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7 Experts Share Their Advice on Top 3 Customer Service Skills required to Succeed

customer service skills required

The customer satisfaction depends on the customer service skills of an individual to professionally handle and deal with various consumers. If you let your customers down then there are chances of losing potential buyers. The report done by customer impact business depicted that almost 89% of consumer stopped buying products due to low customer service. Hence, it is really important to build customer satisfaction and trust in the path of their purchase by offering good customer service. If you are lacking the strategies to offer good assistance to your consumers, then follow these tips to adapt topmost customer service skills required to succeed.

1. Lan Golding

customer service skills required by lan golding

  • A natural ability to care for other people – Both customers and colleagues – this is all about having the ability to empathize with other human beings
  • Belief and Vision – A clear understanding of what is the ‘right thing’ to do for the customer, the employee and the shareholder and an understanding of what is required to make it happen
  • Courage – This is needed ‘in spades’ – You must have the hide of a rhinoceros to balance with the compassion of an angel. Doing the ‘right things’ is very tough, but the most capable customer service professionals in the world keep on going despite the barriers constantly thrown in their way.

2. Lynn Hunsaker

Lynn Hunsaker

  • Relationship- Building with other functional areas in the company — to establish a cadence for customers prevalent issues to be passed along to the originating functions for prevention of recurrence.
  • Change management methodology mastery — To drive smooth adoption of technologies as they’re added.
  • Negotiation savvy – To advocate customer service’s needs in the company’s best interests with other parties, internal as well as external.

3. Adrian Swinscoe

customer service skills required by Adrian Swinscoe

  • Being able to see something from another’s perspective – Empathy
  • The ability to communicate well and to adapt your style depending on the customer. Within this I would include writing, talking and listening. – Communication
  • Caring enough to take responsibility for when things go wrong, committing to solving the problem and seeing it through – Responsibility
    Customer service can be a tough job and so having patience and resilience are key – Fortitude

4. Kate Nasser

Kate Nasser

  • Empathy-  All great service starts with an attitude of wanting to see things from the customer’s perspective and then showing empathy for what the customers are going through.  It is the number one “IT” factor in customer service.  When you have the desire to serve, an empathetic attitude, and the skill to communicate it, so when you succeed, the customers succeed, and the customers return.
  • Listening-  An empathetic service attitude produces great listening which is absolutely essential for success.  When you hear what the customer is saying, is not saying, wants, expects, and everything in between.  From there you can deliver human care AND a great solution for their request.
  • Caring objectivity-  Objectivity keeps you vital in the face of angry customers, tough times, and the occasional bad manager.  Yet, you must also be caring to stop your objectivity from growing into insensitivity.  My message to everyone I teach, be objective about conditions coming at you, be caring in your response.

5. Jeff Toister

customer service skills required by Jeff Toister

Customer service requires many skills, so it’s hard to pick just three! Here are three that I think are especially challenging, but can make a huge difference.

  • Listening- I think we overlook the importance of this skill and don’t practice enough. The best customer service professionals have an uncanny ability to listen closely to their customers and identify both their rational and emotional needs.
  • Empathy- Empathy requires us to understand how a customer is feeling, and good empathy skills can make a customer feel like we’re on their side. The tricky part is empathy comes from having a relatable experience and that’s not always easy to tap into. For instance, an IT Helpdesk professional may struggle to empathize with a customer having computer issues because she can fix her own computer!
  • Vision- This is probably the most important. The best customer service professional has a vision for how they want their customers to feel and they work hard to make that vision a relate. This creates a very different experience than the transaction service we often receive.

6. Jim Iyoob

Jim Iyoob

Clear Communication – I believe there needs to be a Cultural fit for the company they work for – last and I think is most important that they should be a controller. The people of today do not care about empathy like in the old days, it is very important but most important is the ability to fix the problems.
They want problem solvers (controllers) “I am sorry, but I assure you I will fix it”

7. Adam Toporek

Adam Toporek

The three most important skills for succeeding in the customer service industry are situational awareness, empathy, and communication.

  • Awareness- Having a heightened sense of awareness enables one to anticipate customer needs and prevent customer issues before they can take root.
  • Empathy- Being able to empathize with what a customer is going through, to walk a mile in their personal customer journey, enables the type of deep connection and understanding that powers meaningful customer relationships and loyalty.
  • Communication- And finally, in customer service, communication is king. Excellent communication is the bedrock upon which all great customer experiences are built. Without it, good experiences can quickly go bad, and bad experiences can rapidly get worse.

Take Away

Remember that most dissatisfied customers are the greatest source of learning. It is not easy to change the customer’s perception but with great interpersonal skills and good communication channel like online help chat you can learn how to manage them effectively.

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About the author

Jared is a customer support expert. He has been published in CrazyEgg, CoSchedule, and CXL. As a customer support executive at ProProfs, he has been instrumental in developing a complete customer support system that more than doubled customer satisfaction. You can connect and engage with Jared on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn