Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents

1. Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents Chapter 3

2. Communication and interpersonal skills are important for help desk and user support agents to achieve client satisfaction and excellent customer service Communication and interpersonal skills are often more challenging for new user support workers to learn than technical skills Communication and interpersonal skills are more difficult to measure and evaluate Communication and interpersonal skills impact the ability to effectively and efficiently solve the customer problem and satisfy the customer

3. Communication and Customer Service Skills • Communication involves listening and responding • Communication may be 2-way interaction: • Face to face • Phone • E-mail • Chat • Communication may be 1-way interaction: • Web site

4. Listening • Effective listening requires: • Hearing or reading and understanding the customer problem

5. Responding • Responding requires reflecting the understanding of the problem through a spoken or written response

6. Customer Service Excellence • A dissatisfied customer will result in: • Lengthy and costly incidents • More resources and free products • Repeated callbacks or help desk contacts • Complaints and ill-will among clients • Poor public relations and lost sales • Rerouting of incidents to higher level support and management • Product returns

7. Customer Service Ethic • Support staff members: • Provide clients with the information, service or solution they need, if it can reasonably be done • Explain what can be done if the clients’ problem cannot be resolved • Treat clients and potential clients with respect • Communicate to the client: • Hold times • Response times ( service, e-mail, resolution) • Return phone calls or e-mail when promised regardless of the status

8. Listen Carefully • Listen before you speak! • Listen to the full description of the problem • Listen to or observe the language the user uses to describe the problem • Novice or experienced • Target your language slightly below • Listen to how the user describes the problem • Tone of voice • Anger or frustration • Distracted or in a hurry

9. Excerpt from www.selfgrowth.com/articles/bjorseth4.html Shhh! Listen, Don’t Just Hear

10. Article written by Lillian D. Bjorseth: • The irony is that listening is the most used communication skill and the least taught. It is, by far, the most valuable communication skill for management and employees alike.Hearing is the first in a six-step hierarchical listening process i.e., all six must be done for the message to be received the way the sender wants it to be. "Hearing" means only that your ears are absorbing sound waves. Listening, on the other hand, also involves interpreting, evaluating, understanding, responding and remembering!That’s a lot to keep in mind when irate customers are loudly telling you what went wrong, you’re participating in yet another meeting (when you would rather be returning phone calls) , or you’re listening to a boring - to you - speaker. The following suggestions can help you listen better:

11. Shhh! Listen, Don’t Just Hear cont… • Control your urge to speak. Remember the old folk saying:God gave us two ears and one mouth so we could listen twice as much as we talk.Zig Ziglar put it another way when he said that when you talk, you say something you already know, and when you listen, you find out what someone else knows. I add to that "what someone else needs and wants." How can we possibly make a sale or provide top-quality customer service when we don’t know what the customer wants and needs?* Be receptive. Be objective and willing to hear what someone else has to say. Guard against preconceived notions based on race, sex, age or accent. Our mind and a parachute have something in common:they only work when open.* Empathize. Strive to understand, as though you were in the person’s shoes. Listen to what people are actually saying, not to what you think they should be saying. Listen to the words and the vocal tone and watch the body language, if you are having a face-to-face conversation. To be an effective listener, you have to see the world through another’s eyes, to take the time to think how they are thinking.* Take notes. Write down what people are saying as they are saying it to make sure you capture the right words. This is especially helpful if you are a visual learner and need notes to reinforce your memory. Also, record the speaker’s tone and body language to refine your interpretation as you review your notes.* Eliminate distractions. Very few people - if any - can effectively do two things at one time. While on the phone or talking to an employee, don’t read materials on your desk, daydream or think about what is going on outside your window. Put on blinders and concentrate on the task at hand!

12. Build Understanding • Listen • Empathy – is an understanding of and identification with another’s situation, thoughts and feelings • Restate the user’s problem in your own words • Does the user agree with your expression of the problem? • Look for the driving reasons behind the user’s request and emotions • Visualize the user as a person, not a report • Mental image • Inclusive language (we and us) • Smile

13. Respond Effectively • All aspects communicate understanding: 3 key aspects are: • Greeting • Use scripts appropriately • Use tone and style effectively

14. Greeting • First step in channeling an incident in a positive direction • Sincerity, interest and enthusiasm • Your name • Company name • Eye contact • Thank you contributes to a positive first impression • Formal address unless invited to use first names

15. Scripts • A script is a prepared sequence of questions and statements that cover important parts of an incident • May include branches and decision points • Used for training tool • Used to direct flow for complex problems and keep things on track • Should allow for deviation as necessary • FAQs and prepared responses • Let the user know you are reading or restate the response

16. Tone and Style • How you communicate can be more important than what you communicate • Style communicates the companies image • Formal or informal • Casual or professional • Words account for 7% of the information a person receives in communication • Body language is 55% • Style and tone 38% • Use: • Clear speech • Speak slowly ( match the speed to the user’s proficiency level) • Short sentences • Positive phrases • pauses • Avoid • Rising inflection • Empty phrases • Negative references

17. Successful Customer Satisfaction • Is the result of : • Using greetings, scripts, tone and style to communicate a willingness to help, • regard for the client’s value • and the organization’s concern for customer satisfaction • Effective skills in: • Listening • Reading • Speaking • Writing • Technically correct solutions