Pansage

When we talk about customer service skills, things like “being a people’s person” tends to take the spotlight. This is the traits which entrepreneurs always look for when hiring all important people who will be taking care of their customers.

So let’s know some specific skills that every support employee can master to create a “wow” feeling to the customer while speaking with them.

Patience 

The first skills that you need to acquire to be good in customer service are to have patience. Remember when a customer is coming to you they may have complain against your product or services, they may be confused or frustrated. So being in customer care position it is your first responsibility to have patience and listen to your customer properly. When you spent time with the customer it would be better understand their problems and needs from the company. So If you deal with customers on a daily basis, be sure to stay patient when they come to you stumped and frustrated, and be sure to take the time to truly figure out what they want — they’d rather get competent service than be rushed out the door!

Attentiveness

The ability to listen to customers is crucial for providing a great service. It is not only important to pay attention to individual customer interactions like watching the language/terms that they use to describe their problems, but it’s also important to be mindful and attentive to the feedback that you receive at large. For example , customers may not be saying it complete, Customers aren’t likely to say, “Please improve your UX! (Users Experience),” but they may say things like, “I can never find the search feature,” or, “Where is the _UX____ function?” So you have to identify what are your customers telling you without saying it? And for this you need to be attentive as much as possible.

Clear Communication Skills

Make sure as soon as you are getting to the problem of the customer at hand try to resolve it quickly. As customer will not be interested to listen to your life story or to hear about how your day is going.  Another thing you need to be cautious about how some of your communication habits translate to customers, and it is better for you when you are having an ideal time to think you should question yourself a situation as being a customer.

For example If a customer wanted to get an oil change, when to get some work done in his car the customer care executive said “ it would be “included” in your final bill. And the customer thought that it meant he will be getting it for free, but actual case was not that, the employee may apologize but that customer may never come to that shop because of the miscommunication

So when it comes to important points that you need to relay clearly to customers, keep it simple and leave nothing to doubt.

Product Knowledge

Being good in customer service you must have the proper knowledge of the product rather to have deep knowledge of the product .Without knowing your product from front to back, you won’t know how to help customers when they run into problems. You should know the ins and outs of how your product works. Just like a customer who uses it every day. And for that reason a new help desk employee is trained on customer support during their first or second week on the job — it’s a very critical component for company.

Use Positive Language

Language is a very important part of influence, and people (especially customers) create perceptions about you and your company based on the language that you use. For example: Let’s say a customer contacts you with an interest in a particular product, but that product happens to be back ordered until next month.

Small changes that take up “positive language” can greatly affect how the customer hears your response…

• Without positive language: “I can’t get you that product until next month; it is unavailable at this time.”
• With positive language: “That product will be available in next month. I can place the order for you right now and make sure that it is sent to you as soon as it reaches our warehouse.”

Here the first example is sounds negative, and the tone it conveys feels abrupt and impersonal, and can be taken the wrong way by customers, especially in email support. On the other hand, the second example is stating the same thing (the item is unavailable), but instead focuses on when/how the customer will get to their resolution rather than focusing on the negative.

Acting Skills

Sometimes you come across people whom you’ll never be able to make happy. Either they had a terrible day, or they are just a natural-born complainer. They make situations outside of your control which will sometimes creep into your usual support routine. Every great customer service representative will have those basic acting skills necessary to maintain their usual cheery character in spite of dealing with people who may be just plain irritable.

Time Management Skills

It is an obvious fact that why you should spend more time with customers, when the bottom line is that there is a limit, and you need to be concerned with getting customers what they want in an efficient manner. The trick here is that this should also be applied when realizing that you simply cannot help a customer. If you don’t know the solution to a problem, don’t waste time trying to go above and beyond for a customer in an area where you will just end up wasting both of your time!

Ability to ‘Read’ Customers

You won’t always be able to see customers face-to-face, and in many instances (nowadays) you won’t even hear a customer’s voice! That doesn’t excuse you from understanding some basic principles of behavioral psychology and being able to “read” the customer’s current emotional state. This is an important part, and this skill is essential because you don’t want to misread your customer and end up losing them just due to the confusion and miscommunication. Look and listen for subtle clues about your customer’s current mood, patience level, personality, etc., and you’ll go far in keeping your customer interactions positive.

Stay Cool Under Pressure

Staying cool under pressure is the ability required by the customer support person. Some people have to stay calm and even influence others when things get a little hectic. The best customer service representatives know that they can’t let a heated customer force them to lose their cool in fact it is their job to try to be the “rock” for a customer who thinks the world is falling down due to their current problem.

Persuasion Skills

Experienced customer support personnel know that oftentimes, you will get messages in your inbox that are more about the curiosity of your company’s product, rather than having problems with it. Especially if your email is available on-site. If you want to take your customer service skills to the next level, you need to have some mastery of persuasion so you can convince interested customers that your product is right for them.

Tenacity

Another very important customer skill is that to have a great tenacity or willingness to do what needs to be done and not take shortcuts is a key skill when providing the kind of service that people talk about. Remember that your customers are people too, and if you put an extra effort result will come back to you and drive your motivation. So never “cheat” your customers with lazy service.

Closing Ability

Being able to close with a customer means being able to end the conversation with confirmed satisfaction or as close to it as you can achieve and with the customer feeling that everything has been taken care of (or will be).

When you get a customer to, “Yes, I’m all set!” is when you know the conversation is over.

So now it is your turn!

Know which of the above customer service skills you feel is most important? And what you don’t have acquired the same to have a sharp grip on customer service skills.