If you’re like me, you may handle some of the customer service support yourself or have employees who wear many hats, including that of customer service rep. This gives you a leg up on knowing what skills are necessary to appease your customers. First and foremost, you want those employees who work closely with your customers to share your values and goals and reflect your company’s culture. From there, you want them to have the following soft skills, none of which are easily taught. They should be:
This gives you a leg up on knowing what skills are necessary to appease your customers. First and foremost, you want those employees who work closely with your customers to share your values and goals and reflect your company’s culture. From there, you want them to have the following soft skills. Keep in mind, it’s easier to hire for them than to teach them. They should be:
- Empathetic
- Excellent communicators
- Detailed-oriented
Hire for These Soft Skills
It’s easy to teach technical skills, but if customer service reps don’t have the ability to put themselves in your customers’ shoes and see the issue from their point of view, it will be difficult to gain your customers’ trust and confidence. Customer service reps should be familiar with and use all of your products so that they can speak confidently about them. It’s also a good idea to keep a log of customer service stories so that everyone can learn from past experiences.
It may go without saying that a customer service rep needs to be an excellent communicator, but there’s more to it than simply being able to carry on a conversation with a customer. You want great listeners, skilled problem-solvers, and even-keeled personalities who aren’t rattled in difficult situations.
Finally, for the customer service rep being detailed-oriented can entail knowing your business’s products inside and out, but it also relates to being a good listener. By having the ability to process information customers give you, it’s easier to connect the dots to come up with a solution.
There are certainly additional skills to look for in a good customer service rep, but these three soft skills are a good place to start.
A Seasoned Team Makes a Difference
At ThinkQuik, we have a small, seasoned crew. We’re very fortunate to have been together for so long. That gives us an advantage because we all understand what our customers want. Many of our customers have been coming to us for years. They don’t come to us because we’re the cheapest place in town. They patronize us because we deliver quality products on time. On those rare occasions when a snow storm shuts down the East Coast of the country and that affects shipping, we’re quick to communicate the issues. We do this because that’s what we’d want as a customer.
On those rare occasions when a snow storm shuts down the East Coast of the country and that affects shipping, we’re quick to communicate the issues. We do this because that’s what we’d want as a customer and we always place ourselves in our customers’ shoes.
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