Rapport building is an integral part of the communication process. Lack of, or absence of rapport can fundamentally affect the outcome of any conversation. Isn’t it true that sometimes we just ‘click’ with some people and get on really well with them? In such instances the conversation runs smoothly, it is enjoyable and the results are so much better than when the communication is strained and we fail to ‘gel’ with the person we are talking to. 

Telephone conversations in call centres are a prime example of how rapport can help the outcome. You may have a limited time to allocate to your caller so you need to maximise that time effectively to get the information you need to be able to provide the best service. Good rapport will get you there faster. 

Good rapport isn’t about ‘making best friends’ with your caller it means that a comfortable ‘state’ where all parties converse freely and comfortably is created. The extra benefit is that it makes the time you spend with your caller more enjoyable. Here are some tips for creating good rapport. 

1)     Open the call with a smile – believe it, a smile can be heard and a ‘smiling voice’ is more welcoming and relaxing. Your caller will subconsciously appreciate it and like you. 

2)     Start the conversation with a ‘warm up’, a simple question that will let your caller know you are human! This could be ‘how is your day so far’, or ‘how is the weather where you are today, better than here I hope!’. Most people will respond to you in a friendly manner and it helps to relax you and your caller by ‘breaking the ice’. Reply to their answer with a relevant but positive response and then move the call forward such as:‘That’s great, I’m glad you are having a good day. How can I help with your call today, or ‘So the weather is as bad as it is here, never mind, the sun could be out tomorrow for us. ‘How can I help with your call today’.     

3)     Listen well – avoid distractions and allow yourself to concentrate on your caller and their conversation.   

4)     Let the caller know you are listening by responding with gentle and soft ‘ums and ‘ahs’ as they speak.   5)     Allow the speaker to finish what they are saying – practise this with every call. If you interrupt your caller could become frustrated. 

6)     Use words that your caller uses in their conversation, especially any adjectives – the words they use to describe something. They have chosen to use the words, so they have a relevance to the content, an alternative word may not have the same meaning for them. Example: your caller says ‘The results were excellent’. In this instance the word ‘excellent’ was chosen because it reflects what the speaker felt. To build rapport use the same word back at any relevant time. Example: ‘I agree with what you said earlier, the results were excellent’. If you were to reply with: ‘I agree with what you said earlier, the results were ok’, it will subconsciously confuse your caller because they didn’t say ‘ok’; their chosen word was ‘excellent’.  7)     Show empathy with your caller, to show empathy means to share in  another’s emotions, thoughts, or feelings, and is a great way of building rapport. Empathy can be shown by using phrases such as: ‘I understand what you mean’. ‘I can see where you are coming from’. ‘That must have made you feel really good’, ‘I understand why you would think that way’. 

     Be yourself and relax. If you are uptight or trying to be someone or something you are not, it will act as a barrier to building rapport.  9)     If you read a script as part of your job, put your own personality into it so that it sounds as though the words are your words and that you are not reading from a piece of paper. Use inflection, modulation and pitch to help make the script interesting for the listener. Your caller will thank you for it, isn’t it true that we sometimes ‘switch off’ when we hear what sounds like a script being read to us? 

10) Be friendly, it is possible to remain professional and courteous and still be friendly. This is easily achieved by using good inflection and modulation in your voice, by showing an interest in your callers conversation and by sharing laughter and lighthearted moments when the opportunity to do so arises during the call.  Enjoy your rapport building it will make your calls more productive and pleasant for both you and your caller.

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1)     Prevent yourself from being distracted by colleagues or external noises and concentrate on what your caller is saying.

2)     Listen to the emotion in your callers voice, does it match or endorse the words they are using?

3)     Ask questions to gain more information on points you need to clarify.

4)     You listen more effectively when you’re not talking so refrain from interrupting your caller,  let them finish what they are saying, interruptions may break their train of thought.

5)     Avoid pre-empting what your caller is going to say, chances are you will be wrong and miss some of the content of their conversation.

6)     Summarise and reflect back to check you have heard the key facts and content of the callers conversation correctly. It also lets the caller know you have understood them. Use statements such as  “What I’m hearing is…” and “Sounds like you are saying…” are great ways to reflect back and summarise.

7)     If you are having difficulty listening make the necessary adjustments. You might say, “I’m sorry I missed that last point. Please repeat that for me.”

