1. Chapter 2 Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents
A Guide to Computer User Support for Help Desk & Support Specialists Fourth Edition by Fred Beisse
Chapter 2
Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents

2. customer service skills
Communication and interpersonal skills are one of the most important skills in an effective customer service.
customer service skills

3. The introduction of Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents
Communication and interpersonal skills are very important for help desk and user support agent.
All successful support staff must be able to listen , read , understand , communicate , and work effectively with people to solve problems.
Excellent communication and interpersonal skills are often more challenging for new support workers to learn and use than technical or business skills!
Communication and Interpersonal skills are more difficult to evaluate and measure.
User support staff must apply these skills to almost any situation to solve problems and achieve the goal for every request: customer satisfaction and excellent customer service.

4. Outline
The importance of Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents
Communication and Customer Service Skills
Characteristics of a Support Organization that is Devoted to Customer Service ethic
Essential Communication Skills (Foundation of the Communication Process)
Effective Personal Communication Style
Challenges of Phone Communication
Incident Management Strategy (What? Why? How?)
Customer Service and Personality Types + Four Dimensions of Personality
Strategies for Difficult Clients and Incidents (7)
Client-Friendly Web Tools + Purpose + Evaluation Criteria

5. The importance of Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents

6. The importance of Customer Service Skills for User Support Agents
Users are not satisfied with technical answers only.
Experience user support agent know that client satisfaction is directly related on how well agents listen to , understand , and communicate with users.
Totally satisfied customers are more likely to be repeat customers whereas merely satisfying customers is not enough to keep them loyal.
On the other hand, dissatisfied customer incidents usually take longer to handle and they generate:
Lengthy calls (escalates cost).
Repeated callbacks.
Complaints and ill-will (word of mouth).
Incidents that must be rerouted to a higher level support agent or manger
Product returns and refunds.
Because dissatisfied clients consume more support resources, any of these results reduce support staff productivity and lead to a reputation for poor support services

7. Communication and Customer Service Skills

8. Communication and Customer Service Skills
Communication skills are essential to provide high-quality customer services.
Communication:
2-way process: listening & responding. Example: Face to Face , telephone , online chat
1-way: web sites and blogs.
To effective solve end-user problems, agents must be able to hear or read and understand a user’s problem or question and then reflect their undersigning in a spoking or written response
Listen , understanding and responding are essential to solve problem

9. Communication and Customer Service Skills
Help desks and user support organization frequently incorporate a customer-service ethic into their mission statement.
Customer-service ethic
An organization-wide commitment
Shared by everyone from top management to operational staff
Viewpoint: client relationships and client satisfaction are the most important aspect of a business
Many organizations aim for a target of 100 percent client satisfaction 100 percent of the time.
This means that the user support staff aims to satisfy every client in every support incident.

10. Characteristics of a Support Organization that is Devoted to Customer Service ethic

11. Characteristics of a Support Organization that is Devoted to Customer Service ethic
In the pursuit of excellent customer service , support staff members:
Provide clients with information, service, or solutions they need.
Explain to customers what they can do for him or her if the problem cannot be solved immediately.
Treat clients with respect and courtesy.
Communicate to clients when they should expect to receive the service or information they need.
Return calls or s when promised even if no progress has been made.
Attitude, reactions, voice, tone (customer value) build client satisfaction

12. Essential Communication Skills (Foundation of the Communication Process)

13. essential communication skills (Foundation of the Communication Process)
To create customer satisfaction , support agents must master the essential communication skills:
Listen carefully.
Build understanding.
Respond effectively (communicate).
These are the foundations of the communication process between a support agent and a user

14. 1. Listen Carefully Learn to listen before you speak
Listen to the problem description with no interruptions.
From the language used to describe the problem, identify clues to caller’s experience level.
Avoid language that is too complex/technical.
From the way the caller describes the problem, identify the tone of voice (hurry, angry, distracted).
Look for a communication skills course to build listening skills.
While many support workers focus on comprehensive and critical listening skills , the therapeutic and relational listening skills in satisfying the goal of providing excellent customer service.

