v Patience
If you don't see this near the top of a
customer service skills list, you should just 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!
Derek Sivers explained his view on
"slower" service as being an interaction where the time spent with
the customer was used to better understand their problems and needs from the
company.
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!
v Attentiveness
The ability to really listen to customers is
so crucial for providing great service for a number of reasons.
Last week I went over a few customer
feedback systems, and long 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 interactions (watching the language/terms that they use to
describe their problems), but it's also important to be mindful and attentive to
the feedback that you receive at large.
For instance, customers may not be saying it
outright, but perhaps there is a pervasive feeling that your software's
dashboard isn't laid out correctly. Customers aren't likely to say,
"Please improve your UX!", but they may say things like, "I can
never find the search feature," or, "Where is the _____ function at
again?"
What are your customers telling you without
saying it?
v Clear Communication Skills
Make sure you're getting to the problem at
hand quickly; customers don't need your life story or to hear about how your
day is going.
More importantly, you need to be cautious
about how some of your communication habits translate to customers, and it's
best to err on the side of caution whenever you find yourself questioning a
situation.
An example: The last time I went to get work
done on my car, I was told by an employee that if I wanted to get an oil
change, it would be "included" in my final bill.
I thought that meant I'd be getting it for
free, yet as it turns out, that wasn't the case. The employee apologized and I
truly believe it was an accident (they just worked there), but I haven't been
back to that shop since because of the miscommunication.
When it comes to important points that you
need to relay clearly to customers, keep it simple and leave nothing to doubt.
Clear communication is hard to achieve,
especially through a computer screen. Get the guide on How to Talk to Your
Customers.
v Knowledge of the Product
The best forward-facing employees in your
company will work on having a deep knowledge of how your product works.
It's not that every single team member
should be able to build your product from scratch, but rather they should know
the ins and outs of how your product works, just like a customer who uses it every
day would.
Without knowing your product from
front-to-back, you won't know how to help customers when they run into
problems.
v Ability to Use "Positive Language"
Sounds like fluffy nonsense, but your
ability to make minor changes in your conversational patterns can truly go a
long way in creating happy customers.
Language is a very important part of
persuasion, and people (especially customers) create perceptions about you and
your company based off of the language that you use.
Here's an example: Let's say a customer
contacts you with an interest in a particular product, but that product happens
to be backordered until next month.
Small changes that utilize "positive
language" can greatly affect how the customer hears your response...
• Without
positive language: "I can't get you that product until next month; it is
back-ordered and unavailable at this time."
• With
positive language: "That product will be available next month. I can place
the order for you right now and make sure that it is sent to you as soon as it
reaches our warehouse."
The first example isn't negative by any
means, but the tone that it conveys feels abrupt and impersonal, and can be
taken the wrong way by customers.
Conversely, the second example is stating
the same thing (the item is unavailable), but instead focuses on when/how the
customer will get to their resolution rather than focusing on the negative.
v Acting Skills
Sometimes you're going to come across people
that you'll never be able to make happy.
Situations outside of your control (they had
a terrible day, or they are just a natural-born complainer) will sometimes
creep into your usual support routine, and you'll be greeted with those
"barnacle" customers that seem to want nothing else but to pull you
down.
Every great customer service rep will have
those basic acting skills necessary to maintain their usual cheery persona in
spite of dealing with people who may be just plain grumpy.
v Time Management Skills
Hey, despite my many research-backed rants
on why you should spend more time with customers, the bottom line is that there
is a limit, and you need to be concerned with getting customers what they want
in an efficient manner.
The trick here is that this should also be
applied when realizing when you simply cannot help a customer. If you don't
know the solution to a problem, the best kind of support member will get a
customer over to someone who does.
Don't waste time trying to go above and
beyond for a customer in an area where you will just end up wasting both of
your time!
v Ability to "Read" Customers
You won't always be able to see customers
face-to-face, and in many instances (nowadays) you won't even hear a customer's
voice!
That doesn't exempt you from understanding
some basic principles of behavioral psychology and being able to
"read" the customer's current emotional state.
This is an important part of the
personalization process as well, because it takes knowing your customers to
create a personal experience for them.
More importantly though, this skill is
essential because you don't want to mis-read a customer and end up losing them
due to confusion and miscommunication.
