Key Customer Services Skills

Customer service is the key to the survival and longevity of any business. Because people tend to focus on their treatment by a brand or firm more than the product or service that they are getting. Consumers would even compromise on the price of commodities but they will always remember the kind of treatment they received from their service provider. This can make or break the perception that a customer has regarding a firm, which either can make them a loyal customer or force them to not want to do business with them for the rest of their lives. This is how major of an impact customer service has on any said business. Plus, after the pandemic, the significance of having a good customer service department has skyrocketed.

We are still going through the after-effects of the pandemic, and the world still hasn’t stabilized financially. Consumers are still mindful about spending extra money because they never know when the next wave of disease is going to hit, and they are again going to lose their job. This has made them resort to cost-cutting or spending money carefully.

Similarly, businesses are out of customers and they are offering attractive deals and discounts to lure in new customers and get their financial breakthrough, after a consistent recession of the past two years or so.

But this can only be done through good customer care, not just by reducing the prices. An example of this model is Cox customer service because Cox is a service provider that has garnered huge customer support not just through discounts but by providing users with an exceptional experience, which is why they are the third biggest cable company in the United States today.

The unfortunate state of the current world is that customer service is in shambles because according to some, customer service is not something to be taken that seriously, while others who actually want to do it don’t know how to execute it properly. So here we are going to answer both these questions, but let’s start with the importance of customer service.

Importance of Customer Service

At the moment revenue is everything for a company because every business is fighting for its survival. Revenues and cash flows have run dry, this has made companies shift their business models from money-making to barely surviving at the moment until the economy stabilizes. But amidst all this competition, many firms lack the core competency behind any long-term business strategy, which is customer retention. Customer retention is the only thing that can get a business out of this recession since CLV or customer lifetime value is the only factor that benefits a firm in the long run.

Plus retaining a customer is five to six times less expensive than acquiring a new customer. And the major factor on which customer retention depends is customer service. Since discounts and marketing can easily grab a customer. But, to make that customer stay with you is ultimately going to depend on how good your after-sale services are, or to put it simply, how good your customer service is?

Many companies are still unable to figure out how to provide a good customer service experience to users. However, it’s quite simple and depends on a few key points which we are going go to discuss below.

Key Points for Successful Customer Service

Customer service is simply to care about the emotions of your customers and keep them happy and satisfied. The end goal of all these skills is customer satisfaction, and they are no rocket science.

Problem Solving Skill

It’s a no-brainer that the primary customer service skill was going to be problem-solving. The meaning of customer service is to solve users’ problems efficiently. A customer service team that lacks strong problem-solving skills is going to fail on their very first day of the job.

In contrast, a team with strong problem-solving skills will, in turn, increase your customer’s happiness and will strengthen their confidence in their brand because they will be getting the desired assistance, and in the right direction. Obviously, the end goal of any client-service interaction is to solve consumers’ problems or assist them in some way.

Communication Skills

This comes second and holds significant importance in the customer handling process. All other client service skills work in conjunction with communication skills. For example, a customer service agent has exceptional problem-solving skills but lacks at communicating those solutions effectively to the consumer, in the end, that solution is going to be of no use if agents are not able to communicate it to the consumer.

While someone with strong communication skills can effectively drive a conversation because usually in customer service channels it’s all about the conversation. Neither the agent nor the customer can see each other or collaborate physically. So it all comes down to clear and productive conversations.

Patience

Last but not least and something without which don’t even think to join a customer service department is patience, and lots of it. Every day customer service teams deal with hundreds or sometimes even thousands of customers, and most of them are angry, very angry. Obviously speaking from a customer’s point of view this anger and frustration are quite valid.

If we get any problem with our service we also tend to become angry. That is why the customer service agent on the other end requires a lot of patience to deal with that customer, and conduct a productive conversation in order to reach a solution. Bearing abuses, shouting, and lots of bad words while replying with a smile and positive attitude is a skill only a good customer service agent possesses, and it comes only through patience.

Conclusion

Cracking customer service is not a big deal, you just need to understand the problem of others by stepping in their shoes. Once the problem is understood then use the skills mentioned above to provide a simple yet effective solution, and that’s it. This is all it literally takes to provide good customer service, quite easy, isn’t it?