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Simple to set up. Easy to use. Powerful integrations.
Get free accessCall center managers share a common desire to coach their call team members by using a “call whisper” to guide them in their conversations with prospects or customers. While it’s not practical to hover over each call agent’s shoulder and instruct them on what to say, it’s possible to use digital applications to whisper tips and hints to a call agent at strategic times during a call.
Until relatively recently, the best strategy for sales calls amounted to little more than dialing as many numbers as possible and hoping the salesperson could deliver the right line at the right time to entice a quality prospect.
The combination of a cloud-based phone system—or VoIP phone system—CRM, and integrated sales applications helps to fine-tune sales strategies, making them more efficient for getting prospects through the sales funnel faster. Call whispering is a valuable feature that improves sales metrics by helping to coach call agents in real-time.
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What Is Call Whispering?
Call whispering is a phone system feature that gives managers or experienced peers the ability to give verbal advice to a call agent during a sales or support call without the prospect or customer being able to hear it. It’s a valuable feature for sales and support teams for five important reasons:
It helps in training new call center agents.
It’s a beneficial tool for coaching call agents that are struggling to meet your expectations.
It offers a positive way for call agents to improve their communication skills.
Highly skilled call agents will impress your new leads and important clients.
It gives you the opportunity to help call agents handle stressful situations or solve tough problems right on the spot.
Whether you use your call center for inbound calling, outbound calling, or both, call whispering gives you the functionality to enhance your training and productivity through real-time learning.
Call Whisper and Call Center Software
Have you ever wished you could whisper something in a call center agent’s ear, without the customer or prospect’s knowledge, to advise and coach them behind the scenes? Now you can, with call center software that features call whispering functionality.
In addition to speaking to agents who are actively on a call, there are three different ways to build upon call whispering.
Call monitoring
Call monitoring gives you the ability to listen in on calls to get a first-hand look at how your call agents are handling calls. This tool also gives you valuable insight as to the number of calls that a call agent is receiving or placing during a given timeframe.
Call recordings
On-call advice and direction is incredibly useful for new agents, but easy access to call recordings will help new and in-training representatives understand where they can improve. It’s a great way to coach call agents individually or as a team to brainstorm how to solve problems or provide concrete examples of how call agents handled calls professionally and with expertise.
Call barging
Call barging can be very intimidating for less-experienced call agents to face a call where prospects or customers become irate. It may cause them to lose their confidence and that could affect their performance for the rest of the day or longer. With call barging, a manager or experience peer that’s been listening in on the call will recognize when there is a need to escalate the call to a higher tier of sales or support. Call barging allows them to take over the call, handle it professionally, and remove the pressure from the initial call agent.
Call whispering gives your call agents the confidence to handle calls completely on their own without fumbling through them or having to place a customer on hold to ask a manager a question.
The Benefits of Call Whispering for Sales Professionals
The first few seconds of a sales call are often the most important. They can make the difference between a prospect that’s willing to listen a bit longer and one that quickly hangs up.
One of the challenges that call center managers face is providing support. How can we recognize that a call agent is struggling to meet the company’s expectations? Call agents that get too many rejections quickly get frustrated and lose their motivation to stay on the job long-term.
Call whispering solves the problem of how to help sales professionals that are struggling to get calls off the ground.
Here are some of the use cases for onboarding and coaching representatives:
Training inexperienced call agents by providing information during live-call scenarios
Helping new hires use correct on-brand language.
Provide an extra viewpoint when sales pitching to large or important accounts.
Coach new agents through difficult scenarios when customers or prospects become aggressive, angry, or abusive.
With call whisper technology, call center managers can talk to their agents while they’re on the call. Better yet, the customer has no idea! It’s an efficient way to enhance your sales call flow.
The Benefits of Call Whispering for Customer Support Professionals
Sales and support scripts are helpful resources for call agents. One of the many challenges they face is not knowing what the customer is going to say. It’s not possible to give call agents a script for every situation. Handling calls well only comes with experience. Call whisper technology offers them the benefit of getting experience in real-time. This allows agents to handle calls confidently with the full knowledge that if they need a few words of help or advice, they’ll get it instantly.
There is an added benefit of call whispering for call agents as they deal with high-level individuals or valuable accounts. Two minds are better than one when you’re trying to put your best foot forward and make a great impression. Having the benefit of getting timely tips and advice in real-time can make a huge difference between customers that are happy and those that aren’t.
Maximizing the Potential of Call Whisper
Successful call centers view call agent coaching as a work in progress. Call agents can learn something valuable with every call. Their experiences offer valuable takeaways for other call agents.
Periodic performance reviews of your call agents are helpful for addressing serious weaknesses. However, the disadvantage is that they only provide insight after the calls have ended.
Call center coaching is a proactive way to train, onboard, and coach call agents. A phone system that has built-in call whispering makes coaching call agents easy. The benefits of call whispering bring your call agent coaching to an all-new level with call recording, call monitoring, and call barging features.
Plus, when you combine your phone system with your CRM system or other integrations that perform essential functions — like AI and transcription, helpdesk, e-commerce, sales automation, and more — it amplifies your training and coaching process even more.
Here are some examples of popular integrations to use with Aircall that improve call agent coaching:
Avoma
Transcribes and analyzes calls between call agents and customers automatically. The tool also produces actionable insights that managers can use with call whispering to coach call agents more effectively.
Gong
Records calls to capture and analyze sales conversations. Managers can use this feedback coupled with call whispering to further coach agents.
EvaluAgent
Provides an efficient way to evaluate teams. Quickly highlight opportunities for coaching with the use of call whispering.
Intercom
Allows call agents to transition conversations between chat and phone on Aircall’s application. This larger picture of the customer gives users a unique opportunity to leverage features like call whispering.
Callingly
Dials calls automatically through Aircall to speed up the time of connecting with customers. The call whispering feature ensures that calls are productive as well as timely.
PieSync
Sync contact tools with other apps and utilize Aircall’s call whispering feature to help call agents perfect your sales strategies.
Salesloft
Logs calls automatically in Aircall. Display insight cards to indicate when a manager may want to use call whispering to assist a call agent.
Zendesk
Call agents use the Zendesk platform to make, receive, and synchronize calls. Managers can then use call whispering for training and coaching purposes.
Sales and support calls can be challenging. Every call is different. Customer satisfaction is dependent on the call agents’ words, tone, and actions. Call whispering is a win-win-win feature for companies, call agents, and your customers. For companies, call whispering leads to shortened sales cycles, higher close rates, and improved reputation. You should strive for call agents that are happier and more confident. Moreover, this gives you a higher employee retention rate, while improving call agent performance. Ultimately, the big winners are your customers who get a great customer experience with every call.
Published on August 28, 2020.
