What Makes Good Customer Service Skills?

Fostering good customer service skills in employees requires ongoing effort. Regular training and staff development is a must. Holding employees to the customers service skills they've been taught is even more important. Any customer service skills training should teach both behaviors and concepts. Certain concepts, including approachability and respect for the customer, however, are mainstays of customer service and should always be covered in customer service skills training.

Attitude

When it comes to customer service, an employee's attitude is everything. A positive attitude, along with a genuine smile, can make even a difficult customer transaction more pleasant. It also makes training employees in customer service skills easier. A negative attitude toward learning customer service skills is a good predictor of an employee's eventual attitude toward the customers themselves. Encourage employees to check their attitudes at the door. Surliness, grumpiness or irritability won't be tolerated, because they make good customer service almost impossible.

Respect

Treating customers with respect is a sure-fire way to create a great customer service experience. Giving customers undivided attention, doing the utmost to prevent long wait times, providing concise explanations of products and services—these behaviors indicate respect for customer's time and money. Respecting customers means treating them with courtesy, kindness and tact. Employees who consistently show customers respect create consistent customers. It's a self-perpetuating behavior.

Approachability

To provide great customer service, employees should project that they are there to help. Being approachable means that customers feel comfortable asking for assistance and information. Approachability is more than just being available for customers. It's speaking to customers in a tone that invites questions, rather than sounding so busy or distracted that customers feel put off. It's asking open-ended questions, such as, "how can I help you" rather than "do you need help." It's making eye contact rather than ducking into another area when customers appear to need help.

Knowledge

An often overlooked aspect of customer service is one of the most important: organizational knowledge. Providing customer service means helping customers and giving them the information they need about the organization or business and the services or products available. Employees must have knowledge about these products and services in order to assist customers with skill. Many employees feel that knowing about products and services that are not in their department is unnecessary, but that's not the case. Even if an employee in sales does not work in fulfillment, the employee should be able to answer basic questions about fulfillment and know the employees in that department in order to make referrals.

Dedication

A dedication to providing great customer service may be the most important aspect of customer service. Dedication means putting the customer first—before co-workers, before suppliers, before any of the distractions that are a part of every work day. An employee who is dedicated to customers can wait 15 minutes before going to lunch to make sure a customer is satisfied with his transaction. Dedicated employees provide more than the bare minimum of service, providing additional information, services or even just extra attention. Employees who are dedicated are not happy until the customer is happy.

References

• "Customer Service Training"; Maxine Kamin; 2002
• The Customer Service Zone: What are the Most Essential Customer Service Skills

Resources

• Customer Service Skills