1. Patience
2. Attentiveness
3. Clear Communication Skills
4-16.....
When most business publications talk about excellent customer service skills, things like “being a people person” tend to take the spotlight.
It’s not that this trait is outright wrong, but it’s so vague and generic that it’s hardly a help to anyone looking to get involved in support positions within a company, and it certainly doesn’t help out entrepreneurs/founders who are looking for the right set of skills when hiring the all-important folks who will be taking care of their customers.
With that said, let’s get into some specific skills that every support employee can master to “WOW” the customers that they interact with on a daily basis...
1. Patience
If you don’t see this near the top of a customer service skills list, you should stop reading.
Not only is patience important to customers, who often reach out to support when they are confused and frustrated, but it’s also important to the business at large: we’ve shown you before that great service beats fast service every single time. Yet patience shouldn’t be used as an excuse for slothful service either! If you deal with customers on a daily basis, be sure to stay patient when they come to you stumped and frustrated, but also be sure to take the time to truly figure out what they want — they’d rather get competent service than be rushed out the door!
2. Attentiveness
The ability to really listen to customers is so crucial for providing great service for a number of reasons. Earlier I went over a few customer feedback systems, and before that I showed you the data on why listening to customer feedback is a must for many businesses who are looking to innovate. Not only is it important to pay attention to individual customer experience (watching the language/terms that they use to describe their problems), but it’s also important to be...