Any employee who interacts with customers has to possess some certain customer service skills.
If you will not use them, there is a risk that you can find your business in UAE or any other country in an unpleasant customer service situation, or you can just lose customers by letting people down.
Fortunately, there are some universal skills that any member of your support can learn, and this will greatly improve their interrelation with clients.
Hereby we talk about 15 skills on customer Service , which are needed most and are very important. These skills can be brought, together with the supporting knowledge, to its perfection with the support of Atton Institute which delivers all types of specialized education - customer care courses and trainings in Dubai.
When the majority business publications speak about customer service skills, such aspect as "being a people person" is the focus.
It doesn’t mean that this feature is wrong; the fact is that it hardly helps to those who want to be involved in support service within a company, and of course it doesn't help employers who are searching for the proper skills when hiring employees who will be taking care of their customers.
Taking into account everything said above, let's move on to some specific skills that can be learnt by any support employee to "wow" customers, that they interact with every day...
1. Patience
If you don't see it as a main customer service skill, you should just stop reading.
Patience is important both for customers, who often turn to support when they are confused and upset and business in general: we have already shown you that great service always takes over fast service.
But patience should not be used as an excuse for sluggish service! Slow service is an interaction where the time spent with the customer is used to better understand their problems and expectations.
It is very important to remain patient when you interact with consumers every day as they come to you confused and frustrated; also take the time to understand what your customer’s need, as they want to obtain competent service.
2. Attentiveness
There is a number of reasons why an ability to listen to clients is important for giving great customer service.
Paying attention to individual customer communication (the terms and language that they use to explain their problems) is as important as being attentive and mindful to the feedback you get.
3. Clear Communication Skills
Make sure you respond quickly to problems; customers are not interested in the story of your life or how you have spent your day.
But what is more important is you should be very careful about how customer understands what you say, and it's best to make a mistake on the side of caution whenever you find yourself questioning a situation.
When there are important points that you need to clearly explain to clients, make it as easy as possible so that no questions remain.
As the communication skill is highly versatile and extensive education area we, Atton Institute Dubai, offer special course dedicated specifically to this subject. For details – see our courses and programs list.
4. Knowledge of the Product
The best employees who are forward-faced with customers of your company will have to know perfectly how your products work and possess the respective skills.
It doesn’t mean that all the members of your team must be able to build your product from scratch, they should know everything about how your product works, as if he was a customer using it every day.
5. Ability to Use "Positive Language".
It sounds like nonsense, but if you simply change your style of communication within customer service a little bit, it can be a great way to start creating happy customers.
Language is a very important part of the conviction skill, and people (especially customers) perceive you and your company's language that you use.
Let's assume that the client communicates with you being interested in a particular product, but this product is not available until next month.
Small changes, which use "positive language" can greatly affect the way the client hear your answer...
- Using positive language: "I can't get you that product until next month; it is back-ordered and unavailable at this time".
- Not using positive language: "Those goods will be available next month. I can make the order for you right now to make sure that it is sent to you as soon as it comes to our warehouse".
The first example can be taken the wrong way by consumers; even it isn't negative by any means. That is because the tone it conveys seems harsh and impersonal.
On the other side, the second example means the same thing the product isn’t available, but instead of focusing on negative facts it states when or how the customer will get to their resolution.
6. Acting Skills
Sometimes be ready to meet customers that you'll never be able to make happy.
Situations beyond your control (they just had an awful day, or are they just a born complainer) will sometimes appear in your routine life of service support, and you will face such client who seemed just to want nothing else but to get you.
And a great customer service employee will remain a usual joyful person using his basic acting skills despite dealing with angry, irritable people.
7. Skills of Time Management
The fact is that everything should be within reasonable limits, and you should communicate with the customer to meet their needs in the most efficient manner. The idea is when you realize that you aren’t able to help a customer and you don’t’ know how to solve his problem; the best support is just to give the customer the one who know the solution to a problem.
It’s just the waste of your and customers time trying to go above your capabilities and regular work flow for a customer in an area where you will just end up wasting both of your time!
8. Ability to Understand Customers
There are situations when you don’t see customers face-to-face, moreover nowadays in many cases; you don’t even hear client’s voice.
