subject: Telemarketing: How Soft Skills Matter [print this page] The telemarketing sector is high on technology. But that does not mean that manpower has not much of a role to play. Call center agents have equal credit for the success of a telemarketing services project. But the question is: do you need some special qualities to be a BPO agent? The answer is yes and no at the same time. Yes, because you will need to be above-average in certain marketing skills to be good at call center services. The answer is also no because with a little application of common sense and soft skills, you can be good at BPO service without a doubt. Let's find out how you can be good at telemarketing.
Point 1: You need marketing acumen. A telemarketing agent is first a marketer and then something else. Call center agents who don't make the mark as good marketers don't make good agents either. Telemarketing services will need exploiting those marketing and promotional ideas that will take your product/service beyond the limits it is enveloped in. BPO agents are often on their own with very little assistance from the upper levels of the hierarchy. That's when the agent needs to think of his feet and come up with solutions.
Point 2: The telemarketing executive needs to be a "people's person". Telemarketing services is all about interacting with customers and trying to sell to prospective customers. On a very skeletal level, call center agents have to talk to people and make them understand the features and the value-adds of what they are trying to sell. This requires a pronounced gift of the gab and a lot of convincing powers. You cannot mumble your way through. To make a sale, the BPO agent has to be forceful in his opinion.
Point 3: Clarity of speech is important for lead generation as well as for answering service. So the BPO service person has to realize that the accent and the diction may not match with that of the person on the other end of the phone. That's when the call center person has to speak clearly and fluently. The gift of the gab, as they call it, is the greatest gift of the telemarketing agent. The products/services sell more on the convincing powers of the agents than on the features. A successful agent should be backed to a long way just on the basis of their persuasive skills.
Point 4: Being a sympathetic listener is one underrated soft skill that telemarketers need. Consumers sometime like to share their concerns with the telemarketing agent. If they feel that the call center person that they are talking to is genuinely interested in the problems that he's talking about, it builds up a strong sense of belonging. That is strong enough to stop the consumers from moving over to a rival competitor.
Point 5: Telemarketing agents have to be dynamic. They must think on their feet. Calls in call centers are different and need to be treated differently. The cardinal rule is that there is no rule.
