Customer Service

1. Definition of Customer Service

Customer services is used at every level in many jobs. It is a combination of a type of job and a set of job skills. As a job – customer service professionals are responsible for addressing customer needs and ensuring they have a good experience. It is an act of supporting customers. As a skill set – customer service entails several qualities such as active listening, empathy, problem-solving and communication.

2. What are Customer Service Skills?

Customer service skills are the set of behaviours you rely on when interacting with a customer and is further enhanced with a positive attitude towards the concept of serving people. This interaction can be useful when following up after an initial conversation. For example, if you work as a shoe salesperson, you may need to help customers troubleshoot problems with their shoe sizes or even finding shoes at other stores. To accomplish this, you will likely use several different skills:

• Communication. You will need to communicate with customers in a clear, easy-to-understand way to solve the problem. You will also need to respond to them in a timely manner.
• Empathy. Your interactions may begin with someone who is frustrated or unhappy. It is important that you understand and identify with their feelings and communicate accordingly.
• Patience. Patience is important to keep the conversation on track and provide a positive experience. Clients and customers might ask several questions, they may be unhappy or they may ask you to repeat instructions several times.
• Technical knowledge. It is very important to have technical knowledge as well as industry knowledge and a sound understanding of the business policies and procedures (including the business capabilities) to effectively resolve the customers problems.

After your conversation, you will most likely use active listening skills to record action items and complete any follow-up tasks. Effectively working with others will require different skills to help create an effective solution for everyone.
The above-mentioned skills can also be applied to your interactions with colleagues.

3. Responsibilities & Job Requirements for Customer Service

The following list is by no means to be considered as a ‘comprehensive list’; however, it is to be read as a good ‘main points’ list of the responsibilities and job requirements of customer service agents:

• Answer incoming customer calls regarding accounts, product issues, service questions and general client concerns.
• Responsible for maintaining a high level of professionalism with clients and working to establish a positive rapport with every caller.
• Update customer information in the customer service database (CRM) during and at the end of each call
• Work with the management team to stay updated on product knowledge and be informed of any changes in company policies and procedures.
• Participate in the impact of the company’s bottom line by problem solving and turning frustrated clients into repeat customers

4. The 4-Principles of Customer Service

• Quick Resolutions: 73% of researched customers have indicated that quick resolutions is their top factor of what constitutes good customer service.
• Helpful and Empathetic Customer Service Staffs: Great customer service often means anticipating your customer’s needs before they even tell you about them.
• 24/7 Support: 47% of customers believe 24/7 support is a key component of great customer service by a business. A knowledge base or chatbot are two other great ways to provide customer service when agents are off-duty.
• The Ability to use Preferred Media Channels: Customers want to connect with you on the same channels they use to talk to friends and family—therefore, being able to help a customer on their preferred media channel is one of the best ways to create an excellent customer service experience.

4. Why are Customer Service Skills Important for Business?

Quality Customer Service can be the difference between a hot IPO or just keeping the lights on. Providing great customer service can generate more positive marketing and sales opportunities, which in turn generates Better Profit Levels. Therefore, meeting your customers’ satisfaction is paramount to business sustainability.
Here are five (5) reasons why customer service is important to your business:

• Increasing Sales: It is an effective way to increase sales. It is not just your existing customers who have questions — your prospects also have questions.
• Retaining Customers: It is an oft-quoted statistic that acquiring customers costs 6 to 7 times more than retaining your existing customers. For small businesses, with limited time and resources, customer satisfaction is even more important. Many customers leave a business because they are upset with the treatment they have received at customer service levels. That is why offering fast, helpful customer service is critical to retaining your customers. Not to mention that happy customers spread to good news about your busines through what is referred to as ‘word-of-mouth advertising’. Many businesses consider wordof-mouth advertising is more effective than traditional forms of advertising. They believe that it can also be a most effective driver for new business.
• Finding Opportunities to Cross-sell and Upsell: Your current customers can be one of your best sources of business. When you connect all your support channels and the apps that you use to run your business, eg, a customer relationship management (CRM) app, all staff members at your company can be in the know about customers. Support agents can see order histories, open opportunities and shipping status. Sales staff knows when a customer needs help and what help they require. When you share customer information, product insights and support metrics across the company, everyone be more productive and do a better job of building relationships. You can find opportunities to cross and upsell.
• Improving the Products and Services you offer: Whether you have 3 or 30 people on your support team, each are a crucial link to the outside world. Unlike product management or marketing teams — who only talk to customers from time to time — your agents talk to real customers every single day. A good customer service application coupled with a quality CRM system will gather information from a huge variety of sources across your business and beyond. It can tell you how customers are interacting with your product and if they are having problems.
• Making Better Business Decisions: Your customer service tools can help you do more than just support customers. They can also help you to improve virtually every aspect of your business. Data from your help desk allows you to better appreciate how your agents are performing and provides indicators for optimising your support team.

