Have you ever decided not to do business with a company because of a bad customer service experience? That person did a “sales job” on you — just not the one they intended.
They sold you on never doing business there again.
People say selling makes them uncomfortable, yet they do it… every day. Whether it’s convincing someone to go to their favorite lunch spot, or coaxing a reluctant toddler to do, well, anything, these everyday interactions are acts of persuasion. Yes, selling.
This is especially true in customer service. A Customer Service Representative’s livelihood depends on their employer keeping the doors open. A CSR’s effectiveness can make or break a business.
Sales enablement can help. It gives employees the tools they need to sell — without selling.
A sales enablement copywriter has a lot of devices in their toolkit. Here, we’ll go over the specific pieces that can be most useful for a Customer Service Rep. Each piece has strengths that can streamline and improve your client’s customer service department.
Battle Cards
How could the customer service example in the opening paragraph have gone in a better direction? Maybe the employee didn’t have the best tools to communicate well with customers. If they’d had a sales enablement battle card, perhaps the issue would have been addressed there. With it, the employee wouldn’t have to “wing” the answer to a question they were unsure about.
Battle cards for a traditional sales team might include eight to 10 elements. A customer service battle card needs only a few: Features and Benefits, Frequently Asked Questions, and Replies to Objections.
Most CSRs will have a good grasp of the main features and benefits of the company’s products. But if a company has an extensive product line, no one CSR can be an expert on all of it. Battle cards can have selling points at the rep’s fingertips, and a trained sales enablement writer can write about them persuasively. They can research and find benefits the company or rep might not think of.
The same goes for FAQs. Sales enablement copywriters have the time to research, and the skill to write persuasively about, the frequently and the not-so-frequently asked questions that could trip up a CSR.
Objections can come up in any interaction between customers and a company’s staff. A customer may not like the staff member’s solution to their issue. A good Customer Service battle card will have anticipated many of these objections. The rep will have calm and persuasive responses to them. And they won’t sound like the rep is just reading from a script.
Say an upset customer calls. “This thing doesn’t work! Where do I send it back?”
The rep opens their battle card and sees three or four responses:
- I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems. (Not “Sorry to hear that.” “You’re” is more personal.) Please tell me what’s going wrong.
- Oh, no! What product is giving you trouble?
- Thanks for getting in touch with us so we can help. Maybe you won’t have to return it. What’s not working?
Each one of those responses would have appropriate replies, based on the customer’s concern. Perhaps asking for or verifying the customer’s email address so a link to an explainer video can be sent. Because they have carefully crafted replies right in front of them, the rep won’t have to try to come up with something on the fly. Or maybe worse, read from an impersonal script written by a product or technical expert, instead of a sales enablement copywriter.
Email Templates
If a customer submits a question via a “Contact Us” form on a company’s website, their intent is probably research. The company needs to keep that prospect moving along the funnel.
The employee responding to the forms should have a template to answer the most frequently asked questions. That will speed up their response time, making it possible to answer more questions and engage more prospects.
But even rarely asked questions should have a template. A sales enablement copywriter can anticipate and research those oddball questions and write a template for each one. This saves the employee time finding answers to off-the-wall inquiries. There’s also the added benefit of persuasive writing that the copywriter can provide.
Call Scripts
Call scripts don’t have to be only for outbound cold and warm calling. Call scripts for inbound calls can help CSRs handle questions from prospective buyers. They can keep an operator from ad-libbing an answer, possibly losing a lead or a sale.
A call script can give the rep different ways to say, “I don’t know the answer to that” without upsetting the caller. A trained sales enablement writer can put those responses right on the tip of the CSR’s tongue.
- My apologies, I don’t have the answer to that handy right now. Let me look that up, and I’ll be right back.
- I think I can help you with that, but I need to be sure. Do you mind holding, or would you like me to email the answer to you?
- I’d like to verify some details before I give you an answer on that.
The conversation may take an unexpected (to the CSR) turn. Call scripts can anticipate those turns and give the CSR options to keep the conversation going.
Blog Posts
Blog articles about rarely considered benefits can help the email responder. A sales enablement writer, in their research, will probably uncover some topics that would make good blog posts. Those can go on the company’s website, and be linked to in an email reply. And since the writer wrote the posts, they’ll know which ones to reference in a template.
Explainer Videos
The same goes for explainer videos. A sales enablement copywriter can not only write the scripts showing how a product can be used or how to operate it correctly. But when that video is posted on the website, they can use that video to answer questions in reply email templates.
Everyone’s on the Sales Team
Whether they’re officially on the sales team or not, everyone who works for a company is a salesperson for that business.
Companies need to stay competitive in today’s market. You can help your clients give their front-end teams the tools to keep their customers coming back. Sales enablement is the toolbox. Battle cards, email templates, call scripts, blog posts, and explainer videos are the implements that will give your clients a step up on the rungs of Customer Service success.
Want to learn more about writing for video? Check out the self-paced course “How to Write Video Scripts,” led by Pam Foster, AWAI’s Learning Chief.
