmm, Jeff. What, ummm...what’s going on?....really?...Do you mind waiting while I go look that up?... Thanks for waiting. I’m still working on it....Ok, well, I think I’ve got it. Maybe you have gas. So, perhaps if you take, like, an antacid or something, then, hopefully, it’ll clear up. Meanwhile, I’ll note your file and if this problem continues, come back and we may need to send you for further tests. Perhaps. Have a good day.”
Somehow, I expect I’d be looking for a second opinion.
|