15. Types and Purposes of Listening
Listening type
Purpose
Discriminative
Learn about the user’s knowledge level and tone and style
Comprehensive
Understand the user’s message
Critical
Analyze and evaluate the user’s message to make sure it makes sense and no further information is needed
Therapeutic
Identify opportunities for positive support and empathy
Appreciative
Find enjoyment
Relational
Develop rapport through small talk

16. 2. Build Understanding
Develop an understanding of the user’s situation
Develop empathy with a client
Empathy: An understanding of and identification with a client’s situation, thoughts, and feelings
Example: “It sounds like you’ve had a frustrating morning, but I think I can help you with this...” , “ I will be here if you need any additional help with this problem”
A measure of the success of understanding phase is in the ability to express the problem in your own words and in the user’s agreement of your description.
As you devolve an understanding of the user and problem , communicate to a client that you view him or her as a person rather than a phone call or a problem through the following techniques:
Inclusive language: We, rather than I
Example , “ WE need to get this program running again so you can create the report you need .
Visualization
Smiling even on phone calls

17. 3. Respond Effectively Important aspects of the response:
Use a Sincere Greeting
Forms the first impression.
Sets the tone for the rest of the conversation.
Use Scripts Appropriately
Many support groups provide their agents with a script to help handle routine aspects of an incident.
A script is a prepared sequence of questions and statements used to handle parts of an incident.
Example: Frequency Asked Question (FAQ): Restate the responses in your own words.
Use Tone and Style Effectively
HOW is more important than WHAT.
Style: formal vs. informal, casual vs. professional.
Recognize the Importance of Nonverbal Communication
Body language , tone , style and facial expression used are often more important than the specific words and the meaning of words in communications.

18. Common Greeting
Phone : “ This is Norah in Computer Support. Thanks very much for your call. How can I help you?”
” I’m Norah at the help desk. Thank you very much for contacting us with the problem you encountered. Here is how I understand the problem .. “

19. The effect of tone in the customer satisfaction
لو عندي عملين .. الهميل الأول رد كذا والثاني كذا لما سالتهم عن مقدار الرضا
مثقل عليه ومضيع وقته
سيناريو
فض موب حسن الاخلاق

20. Nonverbal Behaviors in communication
Use these
Avoid these
Posture
Open stance
Face user
Fold arms or cross legs
Bow head
Facial expression
Smile
Interested expression
Frown
Show boredom, impatience
Eye contact
Frequent but not excessive eye contact
Focus on distance or at feet
Stare
Gestures
Use body movements
Stiff or limited gestures
Shift weight
Distance
Comfortable distance
Too close or too distant
Voice quality
Comfortable loudness
Normal pitch and tone
Shout or whisper
Monotone or sing-song

21. Posture

22. Facial expression

23. Eye contact

24. Gestures

25. Effective Personal Communication Style

26. Effective Personal Communication Style
Use clear brief speech.
Speak slowly but not so slowly as to sound condescending.
Use short sentences; avoid jargon.
Avoid empty phrases.
Pauses are okay.
Phrase communication with clients positively.
“Now let me see … , I think I’ve seen this before….”
The problem with your document happened because you didn’t follow the procedure in chapter 2 of the manual ….
The procedure you’re looking for is somewhere in chapter 2. Let me find the page for you…

27. Challenges of Phone Communication

28. Challenges of Telephone Communication
Telephone clients evaluate:
Telephone menu system
Length of time to answer call
Initial greeting (1st impression)
Support agents need to learn effective ways to:
Greet a caller
Put a call on hold
Transfer a call
Terminate a call
A phone menu, or IVR menu, is an automated greeting that routes callers through options on the keypad. ... With a phone menu, calls are managed through a central system and are never missed.

29. Challenges of Telephone Communication

30. Incident Management Strategy

31. Incident Management Strategy
Techniques, tools and strategies that support specialists use to move through an incident effectively and efficiently from initial greeting to the end of the incident.
Goals of Incident management strategy
Provide the user with information she or he needs.
Manage stress levels for both the user and support agent.
Ensure that the incident progresses from start to finish in an effective and efficient way.
Make the user more self-reliant.

32. Incident Management Guidelines
Incident management strategy begins with knowledge of guideline that experienced support agents have found useful. The list below show some example of Incident management guideline
Ask goal-directed diagnostic questions (keep call moving forward, based on script or experience)
Be honest (don’t cover up problems)
Say “I don’t know” when you do not (watch tone, refer, research)
Apologize (on hold, ill suited product)
Say “Thank you” (beginning and end of interaction)
Incident management, not user management
Teach self-reliance ( refer to the reasons and printed or online documentation)
An immediate goal of each support incident is to provide information or to solve problem. A secondary , longer-term goal to make each user self-reliance when possible)

33. Customer Service and Personality Types

34. Customer Service and Personality Types
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
A personality analysis tool commonly used in business and industry to identify worker personality and work style preferences
Each person is a mixture of the four types

35. Four Dimensions of Personality
Where do you direct your energy?
Introvert (I) versus Extrovert (E)
Private/quite expressive/social
How do you process information?
Sensing (S) versus Intuition (N)
Direct communication create ways to process
How do you make decisions?
Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F)
Logic/analysis personal values
How do you organize your life?
Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P)
Structured/well-organized flexible/explore

37. Strategies for Difficult Clients and Incidents

38. Strategies for Difficult Clients and Incidents
Difficult clients : is one who required special handling strategies because the user is angry , not combinative , rude or abusive
You will not be able to change the user’s personality.
Focus on:
the specific problem
getting the needed information to the client
providing excellent customer service in a respectful manner
getting on to the next incident
In the following slides, we will present different difficult clients and how to deal with it.

