From Adam Toporek at Customers That Stick:
Scripts work when you need to equip team members with the proper language and the proper information to handle specific interactions with customers — and they do not have the skill set necessary to do so without a script.
The key distinction to bear in mind is that Customer service scripts are a starting point, never a finishing point.
Can’t say I’m a fan of scripts in most situations. As a training tool – yeah, maybe. As a last resort kind of option. But even then, the person needs to know that this is only a general outline. They need to be encouraged to tweak it to fit their personality. It’s a teaching tool only on it’s best day in the right hands. But they’ll never take the place of actual training with a great support rep.
What situations have you seen a script work in?
I haven’t used scripts in CS – fair warning. However, the times when I’ve seen scripts work in community management/moderation are when you are dealing with a highly sensitive situation such as potential fraud or something like suicide threats where there are both legal & compassion issues at stake, and there are certain steps the moderator needs to walk someone through, and certain kinds of reactions they should avoid.
I would imagine they might work if you regularly had a similar situation come up in your support (for instance, if you ran a game and a user said they felt addicted and unable to stop playing and asked you to help them). A script in these cases can make sure the person deals with the important points we may need to cover from a legal or just a human compassionate point of view and also can point out “do not say $x”.
I agree with Chase that these are only a starting point though.
Great point Katherine! Those extremely sensitive situations could call for them.