Top Soft Skills for Customer Service Reps

Spending the whole day serving customers takes patience and proficiency in a number of important customer service skills. To be successful, customer service reps should have a positive attitude and must possess top-notch listening skills, problem-solving skills, and personal accountability. Customer service training can help develop any CSR’s soft skills in these areas so they put their best foot forward every time they encounter a customer.

Attitude

Ever have one of those days that just won’t end soon enough? The customers are getting to you and you don’t have the parts, forms or information you need to complete the job? Despite what the day “throws” at you, the most fundamental of all customer service skills is having a good attitude. To overcome these situations and get back to providing good service, try one or more of these tips:

• Remember when a warm smile turned your day around? Return the favor for someone else.
• Eye contact and a confident, professional attitude will help smooth out any situation.
• Think of yourself as the customer and decide if you would be satisfied with YOU as a service provider.
• Remember, to that customer at that time, you represent your entire company, so project a helpful attitude and use your time with the customer wisely.

Listening

Listening is another of those fundamental customer service skills. While it may seem like listening to a customer thoroughly might be too time-consuming when you’re in a hurry, listening can actually save you time! You can avoid asking repetitive, unnecessary questions by listening carefully the first time a customer speaks or responds to a question. Don’t presume you know the answer to a question before the customer finishes speaking. Never interrupt and do feed back to the customer what you’ve heard them say. Listening also helps you determine if you are (or aren’t) the person the customer needs to be speaking to, so you can direct them properly.

Problem-Solving

A good customer service training program will help hone your problem-solving skills. When a customer approaches you with a problem, put yourself in their shoes and think about how you would want the problem handled, what kinds of resolutions would work, and what resources might have to be involved in finding a solution. Think about what you can do for the customer – not what you can’t.

• Let the customer know that you understand their problem.
• Include customers in the problem-solving process by briefly telling them what steps you are taking to help.
• Ask for help from co-workers and supervisors as needed.
• Don’t be afraid to be creative with suggestions and solutions.

Personal Accountability

Another way to demonstrate solid customer service skills is to act with personal accountability at all times. Every person you serve and work with deserves your best, whether it’s a problem to be solved or a transaction to complete. You should start by learning the technical and procedural aspects of your work and then “own” your customers’ experience: take personal responsibility for the level of service they receive. Your customers expect competence and respect and are paying you and your organization for it.  It’s important that employees act professionally and courteously at all times and remain accountable to the company’s service promises.

Choose a versatile customer service training program to teach CSRs a wide variety of vital customer service skills. Facilitators can choose from various video clips to create their own training program, making points on service skills to match the examples with what their trainees need to see. This program includes 72 unique video clips, set in a variety of industries, for training on various aspects of customer service including attitude, communication, problem-solving, service recovery, internal customer service, and supervising a service team.

Or, browse through other Media Partners' offerings on Customer Service to find the right video program for your needs.