39. Users Who Complain
Give ample opportunity for the user to voice complaints
Use empathy
“I can certainly understand why someone who has experienced this problem would be upset’
Don’t take the complaint personally
Tip: Remember that complaints can be a valuable source of feedback

40. Contacts by Power Users
Power user is one who is technically knowledgeable, or thinks they are, or who believes they deserve special treatment.
The strategy for handing these type of users:
Use inclusive language that makes the user feel like a member of the team.
“ I think we can solve this problem if we work on it together”
Use an authoritative tone.
Don’t diminish their self-importance.

41. Incidents That Get Off Track
Refocus the incident
Apologize for lack of prompt resolution
Summarize the basic problem information
Offer to continue to work toward a solution
Example : “I am sorry we have not able to resolve the problem yet, I think we have to eliminated a hardware problem as the cause of the trouble you’re seeing. I believe if we word for a while longer in why the software won’t work, we’ll be able to resolve this”

42. Users Who Are Upset or Angry
Why are they upset or angry ?
On hold too long, talked to many people, tired of explaining the problem
How to deal with them:
Let users vent their anger
Reassure user that the problem is an important one and that you are willing to help resolve it
Remember that angry users may continue to vent
“How can we work together to resolve this situation to your satisfaction?”
Avoid defensiveness
Follow up to build trust

43. Users Who Are Abusive
Abusive user is one who is rude, uses inappropriate language, or makes personal attacks on a support agent
How to deal with this users:
Goal: Abusive  angry  successful call
Not always achievable
Follow the support organization’s policies and procedures for this type of incident
Terminate or ask them to use more professional language.
“ We would like to work with you on this problem. But we need to communicate about it in an appropriate and professional way. Is this agreeable with you?”

44. Users Who Are Reluctant to Respond
Who are they ? Users who are talks slowly and very little. Confused, lacks confidence, or doesn’t understand the questions.
How to deal with them ?
Use very simple language.
Avoid technical jargon.
Try different kinds of questions
Open-ended vs. yes/no.
Example: Can you read to me what is says in the box in the center of the screen?
Give positive feedback when the user provides useful information.
“ Thank you. I think the information you give to us very useful.”
Suggest exchanging information in a different mode ( , chat session, face to face).

45. Users Who Won’t Stop Responding
Use behavior that indicates the call is over.
Summarize the incident and describe the conclusion.
Thank the user for calling.
Express your belief that the problem is solved.
Use short answers that don’t provide a lead-in to additional conversation or communication.

46. Client-Friendly Web Sites and Web 2.0

47. Client-Friendly Web Sites and Web 2.0
Use of Support Web Sites to communicate with end users has increased dramatically nowadays.
First generation (Web 1.0)
Primarily one-way communication with users.
Second generation (Web 2.0)
Promotes collaboration among users.
Emphasizes social aspects of Web.
E.g. Facebook
User support web sites are cost-effective method of communication with users.

48. Web Site Tools User forum: organized discussions. Blog: message posts.
Make posts and community comments on posts
FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
Knowledge base: information archive
Someone else has probably already experienced your problem.
Official Web sites: should be easy to use and exhibit customer service (reflection of business)

49. Purposes of Support Web Sites
Provide product information.
Take sales orders.
Access technical support.
Provide software updates and downloads.
Facilitate communication with end users.
Encourage communication and collaboration among users.
Provide links to related sites.

50. Criteria for Evaluating a Support Web Site
Content
Format
Accurate
Uses small units of information
Up-to-date
Effective navigation aids. Example : search engine
Provide Contact information
Mechanics
Well-organized
Organization
Correct spelling
Correct grammar
Avoids information overload
Avoids graphics that download slowly
Organized by clients needs
علم الميكانيكا
Let users know it exists – search engine, bus. Cards.

51. Activity Evaluate the following Vendor Support Web sites:

52. Role Play

53. ANNOUNCEMENT Assignment # 1 is due next week. Participate to get bonus
We will answer it together on the next lecture.
Participate to get bonus