1. Patience
Patience is greatly underestimated, and yet it is one of the foundations of almost any success. And nothing teaches patience like working from 9 to 5 in a contact center. If you currently work in a place like this, you know very well how annoying customers can be. You also know very well that both in sales and in customer service, patience is a highly desirable trait. I might even say that patience is essential to doing such a job. If you get nervous about every clumsy client and every prolonged conversation – it will be hard for you to stay in the position and work will become a torment. If you have never had enough patience and would like to learn it – the call center is the perfect place.
2. Composure
This point ties in with point # 1 – patience and composure go hand in hand. At first, it will be hard for you to keep your nerves, especially when you encounter a very irritating client. But you won’t be able to help him if you feel his mood. You will quickly notice how important composure is and how much it helps you and the people who contact you. After a few weeks you will notice that it’s hard to upset you and the things that at the beginning made you boil with anger do not bother you at all today and you can deal with them LIKE A BOSS 🙂
3. Rapid response
Probably more than once you have called an online store or a bank and asked for a change in the order or for performing some operation. Nothing pisses you off more than a not-so-brisk consultant who answers your questions after a minute’s break with the words “please be patient for a moment”. Such an experience is not pleasant, especially since in many cases both the client and the company you work for will depend on time. Therefore, working in a call center will teach you to react quickly and, often, to improvise – because problems vary – not all of them will be discussed during training sessions.
4. Empathy
Working as a telephone consultant is not easy. But there are many ways to make it simpler and more enjoyable (check this 5 simple tricks). Such work also teaches you many things and, if you want to, can make you more sensitive to other people. Yes – empathy is not an emotion – it is a skill, meaning you can learn it or become better at it. All you need to do is pay attention to the problems of the people you talk to and have at least a little bit of willingness to feel and understand them. Doing so will surely increase your empathy level. If you don’t cultivate negative emotions, your level of empathy will only increase. If you want to know more about empathy and learn how to bulid empathy on a world scale – in unfriendly reality – I reccomend you this book.
5. Computer skills
Call centers are often visited by people who have not yet dealt with computer operation at a more advanced level. If you are one of these people – don’t worry! Call centers’ are a great place where you can learn how to use e.g. sales management systems and other software. In addition to the fact that you will be more efficient at using a computer, the knowledge you will gain about other applications will certainly be useful for your professional career.
6. Collaboration with people
Call centers’ are a place that teaches you how to cooperate with other team members as well as healthy competition if you are working on a sales project. This is a very valuable skill that you will surely need in the future. The call center will teach you how to cooperate not only with the members of your team, but also with the management and clients who you will contact by phone.
7. How a large company operates
Working in a call center, you have the opportunity to see “from the inside” how a large company works. You can:
- observe the relationships between the departments of the company, the activities of the management staff
- experience and find out which aspects have the greatest impact on the smooth functioning of the company (you will notice that, for example, customer service, although not always selling directly, has a huge impact on sales).
- see which customer or product is most profitable. You are probably wondering: “what do I need this knowledge for?”
If you have the ambition to create a similar company in the future – not necessarily from the same industry – these lessons will be invaluable for you. And in addition, they will pay you for them 🙂
8. Sales
Probably the most practical of all the skills you will acquire in a call center. You can learn to sell not only on sales projects. In customer service, so-called up-selling is also often required. You will learn sales techniques (active listening, mirroring, low ball and many, many others). Also you will learn to use them in practice. Also you will get to know many types of customers and acquire skills that will allow you to close the sale with each of them. You will also learn to work with a so-called “difficult client”. You can read more about a difficult client in the e-book Telesamurai – Path of calling warriors.
9. Customer service
Regardless of whether you are working in a call center right now, planning to change jobs, or want to build a great company, customer service is essential and you need to learn it. There is no other way to learn customer service other than… customer service. A contact center is a place that teaches this like no other. It is not a complete customer service experience as we are not in contact with the customer face-to-face, but it allows you to go through many stressful situations that are part of the daily bread in this job. Why is a call center an ideal place to learn customer service? Because you can “practice” in a safer and less demanding form, which is undoubtedly a telephone conversation.
10. Product / industry knowledge
As I mentioned in point 9 – working in telemarketing you have an advantage because you do not have to acquire 100% of knowledge right away. Of course, you should know the basics of the product or service for which you are responsible, but you can always ask for details or read unnoticed during the conversation. However, it does not change the fact that after some time you will start remembering more and more information and your level of knowledge about a given industry or product will reach a very high level. You will be able to use this information creatively in your private life, e.g. when dealing with a problem that requires specialist knowledge or helping someone else to solve a problematic issue. You can always show off your knowledge at a meeting with your friends 🙂