By
Eleonora Pessina
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Date Published: June 14, 2021 - Last Updated June 18, 2021
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An IndustryVoices sponsored post
We have all been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. From alterations to the way we work and learn to new ways of interacting with friends and family, we’ve all undergone changes. Contact center agents and managers have also faced unexpected and challenging hurdles, ranging from higher call volumes and longer calls to more complex and sensitive issues. These problems require strong English skills now more than ever to address.
Improving contact center performance through training is an excellent tool, and one way to address the challenges brought on by the pandemic. Properly assessing and testing candidates before they are hired will make that tool even more effective. Knowing that all candidates have the potential for job success will mean that training and development can be used to hone and refine their skills, instead of merely bringing them up to the minimum level. Chief amongst these skills is English. Having the right English skills in place in your contact center will ensure that customers have better experiences and that business objectives can be achieved.
Why are strong English skills so important? When a customer needs to frequently repeat oneself on the phone, frustrations rise and the length of the call is extended. As written in ContactCenterWorld.com, with such proper training then agents can avoid situations in which they inadvertently affect customer satisfaction.
Not all English assessment tools are the same, and it pays to be careful to make sure the tool you use gives you the most complete picture of each candidate or team member’s English skills. Here we provide a brief list of what to look for in an English assessment tool:
The productive English skills that are assessed during the screening process, which can predict the on-the-job success of the agent, are:
- The quality of the communication and listening skills
- The ability to understand language and queries
- Information relaying and coherent sentence structure
- Efficient reading skills
- Open questioning and information discovery skills
A good English assessment should include thorough questions on the following:
- Sentence building and structure
- Story gathering and retelling
- Short and understandable questioning
- Reading and storing information
- Repeating of information
- Ability to answer open questioning
When it comes to customer experience, your frontline contact center workforce is only as effective as their language skills. With this in mind, it pays to make sure you are utilizing an English assessment that thoroughly illuminates exactly the level of English mastery of each candidate or team member.