What skills are needed for support services?

15 years ago, customer service is a hot line, today it includes much more. Internet, e-mail, chat and social media - clients communicate with you as they like. Still, many customers prefer to contact companies by phone. From the point of view of companies, a telephone is not always the most effective channel, especially for large companies facing a large flow of customer calls. Basic skills for providing telephone support, such as empathy, the ability to “read” the client’s emotional state, etiquette, and friendliness — remain important, but additional skills for new channels need to be developed to make these channels more attractive to customers. In this article we will look at the channels of communication between customers and companies and the techniques that are used by the best support agents.

Phone

• Smile. The smile is transmitted by phone, because your voice sounds friendlier and softer. But be careful not to smile at a very angry customer. Wait for the right moment. You should always be only one tone higher on the emotional state than the client.
• Mirror. Try to reflect their tone and emotions. Reflection does not mean that you need to shout at the client, if he shouts, you should not mimic too. It is important to be able to adjust the volume, speed of speech, pitch. Mirror is the best way to come to a quick agreement.
• Listen up When a client is upset or disappointed, he may not be able to accept what you are saying, even if this is the correct answer. First, you need to really listen to help him calm down. After speaking, he will most likely be able to listen to the solution you are proposing.
• Confession. Tell the client that you understand his problem and the reason why he called, acknowledge that what he is talking about is important. Make sure he heard you.
• Give time. Let the client speak, even if you already understand what he wants to say. People often need to throw out emotions before they are ready to continue.
• Summarize. Repeat in other words what the customer said. But in no case do this if he has already clearly formulated the problem. Be wary of the meaningless repetition of the words of the client. “I want to know when the payment will come!” - “Do you want to know the date of arrival of the payment?”.
• Warn about waiting time. Before you hang the client on hold, make sure that he does not mind. The main rule: come back to it every one or two minutes, do not keep it waiting and nervous. Offer a call back if you understand that you need a time out.

Email

• Improve your writing skills. Email requires you to own the letter perfectly. It means writing briefly, clearly and competently.
• Use templates wisely. Do not use the same pre-written texts for everyone. Even the most similar to the first treatment may differ in details. Take a simple, standard template and edit it by answering customers.
• Add a personal relationship. Feel free to use your own voice and approach. You can reflect the company's feature and philosophy in its own way. Use different signatures depending on the tone and the result of the dialogue.
• Set a time frame. Make sure all emails are answered or reached the maximum number within a certain period of time. The time of the first response is crucial, so set the processing time for requests for the team and the waiting time for the response for customers. System notifications should be used to ensure that letters are not stale. Make sure that you have a systematic process for informing customers about the time of your response.
• Do not be a robot. The letter should reflect what a living person writes. Use simple vocabulary and grammar structures. Write clearly as if answering the phone.
• Set priorities. If you process appeals in priority only by the time of receipt, then when you get to the letter from an angry customer, which required urgent attention, it may be too late. Make it more flexible the principle by which the letters are waiting for their turn.

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Chat

• Combines skills for email and phone. Chat is very similar to a phone, as it is a conversation in real time and like email, chat requires the ability to write.
• Tone and vocabulary. It is often difficult to convey the mood in short messages, but you can use the smiley by showing emotion. The fewer the words, the harder it is to choose the right ones. In the chat there is no time to pour water, write on the case.
• Multitasking. An experienced support agent can conduct several dialogues simultaneously, but this should not affect the quality of the consultation. Take on only what you can handle. If your customers wait more than a minute or two between replies, then it may be worthwhile to take time out. Treat them the same way you would answer a phone call and ask for a waiting time.
• Attentiveness As with email, customers are often less able to express and explain problems in writing. Read carefully and ask questions. Do not rush to conclusions.

Social media

• The confirmation. Let me know that you saw the client's tweet, post on Facebook or in contact.
• Contact quickly. Appear in the comments as quickly as possible, within 10 minutes will be optimal.
• Do not respond to harassment or obvious attempts to draw you into a meaningless quarrel in a public space. No one will benefit from this interaction.
• Send positive tweets to marketing. They may want to retweet them or contact a customer.
• Answer If the information is not related to personal data, respond here publicly, and do not ask for contacts to transfer the dialogue to other channels. It is much faster.
• Create tickets. If a problem is reported that requires troubleshooting or additional investigation and assistance from other departments, create a ticket with a link to a tweet or post. After solving the problem, unsubscribe publicly.

It does not matter what channel you use, in communicating with clients the main thing is to always keep them informed of your every step in the process of resolving the issue and after to make sure that they are satisfied.