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When Customer Service Scripts Work

March 27, 2013 By Chase Clemons 2 Comments

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?

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Comments

  1. Katherine Mancuso says

    April 13, 2013 at 5:10 pm

    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.

    Reply
    • Chase Clemons says

      April 13, 2013 at 6:51 pm

      Great point Katherine! Those extremely sensitive situations could call for them.

      Reply

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