Instituto Panamericano

Media Section

Business English

Essay - Tips to improve service skills

Carlos Hurtado
David Jiménez
Susette Nava
Lissette Xatruch

Marketing - 12°V

Julissa Ávila

May 16, 2022

 Introduction

Services skills are the abilities needed to communicate with others,

demonstrate patience, understanding someone’s situation to bring them
satisfaction to the point of solving their problems and complaints.
In this work, you will be able to read an essay with tips to improve services
skills. This essay is divided into three sections:
- The importance of great service for a customer service representative
and for a customer service team managers.
- Tips for customer service professionals.
- Customer service tips for Management and Operations leaders.
Customer service professional: Specializes in answering customer
questions through in-person, phone, email, chat, and social media interactions and
may also be responsible for creating documentation for self-service support.
An Operational leader: Is someone who sees how the individual elements of
an organization fit together and work to create the larger outcome. This leadership
style typically requires problem-solving, critical thinking, analytical skills, and
communication skills.
 Tips to improve services skills
Have you ever wondered how does a company get customers? It must be
because of their products and their prices, but what really makes a company
engage with their customers is their service. The customer service industry is one
of the fastest growing segments in business. A study by "The Harris Poll" revealed
that 85% of customers would leave a company if they experienced poor customer
service. Poor customer service can have a negative impact on employee morale,
productivity, and brand reputation. In this essay, we will provide you with tips for
managing and providing excellent customer service to your employees and
customers.
First of all, it is worth considering the importance of customer service for a
customer service representative and for a customer service team managers.
- Customer service representative: Customer service representatives are the
face of the company / business, each interaction with a customer will define if the
customer is willing to accept the company or denied it. Giving a good service to the
client can build loyalty.
- Customer service team managers: In the United States, businesses have
lost over $62 billion a year due to a lack of good customer service. That's a huge
red flag for the affected companies. Managers and leaders must be aware of this
impact and realize that service is what makes a company/business grow. The way
you treat a customer will make them decide to be loyal or never come back.
Secondly, the job of a customer service professional is to maintain solid
customer relationships by handling questions and concerns with speed and
professionalism. Here are some recommended tips for customer service
professionals:
1. Practice active listening
Active listening is making a conscious effort to hear, understand, and
retain information. This will help you stay more focused and recognize
the client better, because they always want to feel understood, listened
to and cared for. It's suggested to do a quick summary after the customer
is done talking, so the customer can see that you were really paying
attention to them.

2. Learn to empathize with your customers

Empathy is the ability to understand the thoughts, feelings, or emotions
of someone else. In this case, when a customer is having a problem, we
need to watch their problem as if it were ours. By this, the customer is
going to feel understood by you. The best way to be empathic is to start
listening to the customer and don’t interrupt them while speaking once
they finish complaining, we can proceed to talk to them.
3. Use positive language
 Positive language means telling a customer what you can do for them,
rather than what you can't. You need to know how to use verbs correctly.
For example: “I can’t help you right now” instead you can say “I’m not
able to help you at the moment, that’s why I’m going to transfer this call
to one of my partners.” When speaking to a customer you should always
stay calm a positive, even is the customer is angry.

4. Improve your technical skills

Time is gold, that why must of customer want their problems to be solved
as fast as possible. If you don’t know what to say to your clients and let
them waiting, that can make them angry. Before interacting with a
customer, you should fully understand the rules of this work, talk clearly,
and know how to type fast.

5. Know your products and services

To help a customer you need to know your products and services.
Onboarding is the act or process of orienting and training a new
employee. This is a great way to learn about your services and the
company.

6. Look for common ground

Be authentic, genuine, and human. If you are typing with a customer, try
to use formal language and be polite. You need to find a way to connect
with the customer, look for common ground. If you are talking with a
customer, play with the tones of your voice, if you want to highlight
something, increase your voice a little, remember to always talk property.
Last but not least if you are seeing a customer face to face give them a
smile. Smiles are sticky, so it doesn't bother anyone to receive a
precious smile.

7. Communicate clearly
Be clear and concise, most people want their issues resolved quickly. If
they ask for more details about something then you can give further
information, customers want an explanation but not necessary will all
specifically details. It’s recommended to always end with “is there
anything else I can do for you?”. This shows the customer that you are
willing to help them.

