Soft Skills That Can Make Your Customer Service Stand Out

The quality of soft skills that your customer service representatives demonstrate determines the quality of service that they are most likely to provide to your customers. While soft skills cannot be quantified, they are crucial to the success of your customer service initiatives. Soft skills may include skills such as problem solving, communication, and teamwork, but when it comes to customer service, you will need three main soft skills- patience, critical observation, and conflict resolution to win the customer service game.

The field of customer service requires employees to practice patience in all their interactions with their clients. However, this seems to be a difficult target to achieve with clients adopting a “right-now” attitude and demanding instant immediate responses and resolutions. You need patience to listen to your customers and to devise appropriate strategies to help them overcome their problems. When you have high level of patience, you are not only able to control your emotions, but you are also able to reduce your stress levels, understand others’ feelings, and make wiser decisions. When you maintain patience during tough conversations, you are more likely to end the discussion with positive outcomes.

Your employees have critical observation skills if they are able to think critically and conduct an in-depth analysis of scenarios in their attempt to create workable strategies to solve their customers’ issues. In simple terms, critical observation is the ability to think beyond normal observations and analyze a situation in order to identify feasible solutions. This typically involves identifying a problem that is not explicitly stated and resolving the issue with innovative solutions.

Conflict situations can prove to be tough to handle, but such situations give you the opportunity to work on your communication skills and strengthen your relationships with others. Most customer-service related conflict scenarios arise from factors such as misunderstanding, miscommunication, and lack of knowledge. People with strong conflict resolution ability can handle such problematic scenarios with tact, patience, emotional control, and a strong determination to solve issues. One of the best ways to handle a conflict situation is to avoid being emotional during all your conversations. Once you are able to do that, you can analyze the situation better and understand the root cause of the problem.

You may try testing this skill with a family member or a friend. When they become upset, try to analyze and understand the true cause of their frustration. Take some time to understand their feelings and find out what you can do to make them happy. The next time you engage in a conversation with your customer on the phone, try to identify cues, which will help you in determining the next course of action.

Jason Brickwork On   /   Answering Service Solutions, Answering service strategies   /   Leave a comment