Customer Service Skills

Customer service is a priority for businesses that understand the benefits of connecting, problem-solving, and customer relationships. Undeniably, there are several
benefits that small businesses and top brands gain from effective customer support.

Today, as we continue celebrating Customer Service Week 2023...what a perfect time to appreciate their services. Therefore, we celebrate our dearest customer service team who have shouldered their responsibilities with smiles.

But, what really makes good customer service? What are the skills required? Are these skills inbuilt? Can these skills be learned over time?
Well, let's find out

1. Empathy: Firstly, emotions are often overlooked when it comes to business because most times we just want to close deals. But how about closing deals, retaining clients, and clients refer your brand, and keep doing business with you?
It all begins with empathy...understanding their feelings, showing concern, and leaving a lasting experience. This is a really important skill in customer service and it is shocking how some people neglect this. Empathy can be inborn, it can also be learned but most importantly, it can never be overlooked.

2. Patience: Understanding that "customers are always right" is a pathway to being patient in customer service. Again, ‘patience is a virtue’ is a popular saying I am sure you must have heard somewhere. And still, most customer service personnel still fall short in this skill. It is part of your job to remain calm when for example, attending to an angry customer.
Sometimes, an angry client might shout and let it all out on you over the phone or in person. Honestly, the best way to react is to stay untroubled, having absolutely
nothing else in mind than finding solutions. Although, this can be an extremely difficult skill for different people... but guess what? You chose to be in customer service and it is a crucial skill to display regardless of the situation.

3. Active Listening: Before understanding any situation or maybe a complaint from a customer, it is essential to listen. Being a great listener would help in deducing a lot of information before proffering a solution or response. It is such a great skill to have as a customer service person. Effective listening gives a customer a perception that you understand their needs. Do not focus on your response but focus on what is being said. Although some people are great listeners naturally, this is a skill one can learn and develop.

4. Persuasiveness: A positive customer service experience begins with persuasive speaking techniques and skills. When you are persuasive, you exude confidence, assurance, and all-round positive vibes. This in turn leaves the customer tempted to take the right action that leads to conversion for you. Know that the use of positive language is crucial here and again, focusing on creating the solution.

5. Versatility: You have successfully attended to multiple customers...solving issues and getting desired results. Kudos to You! However, the skills deployed in solving those previous situations are not guaranteed to work for the next customer. Versatility comes with experience, and your ability to be adaptive and flexible attending to various situations and customers. Every customer service rep needs to study situations both past and present to fully excel in this aspect.

6: Great communication skills: There is no business without communication, so why would a customer service rep fail to communicate effectively? Your tone, body language, and gesticulations are all part of communicating. Hence, a need to get it all right when communicating with customers physically or over the phone. So important that converting a customer depends on how you have communicated. In salutations, polite words, facial expressions, responsiveness, producer service knowledge, etc have to be on point!

7: Response time: This is intertwined with time management because a well-managed time keeps you in control and improves response time.
"I will get back to you soon"... This is a common sentence customer service agents use when they probably need to get more information. But the emails, DMs, SMS,
missed calls. scheduled phone calls are piling up!
This is mostly a case of poor time management and overtime, your response time keeps getting worse. Hence, you keep losing customers to fast-responding
competitors. Customer service reps need to have disciplined time management skills to improve response time.

8. Hard as nails: Finally, a customer service person needs to be thick-skinned and hard as nails to triumph. This means regardlessly taking every situation as a challenge to improve and get better at delivering top-notch service. Without this mentality, there is every likelihood that they would struggle.

Finding a perfect customer service rep is difficult but having one with a "thick-skinned, I want to improve mentality" is key. At Nukreationz, training is a necessity for all our staff as we strongly believe in giving the necessary support to ensure improvement.