Provide Excellent Customer Support

Customer support can be tricky. Customers will contact you asking about their purchase because there is an issue, or they are not knowledgeable about it. Oftentimes they are frustrated and they need someone to hear their complaint. Here at Ironbelly Tech, our CEO Larby Amirouche always reiterates to us the importance of good customer experience. If you are a customer support person, you will require skills to navigate yourself through the hurdles of providing great customer experience.

Great Communication Skills:

After-sales support is all about communication. Being able to address our customer’s questions is the number 1 goal. There is no better skill in delivering customer support than great communication skills. Walking the customer through the product or service, highlighting the advantages and benefits using top notch verbiages is the key to a good customer relationship.

Patience:

Customers contacted you because there is something wrong with their product, or there is something that they do not understand. Our boss Larby Amirouche would always advise us to be patient with clients. Either way, the customer will most probably vent out their frustration on you so you need to be patient with them. Customers are not always right, but they definitely are not as educated as you when it comes to your offerings so you have to keep that in mind and treat them like a novice.

Empathy:

Addressing a customer’s frustration can be tricky. You cannot just bluntly answer their queries with what you have learned from training. You need to empathize and show customers that you care for them. Showing our humane side will make them think that we are not just here for the money. Once they have felt that, they will be loyal to your brand because they know that your goal is not just making a sale, but to create a strong customer base.

Multitasking:

Being able to multitask is very important especially if you’re handling calls because you need to be able to talk and type. Our CEO Larby Amirouche rewards those who are efficient and can multitask. Some of our customers are busy and they do not want to spend a lot of time with a customer support person so you would need to be efficient in dealing with them. You need to be able to catch important information coming from the customer like addresses, part numbers, names, and dates all while researching on how to resolve the issue.

Accountability:

As a customer support person, you need to be able to speak on behalf of the company. You must be able to make the customer feel that you own the issue and are ready to resolve it. Be like a friend who is there and willing to help. By doing this, you are not only giving yourself a chance at a good customer service rating but also showing that your company cares for their customers. Your impact to customers will be known and before you know it, sales will come pouring in.

Adaptability:

Customer support has changed drastically through the years. Before, customer support is just about helping the customer with their query. Nowadays, customer support involves resolving their query, right sizing the customers product, and upselling. Most of the time, it is an end-to-end process of you communicating with them over the phone or through email until the issue gets resolved. Another factor is product updates. Changes happen almost every few weeks due to competition. Hence, being adaptable is a major requirement to provide excellent customer support.

Ability to Paraphrase:

You can have all the skills above, but lack the ability to formulate a positive script. This is extremely important because you want to show the customer a can-do attitude. By downplaying the negatives, you are able to give the customer a pleasant customer support experience. Sometimes we really are unable to deliver the solution the customer wants, but with positive scripting we can make the customer feel at ease with what we can offer. Phrases like “we can’t” or “we won’t” can be replaced by “what we can do”. Focus on the positive side; be optimistic.

Active Listening:

In customer support, active listening is a skill defined as being able to secure and understand information from the customer. It entails that you pay attention to the customer while visualizing what needs to be done. Sometimes, it also involves taking down notes. It is a part of multitasking but it is a more specific skill especially in catering to customer support calls. This is important because customer issues are complex and need your full attention. We cannot just pretend that we are listening without analyzing the whole situation.

Selling Skills:

The customer support industry has moved on from just answering a query to being able to give the customer the right products for their money. We have learned this skill from our CEO — Larby Amirouche who is excellent in digital marketing. Most companies require their customer support agents to offer products based on the customer’s needs. With that said, you need to have good selling skills for you to be able to convert that call into a sale. More often than not, the sale is not just for us to gain profit but to help the customer with their needs. Fitting a package or service for a customer is a very common practice. You have to make sure to investigate their real reason for using the product before you make an offer. With the right delivery, you can convert a simple query into a sale.

Originally Posted: https://medium.com/@amirouchelarby/skills-needed-provide-excellent-customer-support-402c3ca2c84b