Good Customer Service Skills
Basic Good Customer Service Skills
Good customer service skills are easy to delineate, but in many cases seem to be all too rarely implemented. When we approach a Customer Service counter, we expect to be treated courteously, and perhaps most often are. We may approach the counter with a complaint, or a bad taste in our mouth regarding a product we've bought, or a service we've received that has been less than satisfactory. If we walk away from that counter feeling good, chances are, the person on the other side of the counter has mastered a few good customer service skills, and practices them consistently.
The Right People - Most well-run businesses are a little picky as to who they will place in customer service. Just anyone won't do, and some employees can be a perfect disaster in the position. Customer service can be an exceedingly stressful job, especially when one has to talk to one dissatisfied customer after another, or if one is new to the job and doesn't know the answers to all the questions that may be asked. Customer service involves much more than just responding to complaints. Customer service is there to help the customer get what they're after, and that often means anticipating the customer's needs.
Empathy - Empathy is all-important. The right customer service representative will try hard to see where the customer is coming from, and why they feel the way they do. A good example of a total lack of empathy is the menu one sometimes has to go through when phoning a business, usually a large one, to ask for assistance. Press the wrong button, and you can start all over. It doesn't take too many menu sessions to start searching for another product or company. The human equivalent is interrogation, and some customer service personnel will make the customer feel guilty if the right answers are not given. Customers are quite capable of doing something stupid when trying to use a product, but should never be told that.
Thinking Ahead - Part of empathy is the art of being able to assess the customer’s needs. The customer can't always find the right words to express a complaint or ask for information. The customer service representative needs to be able to make a good assessment, call it a guess if you wish, as to what the customer really wants. This is done by asking the right questions, not by putting words into the customer’s mouth. The right questions are not probing questions, which may put a customer on the defensive, but questions asked in a spirit of helpfulness.
Management's Role - Some good customer service skills are applied as background tasks. This is really a management responsibility, and means being proactive in putting together a business model meant to provide the customer with the very best in products or services. Customers don't always complain. Very often they just simply don't come back. Part of a customer service program needs to address how to make a customer a repeat customer. This can be done by letting the customer know in advance, that if they have a question or a complain, you are there to help them, and they should be encouraged to speak up.
Patience And Tact - Patience and tact are not only good customer service skills, but are survival skills as well. At the close of the day, a customer service representative has to keep smiling and keep up a positive attitude, even if the customers seem to have all become perfect idiots. They still need to be sent away as happy idiots, and hopefully will become return idiots as well. The ability to be consistently tactful, patient, and courteous can defuse most situations. Angry people often change their attitude almost immediately when facing a person who is not only courteous, but shows a professional demeanor as well.
Listening - Another of the skills a customer service representative must have is an ability to listen. Getting wrong, or misinterpreting what a customer is trying to say, not only can alienate the customer, but make the customer service person look foolish. Telling someone what you want, and then have them repeat it incorrectly, leaves you with the feeling, that a satisfactory solution of the problem at hand is not forthcoming.
When you think about it, if we all were to practice good customer service skills in our day to day living, what a much nicer world this might be.