Here at Orlandovacation.com we work very hard to train our call center reps to be the best that they can possibly be on the phone. After all these representatives are our link to our customers, and they are a key ingredient to us having a successful business. Almost every guest our representatives talk to are computer savvy and almost all the information they are seeking can be found online, but most guests still like to talk to someone and receive a little help when planning their vacation. Here are a few tips on how to make sure your representatives are very well trained.
1) Pick the Right Candidate: The key to having a great reservationist is to start with hiring the right person for the job. When we are hiring, I don’t really care about the person’s past experience, but I do care about how long the person was at their last 2 or 3 jobs. A person who stays 2 or more years with a company and doesn’t jump around a lot is key; after all, training is not cheap and it also takes quite a bit of time. I don’t want to waste a bunch of time and money if the person is not going to be around very long. I also hire candidates with a great personality. A reservationist is talking to our guest all day every day so I want our guest to have a great experience booking their reservation, and a person with a fun, bubbly personality goes a long way to achieving that experience.
2) See all the properties in person: We are lucky, we only make reservations and booking for Orlando hotels so it is easy for our representatives to go see all the properties we represent. We not only make sure our representatives see the properties when they are in training, but we also make sure that all our reps go and see all our properties at least once a year. We also encourage them to spend the night at some of the hotels (we pay for their stay of course). By visiting or staying at the property our representatives get to experience what the guest will experience when they stay at the resorts, and we find it is much easier for our reps to actually portray the property to the guest.
3) Play Ring Ring: Before our representatives ever talk to a live guest we play a game we call ring ring. This is where another person in the office calls the rep and acts like a guest wanting to make reservations. We allow all the other sales representatives to play ring ring with the new hire. By allowing all the people in the office to play this game with the new rep we can make sure he or she is very well prepared to take calls from actual guests. Some of the people in the office are really easy on the new hire and give them an easy booking scenario and others in the office like to make it really difficult.
4) Test: We make sure our representatives take test on our properties, our company policies, and back end system before they ever talk to guest. We put a lot of stock into these tests, and the representative must put some time into studying or they will not pass. If a representative does not pass these tests then there is a chance we will have to terminate their position and hire someone else. We expect our representatives to take training very seriously and put some real effort into learning everything they can about the position to be successful.
5) Don’t give scripts: We are a firm believer in not giving our representatives scripts to read. We want their personalities to shine through and we do not want them to sound robotic on the phone to our guest. We want their true feelings and bubbly personality to shine through.
