4 Must-Have Soft Skills for Customer Service Jobs

 

Customer service professionals have to constantly interact with clients via mail, phone, or online chat. Therefore they must be able to relate with the customers on a human level, assuring them they understand their problems, that they genuinely care and want to help them.

Needless to say, to succeed in this role, a customer service professional must possess several interpersonal and soft skills.

What are these must-have soft skills? Let’s take a look at four below. 

Conflict Resolution

You need to be a creative problem solver in a customer service role since you have to deal with countless customers and their individual problems. The important thing to realize is that you must always offer unique and realistic solutions only after thoroughly understanding customers’ problems.

There may be cases where the problems can be challenging for which solutions might not exist, at least from your end. In such scenarios, it’s always best to escalate the issue and let someone else handle the customer who is familiar with the issue. 

Having said that, even if someone else intervenes and finds a solution, you should always follow up with the customer to ensure that their problems have been taken care of. By doing this, customers will appreciate your effort and willingness to help them. 

Some of the skills that fall under the conflict resolution umbrella include negotiation skills, mediation, diplomacy, accountability, facilitation and emotional intelligence.

Clear Communication

Communication is another soft skill that is integral to success in a customer service role. As a professional in this domain, you have to be able to understand the needs and wants of the customers, and then articulate what you can do for them in return.

The trick is to clearly communicate with your customers whilst keeping an upbeat and positive tone. You should enunciate, speak clearly and ensure that you’re audible. Of course, this should apply to all voice conversations, including phone calls. 

As for online chats and emails, focus on your grammar and see to it that there aren’t any errors. You should also pick your phrases and words accordingly so that they reflect an upbeat attitude. 

Assertiveness

Taking control of a situation when dealing with customers is important in a customer service role. You should be efficient and find a middle ground when handling clients. For instance, you do not want to come off as over-aggressive and demanding as customers might think that you’re arrogant, nor do you want to be passive or meek as it will mean that you’re not confident.

When dealing with customers, you want to be able to take control of the situation and do what you need to do in an efficient manner. If you are meek or passive, customers may not have faith in you. However, you also don’t want to be aggressive or demanding, which can offend customers.

The best way to be assertive and confident without being aggressive is by asking direct questions in a strong and steady voice, keeping track of every little detail mentioned by the customer and what you’re saying or doing to help them in return.

Empathy

Without empathy, you cannot succeed in a customer service role. While you may be excellent at finding solutions to problems of all nature, you’ll never be able to convince the customers until and unless you completely understand their issues and know how they feel.

The best way to go about developing this skill is to put yourself in the customers’ shoes. Find out how you would feel in their position and how you would like to be handled by the customer service professional.