Do you check online reviews before buying a digital product? If so, you’ve likely come across negative reviews of a company's customer service. Although customer service isn't a product feature, it directly affects the user experience and the company's revenue.
Businesses are now risking losing almost $887 billion due to poor complaint handling, according to the National Customer Rage Survey. That's a significant increase from 2020's $494 billion. As an imminent recession seems ever more certain, customers expect more. Substandard handling of customer complaints can quickly drag your business down. But it’s possible to mitigate this risk.
Sharpening your team’s customer service skills is one of the most direct paths to satisfying user needs. If you get it right, you can facilitate an atmosphere where your customers feel valued. In this article, we introduce a list of customer service skills that are essential for customer service success. Let’s start with soft skills.
Soft customer service skills
Simply answering calls or tickets on time isn’t enough to achieve high KPIs. And encouraging robotic form responses like "We understand your concern!" won’t cut it either.
This is where soft skills come in. These reflect employees’ personal traits, influencing their working style and interactions with others. So, what are the critical soft skills for excellent customer service performance?
Understanding customer needs
It’s straightforward if a customer directly states their preferred resolution, for example, "Please give me a refund." However, what about situations when the customer’s needs are unclear?
In this case, your reps must employ soft skills to anticipate problems and ask the right leading questions to clarify what the customer is seeking.
Otherwise, they may be stuck on the call going around the houses, only to eventually land on the refund request. This inefficiency is frustrating for all parties.
Communication skills
Of course, entire books have been written on good communication. While this list is brief, we've identified some must-have communication skills for your customer service team:
- Empathy. This skill allows employees to understand customers on a deeper level and make them feel heard and valued. Empathy is especially important in ticket-based customer service. Unlike phone calls, where customers can hear a live voice, tickets may lack a personal touch. So your employees must also know how to express their empathy in writing.
- Patience. Customers can get frustrated when plans fail and take it out on agents. It's not easy dealing with angry clients, but reps shouldn’t take it personally. Staying cool helps everyone in the end.
- Conflict resolution. And if the call turns confrontational, handling excessively emotional clients is more than a skill — it’s an art. Team members can still try their best to offer alternative solutions that align with the company’s policy, much like Delta Airlines do.
The company saved the day for frustrated passengers facing flight cancellations in Atlanta due to harsh weather by delivering almost 600 pizzas. The passengers couldn't stop talking about Delta's thoughtful gesture, which gave a little respite from a stressful situation.
Team collaboration skills
Team collaboration is also important. Everyone on a team has their own personality and goals. You might think this doesn’t directly impact customer satisfaction. However, if there's a problem within the team, it can lead to slow responses and inconsistent service.
Particularly, feedback exchange is a delicate process. Finding the sweet spot between offering frank and helpful input without crossing into censuring may be challenging. Furthermore, what one colleague may mean as gentle guidance could come across as hurtful to their colleague. That's why it's crucial to master the art of giving and receiving constructive feedback. Doing so will foster both a positive workspace atmosphere and great customer service where no mishap goes unnoticed.
In addition, your employees should understand what constitutes good performance. Don’t assume this to be intuitive. Workers who set comparatively low standards for themselves can slow down the process for everyone else. Having common values will make internal processes more efficient.
Remote work skills
Remote work is here to stay, so it's time to add a new soft skill to the list — self-management. Without a manager watching over a service desk, team members need to keep up with customers' expectations and try to avoid domestic distractions. Over 50% of customers expect their questions answered within one hour of posting on a brand's digital channels.
For remote workers, it's best to set the working mood by setting up a good WFH environment (changing out of pajamas and avoiding working from bed is a must!). Customer service leads, in turn, should establish an optimal response-time standard (let’s say, 30 minutes) to meet customer needs.
Of course, as with any human interaction, there will always be a few that fall short of the preferred outcome. But ultimately, agents should simply learn from such experiences. This is true for hard skills too. Let’s talk about those now.
Hard customer service skills
Hard skills are technical skills that enable workers to complete particular tasks related to their field. Each job requires a specific set of competencies to ensure top-quality work. Let's explore some of the must-have hard skills for customer service.
Product knowledge
Customer service reps must know their product like the back of their hand. There’s nothing more frustrating than talking to an agent who hasn’t a clue about a product’s features. If your customer service takes too long to deliver because of a lack of training for your agents, you will shed customers.
We needn’t look far to find a company with excellent employee product knowledge. Apple staff not only know the products inside out — they are also passionate about them! Here’s how author Jay Elliot, who wrote two books on Apple, puts it,
“You’ve got to love the product and what it is. [The employees] love the product.”
While this level of enthusiasm can’t be forced, thorough training and a detailed knowledge base are key to timely and precise customer service. Pair this with strong company values, and your agents won’t only provide efficient service, but they'll also become your brand’s ambassadors.
Customer support software proficiency
The help desk is a critical tool for customer service teams. Without proper knowledge of it, all the other skills become useless. Although there are many easy-to-use and helpful help desks available, agents still need to be equipped to use this tool expertly.
To deliver a hassle-free experience to customers, reps need to be proficient in not just using the software but also comprehending the differences in each channel's communication style. Whether over email, phone, live chat, or social media, agents should effortlessly provide consistent customer service.
Plus, as AI continues to proliferate, more and more help desk systems are incorporating it. Examples of AI-based features in customer service software are chatbots, predictive analysis, and knowledge base search. Your agents should know how to work with AI to seamlessly integrate it into daily tasks.
Internal process knowledge
Agents need to be proficient not only with the product and the software but also with internal processes. AI alone isn't sufficient to decide whether or not to hand off a ticket to risk management. They must also know when a standard answer will work and when some customization is necessary. While communicating with people, tech isn’t the key to successful customer service. Only an experienced agent will pick up on all the nuances and be able to handle them effectively.
Although all these soft and hard skills are important in customer service, the specific skills needed can change depending on the business type. For instance, B2C and B2B businesses require different customer service skill sets. Let's examine these distinctions in greater detail.
Key Differences Between B2B and B2C Customer Service
Typically, support teams have two broad target markets: business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C). Let's see what differentiates them and what customer service skills agents need to handle these variations.
The number of stakeholders and sales cycle length
B2C businesses only need to gain the approval of one person, which makes the decision-making process a lot easier and faster. But in B2B sales, the process can be longer and more complex — in this setup, decisions are made with the input of multiple people.
Tone of speech
B2B interactions are typically more formal and leave less room for emotion. This is unsurprising, as B2B is about dry facts and numbers. Therefore, agents should approach these customers more diplomatically, taking care to notice subtle indications of frustration or disappointment behind the interaction.
B2C interactions, in contrast, allow for a more conversational tone of voice due to the often more openly emotional nature of B2C customers.
Customer lifetime value
B2B customer service prioritizes relationships with individual clients over handling a client base by volume.
Therefore, B2B customer service reps should possess stronger relationship-building skills, while B2C agents should focus on their service efficiency. This is where hard skills such as knowledge of help desk software and AI are essential in automating routine processes and providing personalized service to a large customer base.
What Is the Importance of Human Skills in Digital Customer Service
You can improve your customer service in many ways. You can automate repetitive tasks with AI or integrate all your communications into one help desk system. However, effective customer service always comes down to people and their ability to serve others.
These customer service skills include understanding customer needs, empathy, patience, team collaboration, and good knowledge of the help desk systems and products the agents support. In the end, building these skills helps not only the customers but also the company, giving it an edge over competitors.