     Have a pen and paper to hand and get into the habit of making short quick references to any questions you want to ask or points you wish to raise or comment on. When your caller has finished speaking refer back to your notes and take action. If you are thinking of answers and responses whilst the caller is speaking, you are not listening.

9)     Avoid stereotyping individuals by making assumptions about how you expect them to act and what you expect them to say. This will bias your listening.

10) Listen for the key words, nouns and verbs – they are the words that deliver the main content of a sentence. 

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For many people the response to this would be ‘no’ – as how can body language be important if the caller can’t see the person they are talking to?  Before this question can be fully answered, we need to understand the part body language plays during the communication process. 

First of all let’s get down to basics.  A message (conversation) is communicated to the receiver by words, the way the words are spoken and body language.  

People are surprised when they are introduced to the statistics which indicate that only 7% of the message is transferred and understood by actual words used, 38% is transferred as a result of the way the words are spoken and a massive 55% by body language. Incidentally these statistics refer to a conversation that is face to face. Logic tells us that if the conversation is over the telephone the body cannot be seen which means that a massive 55% of the method for transferring the message is lost. To that end, one could argue therefore that body language does not even come into the equation when talking on the telephone. That isn’t the case though – the body also has a massive effect on our breathing pattern which in turn has a massive effect on the way the words are spoken. 

When body language is used as a method to understanding the meaning of a message being communicated to us, it makes reference not only to the actions of the body, but also to facial expressions.  If someone is gesturing wildly, with arms and hands pointing towards us with a firm action and being repeated at speed, we will assume that they are not very happy. Without hearing any words we can conclude that these are the actions of an angry man. How we react to that is based on our own responses. People could react quite differently to an angry looking person. The anger could be reflected back with the person on the receiving end, responding with fear or nervousness - and some may even burst in to laughter as a way of responding. Whatever the response, the message indicated is loud and clear and without the use of words. That’s how powerful body language can be, when communication takes place in an environment where the receiver can see the message sender.  

If the telephone is introduced into the process the receiver cannot see the message sender. This means that a massive 55% of the transfer process is lost – we can’t see the message sender’s body so how can it be used to transfer a message to us. Most certainly, if we take the example above where the man communicated anger without actually saying anything the introduction of the telephone would have prevented the receiver from understanding the message. People rarely pick up the phone to communicate and say nothing, words or sounds are generally uttered. Words will be introduced into the conversation – no doubt if we continue with the same example of the angry person, the words will endorse and match his feelings. In addition the way he says the words will also replicate his feelings. It would be quite unlikely that someone with enraged anger displayed by body actions and endorsed with words would be able to say those words in a calm and collected manner.  

If we are angry, it is evident by our facial expression. If we are happy, it is evident by our facial expression. The muscles in our face are numerous – we have more muscles from our shoulders up than from our shoulders down! Movement of muscles will affect the sound of the voice.  We have all heard the comment – you can hear someone smiling and it is true. If we smile our voice is lighter, higher and indicates happiness.  

If we show anger on our faces the muscles affect our voice too, it will be deeper and more stressed.  Facial expressions affect our voice and our voice transfers key parts of a message to help the receiver understand what is being communicated. Whether the conversation takes place on the telephone or face to face, the facial expression which is part of body language plays a major role in the communication process. 

The pace of their voice maybe faster than normal, their voice may be deeper than normal, the words may be clipped and sharp in the way they were spoken, their breathing would no doubt be faster which would also have an effect on how the words were uttered. Quite simply their body language would have a massive effect on how the words were said and that contribute to the 38% of the message transfer.   When someone is speaking on the telephone their body language will still reflect their mood and feelings. It happens unconsciously. Who would stop to think; “Ah the person I’m talking to cannot see me so there is no need to move my arms and used facial expressions”? 

Breathing patterns play a major role in how words are spoken. As the air from our lungs is exhaled, it passes over the vocal chords which vibrate to make a sound. This sound affects the way we say words. Breathe either quickly or slowly and it has a major effect on the vibration. Breath in a shallow manner and that too has an effect on the vibration. For the exhaled air to pass over the vocal chords the passage way has to be clear. Crunch your body and the passage way starts to become restricted. Restriction starts to happen when we sit down. This is because our normal reaction is to lower our head and shoulders. Try this simple exercise. 1)      Stand up so the air passage is open and say ‘good morning’. 2)      Sit down and relax into your chair so that your shoulders and chin are relaxed and say ‘good morning’. Can you hear the difference?3)      Remain seated sit up in your chair, look ahead and repeat ‘good morning’ again. Can you hear the difference this time? Quite clearly the position of the body has a fundamental effect on how words sound. When our shoulders and chin are dropped the words are more muffled. This could give someone listening to us the impression that we sound unhappy, unconcerned or even bored and uninterested. This may not be the case – in fact it probably isn’t but that is the message that the person we are talking to will receive.  

