How to be less awkward whilst working at a call centre?

[lynks]

I work at a call centre for a charity to fundraise. It's a job to fill in between jobs.

When we telephone we have to try and have a nice conversation with them, but we have a script so it can feel quite forced. I really hate it. It is a very good cause to be fair, and many people we speak to are quite wealthy. Often I have to phone regular donors and ask them to increase the amount... but I'm new to the job so don't want to muck up and annoy the person and then lose the charity money.

I cringe everytime I talk to people on the phone, and obviously some people are extremely rude/throw you a clanger that the script isn't prepared for .

Just be yourself? I've worked in call centers for years and consider myself a highly skilled customer service agent. The only way I have found to 1. Enjoy the job and 2. Make good rapport is to be confident and be yourself.

Any contact centre that makes you stick to a 'script' and nothing outside of it is allowed is a really really shit one.

People want to speak to people who sound like people. Not robots

There is no way for it to be less cringey it is cringey and cheeky to ask for more. Its sales basically. So read books on selling to people.

Exactly. Be yourself. We had scripts for a public service and it was crap. I avoided the prescriptive dialogue and although I may have taken a bit longer, I gained more useful information than than my drone colleagues ever did ( I may have annoyed my bosses in provoking more complex investigations when they wanted to knock everything on the head) but I was public minded not corporate bollocks.

It's about tone of voice. Yes, the script is important, but be conversational with it, try and create some rapport with customers by being human.