Providing ‘caring’ customer service starts with hiring the right people. This is a very critical step if you are going to reap a significant return on investment for your organization.
While hard skills, experience and education are important, even more crucial are the soft skills of the agents that you place on the front-line with your customers.
Soft skills are the personal attributes, habits, attitudes and social graces that enable a person to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. They complement hard skills which are the occupational requirements of a job and many other activities. They are related to feelings, emotions, insights and (some would say) an ‘inner knowing’: i.e. they provide an important complement to ‘hard skills’ and IQ.
A person’s soft skill EQ is an important part of their individual contribution to the success of an organization. Particularly those organizations dealing with customers face-to-face are generally more successful, if they train their staff to use these skills.
5 important soft skills that your customer service agents must have:
1. Compassion – Your customer service agents must be compassionate. They must have a genuine care and concern for humanity. They must be fair and desire the best outcome for the people they interact with. It’s very easy to distinguish an agent that’s ‘just doing their job’ and one who genuinely cares about a customer. One who cares is patient, actively listens and seeks to solve problems. They are there to serve.
2. Empathy & Sympathy – The best way to communicate genuine care is through empathy. When a customer service agent is able to connect with a customer emotionally through empathy, a very powerful connection is developed that evolves into a trust relationship. The ability to empathize is enhanced by great listening skills and patience.
Sympathy on the other hand is the drive behind a solution oriented mindset.
3. Warm, Friendly and Upbeat Attitude – These qualities are contagious. Even the most irate customer will be disarmed by a warm, friendly, upbeat agent who is concerned about their wellbeing and is ready to provide a solution to their problem.
4. Communication Skills – This involves both actively listening and responding clearly. This could be through verbal or written communication. Either way, clear communication is essential in customer service – you need to know what the customer wants, and be able to articulate what you can do for the customer with clarity.
5. Creative Conflict Resolution – Dealing with customers who have a problem that needs to be solved is the order of the day in a customer service department. Therefore, creative problem solving skills are very handy. Developing a customized solution that fits the needs of a specific customer goes a long way in developing customer trust and loyalty — Customers always appreciate an agent that takes an interest in their problem, and is willing to help in whatever way possible.
Which soft skills do you look for when hiring your customer service or client representatives? Comment below. I’d love to know!
At your service,
Karen