That does not set you free from being able to understand the customer's current emotional state and understanding some fundamental principles of behavioral psychology.
This is also an important part of the personalization of customer service process, as it helps you to get know your customers to create a personal experience for them.
Ability to understand customers is also an important part of the personalization, as it requires knowing your customers to create a personal experience.
This skill is important if you don’t want to misunderstand a customer and in the result lose them because of miscommunication and confusion.
Understanding your customers is what makes your business to flourish or, of this element is omitted, may bring it to insolvency. Education programs as well as separate Trainings and Courses on all sides of customer service which we provide at Atton Institute Dubai are the solid base for your business success and prosperity.
9. A Calming Presence
This type of personality can be described by a lot of metaphors, like "staying cool under pressure," "keeps their cool," and other. Anyway, it all means the same thing: the ability that some people have to stay calm and even influence others when things get a little fussy.
The job of the best customer service reps is to try to be the "rock" for a client who thinks the world would start to spin in a different direction because of their current problem and they know that they cannot let a heated customer force them to lose their cool.
10. Goal Oriented Focus
Though it seems weird to list Goal Oriented Focus as a customer service skill, I assure you that it is really important.
Experts of customer service have shown that allowing employees plenty of freedom to “WOW" customers doesn't always generated the income that many businesses are expecting to see.
That's because trying only to "WOW" customer employees remain without goals, and business goals plus customer happiness can work together without resulting in poor service.
11. Ability to Handle Surprises
From time to time the customer support world presents unexpected surprises.
Perhaps the problem you are experiencing isn't specifically covered in a special guide of your company, or the customer does not respond as you had expected.
In any case, it is better to take care of this in advance and create guidelines for such situations.
For example, you want to have a quick system, created specifically for customers with a problem that you have not seen before.
- Who? First, you need to decide who is the person you will go to when you don’t know what to do. Of course, CEO can help you, but you can’t disturb him with every issue! Determine for yourself a logical chain, which you will use when necessary, so you won't be left wondering who you should forward the problem.
- What? If the problem is not of your competence, what would you send to one's betters? Perhaps the full conversation, some highlights, only the most important parts or an example or a similar ticket?
- How? If you need to involve someone else, how will you get in touch with them? For example, at Help Scout we choose to solve small dilemmas over chat and leave bigger problems for email, in order not to clog the inbox.
A good sample of courses and trainings on this subject are the specially designed courses on customers complain and conflict management offered by our Atton Institute Dubai, the UAE, country’s highly devoted education provider.
12. Persuasion Skills
Personnel of skilled customer support knows that very often you receive messages more connected with the curiosity to the product of your company, than troubles with it. To get your customer service skills better, you have some mastery of persuasion so that you can persuade interested customers that your product is right for them.
It doesn’t mean that you should make sales in each letter, but it is about not letting potential customers get away because you couldn't create an interesting message that the product of your company worth purchasing!
13. Persistence
You can call it what you want, but a key skill when providing the kind of service that people talk about is a great work and a willingness to do what needs to be done.
Most of the unforgettable customer service stories out there were created by a single member of staff who refused to just do the "status quo" when it came to helping someone out.
The realization that customers are people too and the belief that putting a double effort, it will come back to you ten-fold should become the driving motivation for you to never cheat your customers with lazy service.
14. Closing Ability
Such approach has nothing to do with the "closing sales" or other similar terms. The ability to close the customer is the ability to end the conversation when you received confirmation from the customer satisfaction or being sure that the customer feels that support service team took care of him or will do it in future
Make sure that you have received a confirmation from the client that all his questions have been fully resolved, as the last thing customers want is getting booted after a customer service call or before all of their problems have been addressed.
Your readiness to do this show the customer three very significant things:
- That you're caring about getting it right
- That you have a willing to keep going until you get it right
- That only the customer determines what "right" is.
15. Willingness to Learn
Those who do not try to improve what they are doing, whether it's marketing businesses, building products or helping customers will always be behind those who are willing to invest in their skills.
And that is where Atton Institute Dubai, the UAE can be of a great help. We offer all types of courses and training related to all the above areas you need to know to be in the possession to delivered best customer service.
Visit the section of professional development courses to learn more.