Superb customer service is essential to your business. It lets you boost your sales. You just have to make sure that you employ support agents possessing great customer service skills, and you will be successful. You might consider expanding your customer support channels. Another option is to outsource to companies like LiveChatFairies.
It is tough to find reliable and skilled customer service representatives. Startups have it rougher. This article aims to help you by providing a compilation of the top Key Skills for Superb Customer Service. To gain a deeper understanding of excellent customer service skills, first, you need to focus on determining what customer service is and why you need it.
What is Customer Service?
Customer service is often used interchangeably with the term customer support. While the two terms are closely related, customer service is not limited to giving support through answering queries and complaints alone. Customer support is only a part of customer service, and it also plays a great role in your business.
All businesses have no reason to forget about customer service. It helps increase sales. If you have an incompetent team of support agents, it potentially breaks your businesses into pieces. If it reaches the worst, you may end up shutting down your company.
How Are You Going To Avoid This?
Here is a simple answer. You need to concentrate on determining the skills that you need to seek when hiring and training both new and existing employees in your customer service roster. You must figure out how you can help each of your agents work together to make a great team.
What customer service skills do business owners like you have to look for? All entrepreneurs and startup owners are aiming for their business to grow further. If you are running a startup, you have probably started asking questions like, “What are customer service skills do we have to look for?”
Five Key Skills for Superb Customer Service
Verbal and written communication skills
Every agent assigned to address client concerns require excellent skills in communicating with customers. They must choose the correct terminologies to use in accordance with their level of proficiency. As their supervisor, you also have to ensure they think out-of-the-box when explaining things in a simpler term. At times, the right words and tone will also depend on the personality of the person that the agent is talking to.
If you are working as a support service representative, written communication is the highest priority. It includes your ability to choose not only simple to complex terms, but also choose positive words.
For example, instead of saying, “I’m sorry but this product was being sold out”, you can say, “We currently do not have this product, but we can place your order now. It will be readily available after two weeks.”
Note that you must know your company’s business policy in order to give customers the most accurate details on what to expect or what has to be done. In addition, be always clear and concise with your explanation.
Do not forget your listening skills. It is part of effective communication. Keep in mind that this does not only apply to phone calls. It is also applicable in live chats or even email support services.
Actively listen to what your customer needs and offer solutions as much as you can. Also, stay authentic or sincere with what you are saying to them. To maintain your authenticity, focus on your goal – to help the customer and not to impress your employer or co-workers. Practice empathetic listening. Empathy will guide you to stay kind and passionate with customers.
Technical proficiency
If you are a hiring manager who is looking for a customer service specialist, we understand that it is important for you to have someone who is knowledgeable or able to use your software employed in your system. It is highly recommended to look for agents who are flexible and have a willingness to learn new things.
Understand that your system may change anytime depending on your needs. Technology also keeps upgrading and you have to follow the trends as well. It is also important that your employee is able to adjust whenever there is a change.
It is best to hire someone who has the willingness and motivation to learn. Note that attitude still plays a greater role over hard knowledge.
If you are a customer service representative, you need to be capable of working with efficiency. With that, you will have a greater chance to be hired by your prospective employer or client.
Problem-solving skills
Customers may contact your company for support services, queries, and complaints. Your customer service team has to solve your customers’ problems. Also, technical problems may occur at the back end that your team sometimes must also address them on their own.
If you are the manager or the owner of the business, you have to ensure that you build a team with people having excellence in problem-solving and decision-making. If you are an employee, you must also exhibit logical and analytical skills. This way, there will be less chaos in your work environment.
Consider the quick response of responsibility. This skill is always helpful when dealing with customers in live chat. In this role, you do not have a 24-hour break to come up with a solution to their problem. You have to think faster.
Workload management skills
Whether your company is large or not, customer service representatives are bound to deal with a heavy workload. They are not only limited to answering chats. They may also be tasked to encode or update data as they answer a variety of concerns.
Other tasks may also be added such as organizing schedules or appointments, troubleshooting, and more. Psychology may say that multitasking somehow decreases a person’s productivity, but it is still required for customer service agents to do multiple tasks without losing the quality of every output.
They should exhibit consistency with their performance or improve it up to their maximum capability. They must also use their time effectively while practicing and developing a quick and concise response.
Positive Attitude and Professionalism
Never ignore the attitude. Having a customer service representative with a negative attitude may put your business down. Unbecoming behavior and a work attitude that does not mix well with other members of the department significantly affects the quality of service that customers will receive from you.
In a team, a person having a positive attitude knows how to handle rejection and sees feedback as constructive. They also know how to appreciate each of their coworker’s efforts, no matter how big or small. For supervisors, they must possess the innate ability to accept leadership and handle the team when necessary.
As an individual service representative, they must be capable of accepting and acting under their personal responsibility. Dealing with customers or working in the back end of the service may sometimes get rough, and that is perfectly understandable. Therefore, each customer service representative must develop the skills to control every situation and maintain their composure while at work.
Of course, you should not neglect your agents’ mental health. It is important to stay healthy and to have a sound mind so that productivity will not diminish. Encourage open communication and respect among the team. If tension arises, coax your staff to release all of their negative emotions outside the work. In other cases, the intervention of the Human Resource department may be instrumental in resolving work-related misunderstandings.
In dealing with customers, representatives must know how to admit to their own mistakes and shortcomings as well as those of the company’s. No one is perfect. If you are a support agent, do not be afraid to tell the customer that you do not know the answer to their query. Make sure that you find a solution to the problem and show them that despite lacking in knowledge, you are willing to give them your best and assist them all the way.
Several businesses train their customer support staff to determine the correct timing for an escalation. Escalations in client assistance means turning over the caller or customer to another department or to a supervisor who can provide them with more concise answers to their concerns.
How to Increase Customer Service Skills
There are some ways on how to increase customer service skills. However, you must have an open mind for feedback and give yourself room for improvement. Not having these two factors will hinder you or your company from developing such skills.
If you are truly eager to improve the skills that you have, here are a few tips to ponder on:
- Do not ignore feedback.
- Ask for an end-user response.
- Engage yourself or your team in practice.
Conclusion
Customers may make your business grow, but they also have the power to break it. As an owner or a manager, you have to select your employees with caution and care.
Hire an employee with excellent customer service skills. Remember, an excellent support service background will not be complete without customer service soft skills—it is necessary for working with a team or with customers.
Stay authentic, sincere, and true. Be passionate about people and practice empathetic communication. Always leave room for improvement and seek recommendations as much as possible. Surely, it will lead to superb customer service.
Interesting Related Article: “5 Ways To Improve Customer Service for Your Business“