Look and listen for subtle clues about their
current mood, patience level, personality, etc., and you'll go far in keeping
your customer interactions positive.
v A Calming Presence
There's a lot of metaphors for this type of
personality: "keeps their cool," "staying cool under
pressure," etc., but it all represents the same thing: the ability that
some people have to stay calm and even influence others when things get a
little hectic.
I've had my fair share of hairy hosting
situations, and I can tell you in all honesty that the #1 reason I stick with
certain hosting companies is due to the ability of their customer support team to
keep me from pulling my hair out.
The best customer service reps know that
they cannot let a heated customer force them to lose their cool; in fact it is
their job to try to be the "rock" for a customer who thinks the world
is falling down due to their current problem.
v Goal Oriented Focus
This may seem like a strange thing to list
as a customer service skill, but I assure you that it is vitally important.
In my article on empowering employees, I
noted that many customer service experts have shown how giving employees
unfettered power to "WOW" customers doesn't always generated the
returns that many businesses expect to see.
That's because it leaves employees without
goals, and business goals + customer happiness can work hand-in-hand without
resulting in poor service.
Relying on frameworks like the Net Promoter
Score can help businesses come up with guidelines for their employees that
allow plenty of freedom to handle customers on a case-to-case basis, but also
leave them priority solutions and "go-to" fixes for common problems.
» Read more about this concept here.
v Ability to Handle Surprises
Sometimes the customer support world is
going to throw you a curveball.
Maybe the problem you encounter isn't
specifically covered in the company's guidelines, or maybe the customer isn't reacting how you thought they would.
Whatever the case, it's best to be able to
think on your feet... but it's even better to create guidelines for yourself in
these sorts of situations.
Let's say, for instance, you want to come up
with a quick system for when you come across a customer who has a product
problem you've never seen before...
• Who?
One thing you can decide right off the bat is who you should consider your
"go-to" person when you don't know what to do. The CEO might be able
to help you, but you can't go to them with every single question! Define a
logical chain for yourself to use, then you won't be left wondering who you
should forward the problem too.
• What?
When the problem is noticeably out of your league, what are you going to send
to the people above? The full conversation, just the important parts, or maybe
some highlights and an example of a similar ticket?
• How?
When it comes time to get someone else involved, how are you going to contact
them? For instance, at Help Scout we prefer to solve small dilemmas over chat,
and save bigger problems for email, keeping inbox clutter down to a minimum.
v Persuasion Skills
This is one a lot of people didn't see
coming!
Experienced customer support personnel know
that oftentimes, you will get messages in your inbox that are more about the
curiosity of your company's product, rather than having problems with it.
(Especially true if your email is available
on-site, like ours)
To truly take your customer service skills
to the next level, you need to have some mastery of persuasion so that you can
convince interested customers that your product is right for them (if it truly
is).
It's not about making a sales pitch in each
email, but it is about not letting potential customers slip away because you
couldn't create a compelling message that your company's product is worth
purchasing!
v Tenacity
Call it what you want, but a great work ethic
and a willingness to do what needs to be done (and not take shortcuts) is a key
skill when providing the kind of service that people talk about.
The many memorable customer service stories
out there (many of which had a huge impact on the business) were created by a
single employee who refused to just do the "status quo" when it came
to helping someone out.
Remembering that your customers are people
too, and knowing that putting in the extra effort will come back to you
ten-fold should be your driving motivation to never "cheat" your
customers with lazy service.
v Closing Ability
To be clear, this has nothing to do with
"closing sales" or other related terms.
Being able to close with a customer means
being able to end the conversation with confirmed satisfaction (or as close to
it as you can achieve) and with the customer feeling that everything has been
taken care of (or will be).
Getting booted after a customer service call
or before all of their problems have been addressed is the last thing that
customers want, so be sure to take the time to confirm with customers that each
and every issue they had on deck has been entirely resolved.
Your willingness to do this shows the
customer 3 very important things:
• That
you care about getting it right
• That
you're willing to keep going until you get it right
• That
the customer is the one who determines what "right" is.
When you get a customer to, "Yes, I'm
all set!" is when you know the conversation is over.
v Willingness to Learn
If you came across this article and read all
the way to the bottom, you likely already have this skill (nice job!).
This is probably the most general skill on
the list, but it's still necessary.
Comments
Post a Comment