Expert live chat agents recommend learning multiple skills that are requisite to delivering excellent customer service to any company. Customer support agents must stick to their golden working ethic and not let it slip to keep their company's reputation.
Amid the hustle-bustle of customer complaints and speeding customer churn, what are the must-have traits for live support agents to produce a delightful customer experience?
Browse what makes you a customer service representative superhero with 7 learnable skills to empower your working ethic and help you create great company results!
1) Maintain Composure:
Oftentimes, it occurs that customers start a dialogue with representatives in a heated state. Here, patience is the key, as we are already conversing with someone stricken with frustration. There’s no thrill in adding fuel to the fire. Instead, a representative should be patient and show a glare of empathy to calm their anger.
Live customer support agents must show a high level of patience by listening to customer problems without interrupting their speech. Moreover, offering them real-time solutions makes it memorable for customers, and they are likely to use your services again.
2) Clear Communication:
Having clear, effective communication is at the heart of achieving excellence in customer service. We must adopt the art of being clear with words and avoid using phrases that can be misinterpreted. For example, a CSR at an automobile company confessed to a customer that their “oiling gig” would be included in the final invoice.
Upon getting the receipt, it was realized by the customers that the “inclusion” of the service reflected as an extra charge, whereas the customer assumed it to be free. The car owner vouched for not using the service again due to the lack of clear communication. Be transparent with words and avoid dual-meaning suggestions.
3) Prime Product Knowledge:
As customer service representatives, we are bound to meet with all types of challenges, and all of them stem from asking questions. Knowing that we become the center of tantrums, assumptions, and half-baked questions as soon as we get in touch with an infuriated customer, it is extraordinarily important to have prime product knowledge.
We should know a way out of the problem and smart tricks to work it around the customer concern. Amid all that, we should exhibit a solid problem-solving attitude so that we can create remarkable solutions for customers, even for their complex problems.
4) Be Open To Surprises:
Knowing that hundreds of customers will line up their quest-like questions for your attention, it’s important to be open to surprises and hold your marbles together. Not every customer’s query would reflect your company’s guidelines. In such cases, be more than prepared to resolve their issues.
If the issue has exceeded your job autonomy, you must report it to your concerned manager to look into the case. Moreover, help supervisors track customer correspondence by regularly making back up for chats and calls. This is integral to processing refund and exchange cases where decisions require a note of prior stances.
5) Engage With Empathy:
Empathy is more of a character than a skill, and despite being a part of our nature, live chat agents should focus on customers and their problems. Showing empathy towards their concern makes them feel appreciated and satisfied.
We should focus on the "sense of urgency" and the "uncertainties of the service" to immerse ourselves in the same agonizing customer angst and solve their problems accordingly.
Being empathetic towards your customers opens a window of confidence as to what and how they feel regarding your service or product.
6 Word Conciseness:
The famous American novelist, "Nathaniel Hawthorne", suggests that "easy reading is damn hard writing". This rationalizes that, as a customer support agent, you're bound to be concise, conceptual, and seamless with your writing. It should not carry the long-winded element that gives your messages a fuller look. Instead, writing refined responses helps cut time per query and collect more positive feedbacks
The phenomenon that "haste makes waste" turns into a reality when a customer support agent is expected to answer a volley of questions within minutes. Be concise and detail-oriented with your live chat responses. Cut corners in your messages by directly addressing the problem and quoting its solution without redundancy.
7) Confident Closing:
Closing a case is as significant as starting it when it comes to handling problem-solving calls. Every customer requires some kind of conclusion to rationalize their call responses. It is up to the customer service representative to find the most suitable solution and steadily put the case down with the utmost result.
It also becomes a source of annoyance for customers if the customer support agent fails to connect them with a conclusion as this heavily contributes to customer contentment.