9 Excellent Customer Service Skills Every Service Rep Should Master to Foster Top-tier CX

in hive-174578 •  2 years ago 

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We at Callnovo always focus our time/energy on ensuring our global business readers have ample BPO outsourcing/customer service & tech support knowledge to make the key short-and-long-term business decisions that secure lifelong brand & sales success. Recently, we went over customer service principles customer service reps (CSRs) should follow to ensure fantastic customer engagement; we mentioned:

  • Positive customer experiences (CX) are a grand sales influencer – as 89% of consumers are motivated to continue purchasing products/services loyally from the same brands.
  • Positive CX heavily-impacts customer brand ambassadorship – leading approx. 94% to recommend the same brand(s) to friends, family, and acquaintances.
  • Globally, 50-60% of customers are greatly-disposed to switching to competitors when they experience negative CX.

As your CSRs practice core customer service principles, your customer service (CS) teams will be properly aligned with a greater vision of brand growth/success and a more acute CS mission, proportioning satisfying CX. Since CS principles are merely principles, they can be put to action in different ways. We’ll be complimenting the above-mentioned article with a guide to 9 fantastic customer service skills every CSR should master to foster top-tier CX.

9 Key Customer Support Skills to Ensure Quality Customer Engagement that leads to Fantastic CX

Let’s dive right into our detailed guide on customer support skills every CSR should master to ensure customer-centric service that guarantees quality customer engagement, leading to fantastic CX:

Empathy

Genuine customer care/top-tier CX should always be a top priority; the need to turn customers into long-term, loyal customers is extremely important for long-term ROI – as, according to a 3rd party infographic: approx. 53% of consumers switch to competitors when feeling under-valued – and, 42% switch due to rude, unhelpful CS teams. Defensive commentary given to customers causes further escalation; have CSRs reflect on customer situations and how they’d react if a friend/family member expressed the same annoyances. Reps should apologize at the outset for issues customers face, assuring they’ll do their best to resolve them.

Positivity Throughout Customer Cases

Positivity is key within the customer service skills for every support rep. Though life can affect business if personal issues are mixed in, CSRs should learn to head to work with a fresh, positive attitude – which benefits customers and CSRs alike. By being optimistic, CSRs can survive and work efficiently/effectively through long-winded customer interactions/unsatisfied customers. Your CSRs should not let personal life and stress taint their professional appearance; have them consider the customer support they provide as an opportunity to escape and help others solve their pre-sales/post-sales requests since it’ll boost customers’ spirits and create long-turn customer loyalty.

Adaptability to Customers’ Needs

All customers have different support needs; this means your CSRs should be prepared to best fit their needs while providing unique customer service/technical support solutions. One area where adaptability is particularly important is following-up with customer cases; there will be customers who need detailed, frequent updates – whereas others may be more patient/relaxed while CS teams respond. It’s your reps’ responsibility to recognize customer expectations and meet their specific necessities. Furthermore, throughout omni-channel customer support, adaptability plays a major role; for such, CSRs must be proficient with support channels, transferring each case to the most effective customer support/troubleshooting environment.

Patience throughout Escalation/Complex Support Cases

Grand patience is required to answer frustrated customers’ concerns and still maintain a professional stance. It’s imperative that your CSRs maintain focus throughout – which builds rapport/trust, creating lasting customer-brand relationships. Furthermore, regarding difficult cases coupled with the customers’ view that your CSRs are expected to know how to resolve cases, full patience is key – as CSRs may need to search for effective resolutions; contrarily, the more CSRs pressure themselves to find appropriate solutions, the more stressful the resolution process will be.

Emotional Intelligence for Customer Intent Interpretation

Emotional intelligence is incredibly important for CSRs to exhibit because many customer issues are caused by external factors preventing them from meeting their goals/needs; emotionally-intelligent customer service agents identify such factors and reduce their impact. For example, a frustrated customer may have children screaming in the background, affecting their composure during CS interactions; an emotionally-intelligent CSR would recognize this, express empathy, and then make light of the situation – offering maybe a joke about children participating in the customer interaction – or just making their best effort to provide white-glove customer service that creates strong customer retention and long-term customer loyalty. In such cases, emotional intelligence is a timely CS skill.

Honest Accountability

It’s CSRs’ responsibility to proportion a clean brand image on behalf of your company – which may mean assuming responsibility for customer issues even when they’re not yours’ or your CSRs’ fault. By assuming immediate responsibility when needed, your business can quickly build rapport with customers while enhancing the value they put on their received CX, leading to long-term customer loyalty and a heightened brand reputation.

Product/Service Knowledge

Proper knowledge of your brand’s products/services is essential to your CS teams’ roles. Support reps should be prepared to resolve all customer questions/concerns – which builds rapport/trust and increases your brand value. CSRs should have extensive training. If a request for help is needed, they should ask customers if they can put them on hold – and then ask for help/transfer them to another rep who can provide an accurate response/solution.

Persuasiveness During Uncertain Resolution

Positivity isn’t always enough to finalize customer cases, and persuasion may be essential. Any CSR knows the finest persuasion skills are necessary to break skepticism in specific customer cases. For example, understanding how to “read” customers from a single customer interaction is important. To achieve this, CSRs should actively listen, not talking too much, specifically tailoring it to each customer. A 3rd party article states: teaching support reps to quickly assess general personality types and ensure they have a necessary balance between information gathering/speed is crucial. Additionally, CSRs should confidently persuade customers with honesty to make positive decisions that’ll benefit their customer needs.

Competency Across Omni-channel Support

Time is money – as customers don’t wanna waste it communicating with agents; there should be a balance between detailed, accurate service and ensuring customers issues are resolved promptly. According to a 3rd party study, 72% of customers fault negative experiences on having to repeatedly explain issues to various CSRs. Your CSRs can mitigate such a negative experience by providing immediate responses to tickets and, when possible, avoiding transferring customers to other reps.

Callnovo’s Customer Service Outsourcing Solutions – Guaranteeing Top-tier CX

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To compliment the above-mentioned customer service skills every CSR should master, we at Callnovo Contact Center support businesses – like your very own – with excellent customer service outsourcing solutions, ensuring top-tier CX, leading to heightened customer acquisition/retention and long-term brand loyalty.

Some of our outsourcing advantages are:

  • High-quality Expertise – our global CS teams share expert service backgrounds/skills to ensure quality service with the utmost success; we ensure personnel are skilled in such areas as:
  • interpersonal communication skills,
  • customer-centric enthusiasm/service attitude,
  • logical thinking skills,
  • management/operations skills, and
  • product/troubleshooting service experience.
  • Omnichannel Support – as featured via our global, cloud-based SaaS CRM platform, our CS teams ensure accessible, rapid contact solutions are provided through all communication channels (i.e. phone, live chat, SMS, email, social media, etc.) – guaranteeing always-available support, leading to enhanced CX and influencing long-term customer brand ambassadorship/customer loyalty.
  • Native Language Support – our native language support ensures you can meet customers’ needs efficiently, conforming to cultural expectations and improving customer loyalty.
  • Always-available Service – our own tailored plans ensure businesses can maximize customers’ satisfaction/CX by continually meeting customers’ needs – without limits.

Conclusion

Via the above-mentioned key customer support skills every CSR should master, your CS teams’ CSRs can proportion top-tier CX that fosters greater long-term brand loyalty/brand reputation. To support you, our very own Callnovo offers a comprehensive multilingual, omnichannel customer service outsourcing solution to help you meet customers’ CX expectations, improving customer acquisition/retention numbers and securing global sales success.

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