So this is one instance when body language plays an important part when we communicate over the telephone. A recent example was someone who received a call from the hospital where their mother had been admitted after a stroke. Someone from the hospital made a telephone call to the daughter. The caller spoke with a very slow pace and the pitch of their voice was very low and the tone very deep. This slow, deep tone of the voice meant the patients’ daughter think she was hearing bad news. She didn’t hear the words that were spoken, just by way they were said. The caller was in fact notifying the daughter that her mother had been transferred to another word. If the words had been spoken with a faster pace and a higher pitch she would have concluded it was a regular call with some general information – no cause to worry.  This is a classic example of how the tone, pitch and pace of the voice are affected by body language which as a result gives the incorrect meaning to the words spoken.  

So we have considered three ways that body language affects the voice which in turn affects the way the words are spoken. This in turn is a key way that the receiver understands the message being sent in a conversation.  1)      Gestures – lead to facial expression. Facial expressions affect the voice and the way the voice says the words 2)      Breathing patterns – affect they way words are spoken and can give false messages Be aware of your body language, the way you sit stand when on the telephone, and your breathing patterns. They all affect how you speak. Body language clearly does matter on the telephone if we want to send messages that are clearly and correctly understood.

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Be specific Make sure your feedback is clear and focused on the performance and don’t personalise it. Explain what the problem is, why it important that the employee achieves the performance expected. If you have raised your concerns before about the same problem, remind the employee when you have pointed out the offence in the past. Simply telling them what was wrong won’t help them change their behaviour, discuss how the employee can improve or avoid the mistake in the future, get their input. Make sure you add a time frame when you want to see the improvement by.  

Give timely feedback. Make the individual aware of what they did as soon as you can after the event, so they can recall what as happened. However be aware of their emotional state, before you give the feedback, perhaps you may need to wait until the employee has calmed down and can think clearly about what has happened. But don’t wait days or weeks, to provide feedback, when the problem has become a distant memory and don’t save telling the person until you have your next meeting, this could turn your meetings into a negative event.  

Check understanding. When summarising back to the employee, avoid asking ‘Do you understand’ they may merely say ‘yes.’ Ask them to summarise back to you, what you want them to do to improve, and when you want to see the improvement by, this way you know that they have understood what was said.

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There are many companies who offering specialised training to call centres throughout the UK but very few of these will carry out any research before starting a job. Beyond The Box was commissioned by the Co-operative Bank to identify the training needs and requirements of 100 inbound telephone sales staff. The overall objective of this exercise was to deliver increased levels of sales and customer service by providing the right training course for the right staff.Christine Knott, Director of Beyond The Box, undertook extensive research in order to meet this objective. The purpose of the research was to establish whether the department had a suitable foundation on which it could reach its desired goals. This included looking at whether the current method and times of training delivery was suitable and gauging the response of the advisors towards the training they received.

“It is vital when designing bespoke training courses for companies to ascertain what the current level of understanding is at all levels within the company. If individual objectives have been set then these need to be compared with the overall objective of the training. To do a training job properly you have to get under the skin of an organisation and understand how it works so that the course that you design will actually work from the ground level up,” said Christine.

The research used several methods including interviewing staff at all levels including those in the front line, dealing with the calls, through to staff at managerial level. Beyond The Box also prepared an analysis of current call standards and attended team meetings to assess communication levels within the department.

The Co-operative Bank also had objectives for each member of staff and Beyond The Box looked into all of these objectives and how these linked into the departments’ overall objectives.

The results of the research indicated that certain measures needed to be taken before any training delivery would be beneficial. Julie Marsh, Customer Service Manager at the Co-operative Bank comments, “Following Christine’s recommendations and guidance, we have carried out some extensive groundwork and any training delivered will be far more successful as a result.

“The research undertaken by Beyond The Box was, in my experience, far more detailed than any other company I have worked with and it exceeded my expectations. More importantly it was undertaken in a professional and non- threatening manner. Positive feedback about Christine’s approach and style were made by all members of staff who came into contact with her. It is refreshing to see a forward thinking company who are keen to see real results rather than just delivering empty training solutions for financial gain.”

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