5. A List of Important Customer Service Skills

Find following a reasonable list of what would be considered important skills that a competent and dedicated customer service agent would possess to effectively and efficiently deal with customers.
This list is not to be considered as a comprehensive list:

• Respect
• Concern
• Patience
• Empathy
• Creativity
• Timeliness
• Self-control
• Friendliness
• Adaptability
• Attentiveness
• Dependability
• Quick thinking
• Active listening
• Responsiveness
• Decision-making
• Open-mindedness
• Conflict resolution
• Effective communication
• Reading physical and emotional cues
• Knowledge of your product or service

6. How to Improve Customer Service Skills

• Strengthen your customer service skills by working on the following skills: Empathy, patience, consistency, adaptability, clear communication, knowledge, positive work ethic, thick skin (yes! Thick skin… Swallow your pride and accept that the customer is always right!)
• Explore every Touch Point:A bad customer experience at any point in the customer lifecycle with your business can ruin your relationship. In addition to making sure the right skills are demonstrated, you need to be sure they are being demonstrated consistently. Pay attention to key touchpoints, those moments when the customer touches base with your business, and make sure you have a full view of the customers experience, otherwise you risk lapses in service that can hurt your business.
• Improve your customer interactions:
  • Ask your customer service agents to identify common grounds, or shared interests, with the people they service. Having this point of understanding makes conflict easier to overcome. Humanizing the relationship endears customers to your customer service agents and ultimately your company.
  • Practice ‘Active Listening’ so your customers feel heard. Clarify and rephrase what the customers say to ensure you understand them. Empathize with their feelings by saying things like, “That must have upset you” or “I can see why you feel slighted.” The more you are able to reflect with their feelings the more they feel that you care.
  • Admit your mistakes, even if you discover them before your customer does. This builds trust and restores confidence. It also allows you to control the situation, re-focus the customer’s attention and resolve the issue.
  • Follow-up after a problem is solved. Make sure the issue stays fixed and that your customers were satisfied with the service. Sending an email, or even a feedback survey is an excellent way to let the customer know you are still on their side.
• Enhance your Customer Service Strategy:
  • Be available
  • Get personal
  • Create communities
  • Cater to your customers.
• Ensure Customer Service Agents are Engaged: If your customer service agents are dissatisfied, no amount of training will allow them to provide great customer service. Making sure employees are engaged is simply another way to ensure that customers have a great experience with your business. Dissatisfied employees are unlikely to come forward with their problems. Consider an anonymous suggestion box or an employee engagement survey to see what makes your employees tick.
• Give your Customers a way to Provide Feedback: Consider creating an easily accessible way for customers to give feedback. It can be a phone survey at the end of a service phone call, an email sent form your CRM tool, or a form on the “Contact Us” page of your website. Creating a way for your customers to provide feedback will not only allow you to get to the front of every customer issue, but it will also keep unhappy customers from voicing their displeasure on social media platforms.

7. Examples of Good Customer Service?

• Providing 24/7 support
• Resolving issues quickly
• Being proactively helpful
• Personalising interactions
• Helping customers help them selves
• Using customer feedback to get better
• Serving customers via channels of their choice

8. Examples of BAD customer service?

• Long wait times,
• Having to repeat information multiple times.
• An automated system that makes it hard to reach a human agent,

9. How to Handle a Difficult Customer?

• Listen
• Stay calm
• Lower your voice
• Know when to give in
• Do not take it personally
• Summarise the next steps
• Build rapport through empathy
• If you promise to call back, call back
• Remember you are dealing with a human
• Respond as if all your customers are watching.

10. Customer Service Versus Customer Support

The difference between customer service and support is that a customer support team can fix a technical issue in the short term but providing good customer service helps build relationships and establish a true partnership in the long term.

11. What Customer Service Skills to put on your Resume

• Remains calm under pressure
• Excellent problem-solving skills
• Passion for building relationships
• Enthusiasm for the company’s industry
• Acts with a customer comes first attitude
• Self-motivated and has a positive attitude
• Can juggle multiple tasks in a fast-paced environment
• Empathy for customers to maximize customer happiness
• Strong attention to detail, with exceptional time management
• Clear, effective communication with strong interpersonal skills
• Confidence that if you do not know something, you can learn it
• Experience working in a customer service focused environment
• Uses customer service software to track/manage customer conversations
• Anticipates customer needs by constantly evaluating customers for clues