Soft skills are defined as personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people. Especially when dealing with customers over the phone, often it isn’t what the agents who work for your company say, but how they say it. Refer to this infographic for the top 9 customer service soft skills to master.
- Active Listening: One thing that is important for you to teach your agents is that listening is more important than talking. Ensure they are taking the time to listen to callers’ needs and concerns.
- Clear Communication: Your agents should be able to convey the proper information to callers.
- Persuasive Speaking: There is a fine art to persuasive speaking that includes being confident enough to correctly deliver the information to quickly and efficiently help callers. Your agents will need to balance being persuasive without being too aggressive.
- Confidence: Being able to speak with confidence comes with thorough training and practice. With all the tools provided, you can give your agents what they need.
- Ability to Empathize: Empathy is an important trait for any agent to have. Being able to empathize, means not only understanding what a caller needs, but also the know-how to voice their empathy to callers. Using statements like, I’m sorry for your frustrations”, or “I understand how that could be upsetting”. These are ways of not admitting any wrongdoing but letting them know you understand and showing empathy.
- Positive Attitude: Having a positive attitude helps agents maintain a great rapport with callers. It also helps keep the callers calm and they can remain positive as well.
- Decision Making: Agents will have to think fast on their feet and make decisions quickly. It’s your company’s job to help empower your agents to have quick and accurate decision making.
- Self-motivation: Just like you had self-motivation when you started your business, look for agents who are also self-motivated and driven.
- Leadership Skills: Grow your leadership skills, they will help you grow your company and you will learn what works well to pass those leadership skills onto your agents.
This list of the top 9 customer service soft skills to master provides valuable information for your agents to be the best call center representatives possible. Based on the list in this infographic, you can learn to help your agents provide the best customer support they can.
The Arise® Platform offers a customer service work from home opportunity that makes it easy for anyone to operate their own call center business right from home. It gives you the freedom to be your own boss, set your own hours, and work from the comfort of your own home. Being your own boss means taking charge of your call center, which must include a strong focus on customer service. The tips in this infographic will help your company maintain an excellent repertoire and provide the service that is expected from the Fortune 500 companies your company services when taking inbound customer service calls for your home-based call center business.
