What It Takes to Work in Customer Support
At schools, we’re taught that if we want to get ahead in life that we do well in all our exams. But one quality that our education system often overlook is people skills; schools often underestimate how important social skills are in getting what you want in life.
John Hall, one of Forbes’s contributors, recently asked some students to explain what they considered to be the most important thing about their university experience. Surprisingly, acquisitive of knowledge was not the most important thing to them, rather the chance to network with other students at socials and clubs was deemed the most valuable lesson and experience.
It makes a lot of sense really, since employers are not overly concerned about your degree subject unless you are applying for a subject specific job.
The degree itself just gets you on the long-list of candidates with degrees but won’t get you in the door. The actual differentiating factor that gets you the jobs are you people skills. These days doing well in the business world depends not just in your knowledge but on how well you can collaborate and relate to and support customers. The better you can relate, the better you can support customers and the better your career will be.
Communication skills
You’ll need to very good at both written communication, (via email and live chat) and verbal communication via phone and face to face. This is because you will need to be able to convey often complex information in a simple way without coming across as condescending to the customer. This requires advanced communications skills.
Listening skills
You won’t get very far in customer support if you don’t have great listening. One of the quickest ways to antagonize a customer is to talk over them and not give them time to express their concern or frustration or point of view. You’ll also never be able to get to the root of the most complex problems if you don’t have advanced listening skills.
Dispute resolution skills
Great customer support professionals always look for the win-win outcome. They avoid conflict, wherever possible. Excellent customer supports people have excellent dispute resolution skills. and are able to remain calm and professional in the face of angry customers. They possess the ability to remain impartial but are always looking for mutually beneficial solutions.
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