6. Acting Skills
Sometimes you're going to come across people that you'll never be able to make happy.
Situations outside of your control (they had a terrible day, or they are just a natural-born complainer) will sometimes creep into your usual support routine, and you'll be greeted with those "barnacle" customers that seem to want nothing else but to pull you down.
Every great customer service rep will have those basic acting skills necessary to maintain their usual cheery persona in spite of dealing with people who may be just plain grumpy.
7. Time Management Skills
Hey, despite my many research-backed rants on why you should spend more time with customers, the bottom line is that there is a limit, and you need to be concerned with getting customers what they want in an efficient manner.
The trick here is that this should also be applied when realizing when you simply cannot help a customer. If you don't know the solution to a problem, the best kind of support member will get a customer over to someone who does.
Don't waste time trying to go above and beyond for a customer in an area where you will just end up wasting both of your time!
8. Ability to "Read" Customers
You won't always be able to see customers face-to-face, and in many instances (nowadays) you won't even hear a customer's voice!
That doesn't exempt you from understanding some basic principles of behavioral psychology and being able to "read" the customer's current emotional state.
This is an important part of the personalization process as well, because it takes knowing your customers to create a personal experience for them.
More importantly though, this skill is essential because you don't want to mis-read a customer and end up losing them due to confusion and miscommunication.
Look and listen for subtle clues about their current mood, patience level, personality, etc., and you'll go far in keeping your customer interactions positive.
9. A Calming Presence
There's a lot of metaphors for this type of personality: "keeps their cool," "staying cool under pressure," etc., but it all represents the same thing: the ability that some people have to stay calm and even influence others when things get a little hectic.
I've had my fair share of hairy hosting situations, and I can tell you in all honesty that the #1 reason I stick with certain hosting companies is due to the ability of their customer support team to keep me from pulling my hair out.
The best customer service reps know that they cannot let a heated customer force them to lose their cool; in fact it is their job to try to be the "rock" for a customer who thinks the world is falling down due to their current problem.
10. Goal Oriented Focus
This may seem like a strange thing to list as a customer service skill, but I assure you that it is vitally important.
In my article on empowering employees, I noted that many customer service experts have shown how giving employees unfettered power to "WOW" customers doesn't always generated the returns that many businesses expect to see.
That's because it leaves employees without goals, and business goals + customer happiness can work hand-in-hand without resulting in poor service.
Relying on frameworks like the Net Promoter Score can help businesses come up with guidelines for their employees that allow plenty of freedom to handle customers on a case-to-case basis, but also leave them priority solutions and "go-to" fixes for common problems.
» Read more about this concept here.
11. Ability to Handle Surprises
Sometimes the customer support world is going to throw you a curveball.
Maybe the problem you encounter isn't specifically covered in the company's guidelines, or maybe the customer isn't reacting how you thought they would.
Whatever the case, it's best to be able to think on your feet... but it's even better to create guidelines for yourself in these sorts of situations.
Let's say, for instance, you want to come up with a quick system for when you come across a customer who has a product problem you've never seen before...
Who? One thing you can decide right off the bat is who you should consider your "go-to" person when you don't know what to do. The CEO might be able to help you, but you can't go to them with every single question! Define a logical chain for yourself to use, then you won't be left wondering who you should forward the problem too.
What? When the problem is noticeably out of your league, what are you going to send to the people above? The full conversation, just the important parts, or maybe some highlights and an example of a similar ticket?
How? When it comes time to get someone else involved, how are you going to contact them? For instance, at Help Scout we prefer to solve small dilemmas over chat, and save bigger problems for email, keeping inbox clutter down to a minimum.
12. Persuasion Skills
This is one a lot of people didn't see coming!
Experienced customer support personnel know that oftentimes, you will get