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
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, , resolution)
Return phone calls or 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. Shhh! Listen, Don’t Just Hear
Excerpt from

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 Formal or informal Casual or professional
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