8. Be solutions-focused
Contact center work can be emotional and sometimes can be frustrating
for the employees because they need to deal from time to time with
angry and irritated people. Here is where the emotional intelligence
enters. It is the ability to understand, use and control our emotions. Keep
 in mind to stay focused, determined, and willing to help in everything that
is possible in your hands. All of this for the welfare of the customer.

9. Admit mistakes
Making mistakes it’s okay, we can learn from them and became stronger.
A very important thing that can make a difference in your life is admitting
your mistakes. People that admit their mistakes are not afraid of failure,
are considered honest persons and are able to grow mentally. Once you
admit a mistake it’s always good to find a solution to it.

10. Be willing to learn

Do you know who Coronel Sanders was? He it’s best known for creating
a fried chicken recipe that would launch the world’s largest fast-food
chicken chain “Kentucky Fried Chicken” also known as “KFC”. But
something that a lot of people don’t know is that he failed 1009 times
before reaching the pinnacle of success. Giving up is the only way to fail.
Great customer service is no difference. To be a World-class customer
service representative, you must be willing to work and improve your
skills.

Thirdly, the job of an operations team leader is to manage a diverse

workforce in organizations to ensure efficient day-to-day operations. They
implement processes and programs, ensure helpful services for customers, and
oversee maintenance of buildings, machinery, and equipment. If you're a manager
or operations leader, keeping your customer service operation humming along
smoothly is essential to maintaining customer loyalty and revenue. By following
these tips, you'll be on your way to delivering the best possible service.
1. Provide first-class training
Both the manager and the employees need to be familiar with the
company's policies and procedures, as well as the customers they are
servicing. It's crucial that employees are well-trained in using the
company's telephone system, chatting software, and email systems.

2. Set high standards

Employees need to understand the importance of their role. Having
standards for expectations will be useful to demonstrate the value you
have for their contributions and should help them be more self-confident
of their well-done job.

3. Have a clear upgrade path

Customer service teams inevitably encounter customer issues that they
cannot resolve on their own. Preparing for this possibility by improving
 and developing a plan to each person’s role, so others may know who to
contact in case an issue goes beyond their responsibility.

4. Align your customer journey touchpoints

If you place your customer service offerings in context about the
customer journey your employees should be familiar with the customer's
complaint history, to anticipate and avoid common problems.

5. Create a culture of excellence

Happy employees make happy customers. When both employee and
customer experience are aligned, you can start creating an environment
where your employees can develop full commitment to their work.

6. Be smart about automation

Automation and intelligence chatbots are important forms to help
customers solve simple problems and relieve contact center staff as well
as saving customer waiting queues.

7. Use tools that boost speed and efficiency

Your company may have the best customer service representatives
worldwide, but whether if it’s plagued by slow, and unintuitive systems or
can’t get the information needed when it is needed, the result will lead to
poor customer service.

8. Measure and analyze customer feedback

The best way to get knowledge about your customer service is to directly
ask to customers. A great way of doing it is by using surveys and
questionnaires to track key metrics of your service agent’s individual
performance.

9. Use closed-loop feedback

The way you receive feedback from customers is important. And what
you decide to do or do with it next is critical. Through this kind of
feedback companies make it a habit to reach out to customers,
especially dissatisfied ones, to let them know how their feedback was
taken and how it could make their approach better.

10. Listen, understand and act

The process of listening, to both customer and customer service
representative feedback is important but acting is even more important.
You provide great customer service when you show them that their
feedback is valuable, and you are listening to them. It helps improve
customer retention and helps you to build stronger relationships with
your team.
 With all things considered, customer services take practice and effort. It's
important to set clear and achievable goals, get to understand a customer and to
reward employees for success. That goes for the managers as well as the frontline
employees. Recognizing individual achievement is an important way to encourage
staff to deliver excellent customer service every time. Once again, the service is
the base and face of a company, it will cause an impact on their customers
depending on if they get a good qualifies service or a bad service.
 Conclusion

Generally speaking, this was an interesting essay to write. We get to

acknowledge in total 20 useful tips for customer service professional and tips for
management and operations leaders that can help us in work and even in our life.
We also get to know the importance of each one and what their profession does. In
essence this was an overall review of services skills.