Having looked at the actual work, some common myths associated with call centre (like “it’s just about answering a phone”) etc should have been demystified. Like any other industry there are some skills that are required to work in the call centre. These skills can be broadly classified under the following heads

1.    Basic English Skills
2.    Accent Skills
3.    Telephone Skills
4.    Cultural Awareness Skills
5.    Empathy Skills
6.    Personality Development and Customer Service

We shall now look at the need for each of these skills and consequently the need for being trained in the same.


Basic English Skills
Since English is a second language for most people and people are not always proficient in the same most call centre focus on building Basic English competency before proceeding to other training. This is required as most of the work would involve English as the communication media and since the job is highly customer facing and involving a lot of verbal and non-verbal communication, a basic level of competence in English is a must to work in this industry.


Accent Training
Every person will have some element of residual accent from his mother tongue in any language that he/she speaks. Though this is an acceptable element in most areas of work, the kind of dedicated constant one-to-one interaction that a call centre worker exposes themselves to makes it desirable to reduce the strength of that accent in favour of a “standard” or target pronunciation. English speakers with foreign language influence, which is the case in India, often are unable to create the standard phonemes (sounds) of English because of lack of familiarity and proper training. They also are not very adept at speaking with English-standard stress, intonation or rhythm. This is because those sounds, stresses and intonation patterns may differ in their native language, leading to a “strong” accent, or an accent heavily affected by the first language.

In Accent training (sometimes called Accent Reduction or Accent Neutralization) the regional or first-language influence on the pronunciation of English is systematically reduced to get a “neutral” accent. Though each institute uses their own techniques of doing the same normally this involves three steps: Recognition, Reproduction and Repetition.


Telephone Skills Training
The ability to effectively communicate with customer and colleagues is a key skill that most people look for in a call centre employee.  A primary ingredient of successful communication by the employee is telephone skills when communicating with customers.  As said earlier the impact of First Language Influence (FLI) on an employee’s communication skills cannot be underestimated and they need to be able to communicate more effectively and efficiently with customers and colleagues in spite of this. Also they need skills to build empathy and rapport and strengthen relationships with colleagues and customers through the limited interaction media of phone as that is what their work will involve. This makes telephone skill training very essential.


Empathy Skills Training
Another important skill that employers look for from potential employees is empathy skills. Empathy (or rather the lack of it) is an important communication challenge that call centre executives face because of a variety of reasons like limited interaction possibilities over phone, cultural differences etc. Especially in India the ability to demonstrate empathy and form an emotional relationship with the foreign customer is a huge hurdle that most call centre employees face. Hence this work requires a lot of emotional labour along with the normal labour and the ability to empathize with your customers and put yourself in their own shoes. Too often, laboured language or a robotic and monotone voice is interpreted by the customer as demonstrating a complete lack of empathy and emotional bond and this can lead to issues including irate and unsatisfied customers. Empathy skill training helps mitigate these problems and helps the call centre employee build instant rapport with his clients making his work both joyful and successful.


Cultural Awareness Training
When a call centre employee is talking to a customer from a different country, it is not just a simple exchange of words that is happening, but a virtual connection between two very different cultures is established. One’s culture dictates the style of the communication as well as the content, for example the response-answer model as well as words used might vary from culture to culture and this can raise barriers as a subtext to the actual conversation. Values, assumptions and perceptions are things that govern the way we behave and interact, and these are largely conditioned by culture. The way we behave from the way we stand and talk, to the way we deal with superiors, conflict and decision-making, the courtesy levels we expect etc are hugely influenced by our culture and they are imbibed so very deep that we act upon them instinctively, which if not handled properly can lead to substantial misunderstanding and mis-communication.

Nowhere can this be more detrimental than in a virtual conversation between call centre employee and a customer, where misunderstandings based on culture can make a call succeed or fail. Hence for effective communication, there is a high need for cultural awareness on the side of the BPO employee which the institutes can train him/her for.


Personality Development and Customer Service
Along with all the functional knowledge most institutes also undertake personality development as this is very important for a customer facing job like this. Also most institutes give coaching for passing that all-important job interview by giving tips and tricks on handling interview questions etc.

Also as ones career progresses one has to take on leadership roles etc like team lead, project lead etc and this can happen only with the right set of skills and a pleasing personality that can get jobs done. This makes personality development a very important topic in the long term development of a call centre career/Customer service etiquette are also required for obvious reasons and they are very much similar to personality deployment as both deal with increasing one’s ability to effectively deal with people.  Though not stressed in a lot of entry level programmes, it is an essential part of the training and should be taken seriously and if an institute does not provide it, it’s a good enough reason to find another one.

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