Providing the best possible service to your customers would require hiring the best customer service agents as front liners of the business. Who you hire will surely make a difference. Yet, we cannot deny how difficult it is to hire the ones who not only fits the job description but will also emerge the best there is among the many. If you are in this kind of dilemma, you are in the right place.
In order to guarantee that you get the best possible individuals for your business, we have outlined five basic customer service skills you should take in mind and incorporate. Even more these skills can be used to screen your applicants and can even be your criteria.
1. Active Listening
When talking about customer service skills, listening actively should be an attribute that any good agent should have. After all, they are tasked to accurately address concerns raised by your customers. The best way to do that would be to intently listen to the problem and from there draw up the right solution. We all have the ability to listen, but actively listening is a different ballgame. This does not come naturally to everyone. By having this unique skill, an agent can be able to draw out details from the customer and probe the right questions. With it, they can also be able to understand what the customer needs accurately.
2. Memory and knowledge
Memory and knowledge are indeed indispensable customer service skills. Given the objective of an agent to provide the best possible customer service, both memory and knowledge is required to accomplish just that. They will have to learn a lot of information and memorize a lot of details. By the time they are in the floor, it is required that more than carrying the brand of the product or the service they must also be able to know the ins and the outs of it.
3. Efficiency
Customer service skills 2 and 3 are closely related. If the agent happens to have knowledge with the brand philosophy and the product as a whole, he or she can be able to provide efficient solutions for the customer. And in every calls and inquiries, time is of the essence. The faster an issue is resolved, the more satisfied the customer will be. After all, customers would want their issues address quickly and accurately. Agents must also be fast and efficient without sacrificing work quality and customer interaction.
4. Effective Communication
An agent needs to be able to express himself or herself clearly. Regardless of how good her memory and knowledge is towards the product or service, if he or she can’t relay it to the clients, it will prove just to be a failure. It is given that an agent should be able to communicate. However, effective communication involves being able to speak clearly with very basic vocabulary. He or she must be able to connect to the customers. And that can only be done with effective communication.
5. Personality
Your customer service agents are the frontline of the company. That is why they must project and exude that atmosphere of friendliness and warmth. Even if the customer is already irate and angry, he or she must be able to maintain composure and that friendly attitude. He or she must be able to pacify the flame and if not eliminate it. Your customers will surely appreciate that.
Customer service skills are very important in any agents. Though these are but the basic five out of the many possible attributes a customer service agent should possess. Yet these are already good criteria to be able to handpick the right agent to do not only a good job but a better one.
