The standard greeting when calling a company’s contact centre usually goes along the lines of “Welcome to xxx, you are speaking with yyy. How can I help you today”. Nothing wrong with that, it’s absolutely fine.

For front line staff, it’s hard to inject any flavour or personality here when the phone scripts used are locked down in the interest of creating a consistent, professional customer greeting. In large call centres, this is monitored to make sure the customer is told we are ready to help. Every company intends to create a good customer experience.

I thought to myself about this and how generic and robotic this can be for both parties. Many times when the call goes longer than usual, for instance waiting on something to update or process, the call for help becomes conversational outside of the problem being discussed. I remembered lately that I regularly I get asked ‘Where are you from’.

An ‘aha’ moment. People are curious to know who and where they are calling. Are they calling the same city, a different city, overseas etc. When they find out which city, they will ask subsequent questions such as the weather there or if they know an event taking place, they will elaborate on it.

Try changing your contact centre’s greeting to state what city you helping from, for example:“Welcome to xxx, you are speaking with yyy and I’m in Melbourne. How can I help you today”.

I think you will be surprised at the response from your customer and the greater connection your company can form. Give it a try and see how you go!