When using a telephone answering service to deal with your business’ phone calls it’s important to find a balance between giving your call agents a script they can follow to ensure you get the information you need, without making it so rigid it sounds robotic and forced.

When using a call answering service you want the caller to be treated exactly as they would be if they were talking directly to your company.

But you also need to keep phone calls on point and direct the caller down a path to get you the information you need, and leave the customer feeling like they’ve been helped.

This is where call scripting comes in.

In this quick guide, we’ll run through what makes a great call script and provide a few tips to write your own, or at least know what to look for when using a telephone answering service’s script.

Understanding call scripting

Call scripting is essentially the list of questions you’ll use to get the information you need from a caller.

It’s sometimes called call flow because it does need to have a natural flow (just like a regular conversation) and have a logic to it so the call seems natural and not like a rigid Q&A.

Writing a call script involves a lot of research because the answers your call agent needs are based on the questions they’re likely to face.

These scripts can be adapted over time, but your initial script will be based on your research of what questions your team deals with on a regular basis.

If you’re not sure what these questions are, the best people to speak to are your sales or customer service teams (who are more likely to deal with customer enquiries regularly).

Or you could survey your existing customers.

Once you’ve got an idea of the questions you’ll need to deal with, you can start to build your call scripts. We say SCRIPTS plural, because you’ll need multiple options.

Creating multiple call branches

Not every call will follow the same path and your call scripts should acknowledge this by creating multiple enquiry lines within the call flow.

You should have a series of “call branches” that a call can follow based on the responses the customer gives.

For example, within your customer service teams you could have a branch for calls that will be used when a customer contacts you with a technical problem and a separate branch for issues relating to payments etc.

This call branch can follow a series of questions to identify the caller, diagnose or at least understand their problem, and then either solve the problem if it’s a simple enquiry, or take a message and transfer the caller to the relevant person (who’ll be given all the relevant information from the call so they don’t have to run through the same questions again).

For another call you might need a series of questions to qualify a lead before they’re passed over to sales.

This will follow a series of questions to understand how “hot” a lead they are, and whether they need to be passed over to sales, or whether it’s too early and they simply need more information.

You should also use custom call scripts for specific campaigns (like if you’ve launched a new product or marketing campaign that will generate specific questions).

Guiding your caller to an end goal

Regardless of the call branch your caller goes down, the ultimate goal is to get the call to an end point and an action.

It could be taking a message from the caller to pass on to the relevant member of your team.

It might be a case of simply forwarding a call on to another team member, it could be to book an appointment, take or process an order, or even to resolve an issue on the call directly depending on how complicated it is.

Test your call branches

Once you’ve created your call scripts, the best thing to do is to complete some practice runs with your team.

Rehearse calls following the scripts and paths you’ve created, making sure they flow naturally like you’d intended, and that you haven’t missed any potential options or additional questions that could be asked.

Once you’re happy that the scripts will result in the outcome you want, you can go live with them.

Continually review and revise your call scripts

Once you’ve written and launched your call scripts, that’s not the end of the process.

You should continually monitor your calls to ensure your scripts are working as planned and make any necessary adjustments over time.

Writing great call scripts to improve your customer service

Giving customers a personalised experience is essential.

With some well researched and rehearsed call scripts, your telephone answering service will be able to handle pretty much any call.

As well as creating your scripts, set some rules on call management to determine when a call or enquiry may need to be escalated, or which calls need to be transferred to which members of the team.

But with time, research and continual adaptation your call scripts can ensure a consistent and professional call answering process for your business.

At Face For Business we work closely with you to create call scripts to ensure your callers get the personalised experience they require, and that your team is equipped to deal with any further enquiries.

Our virtual receptionists will work with you to constantly review your call scripts to ensure you’re getting the best out of every call.

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