With more and more reps working from home, the possibility of unexpected background noise is real — Think dogs barking, babies crying, smoke alarms blaring, and more.
Craig Idlebrook, content manager for ICMI, calls on reps to use these awkward moments to humanize the service experience. After speaking with a rep who ignored the noise and stuck to the script, Idlebrook shared this advice:
“I would argue that professionalism should not take the place of humanity, especially when more and more customer service support is being conducted at home. While I don’t need, or particularly want, a customer service rep to over share about their personal life, there is something important about acknowledging the reality of the situation with a short sentence, something like, ‘Oops, sorry that you can hear my family in the background.’”
But he does add some cautions:
- Keep the acknowledgment short
- Avoid jokes — just state what is happening
- Only acknowledge noise on your end, not the customer’s end.
More on handling unexpected background noise, plus articles on finding your service style and embracing cross-selling appear in the July issue of Customer Communicator, the training newsletter for frontline reps.