This article will detail practices that customer service agents should implement to perform well in the volatile job market we are living in.
Outlook
The War in Ukraine has, as expected, begun to have a negative impact on the people living outside of Ukraine as well. The world is on the brink of another recession and the signs of it are everywhere. Companies like Microsoft and Alphabet (known as Google), which were previously famous for not terminating any of their employees are now laying off massive amounts of people. Countries of all kinds from developing ones like the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to developed ones such as the United States of America are said to be in precarious economic straits.
What is at Stake?
As with every recession, this one can also be expected to lead to a lot of unemployment. That is why every employee should be performing their best to secure their job. After all, it is about putting bread and butter on the table for yourself and the people who rely on you financially. To help with this cause, we have started writing about ways you can excel at what you do. Today, we are going to be delving into the field of customer service. If you are a customer service agent at any company, know that reading what is said below will help you boost your performance.
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Replicate the Best
One of the best ways you can excel in what you do is by seeing the people who already excel at it. In your case, it would be best to call the customer service departments of massive companies. That is because the brands with vast presence only hire the best of the best to serve as points of contact. After all, they do not want to dent their reputation and lose tens of millions of sales just because one of their customer service agents messed up really badly ( and yes, in the world of social media, one bad interaction is enough to dent the reputation of a company). One really good big-shot company’s department you can call is Xfinity customer service; it is known to offer its subscribers very good experiences. Needless to say, prepare a good question beforehand to ask them about Xfinity’s services; an agent might not perform their best if someone just tells them they are only being called for their performance to be replicated.
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Have an Empathetic Attitude
This one is very important. It is paramount to have a soft tone with customers and practice empathy. Chances are that the customer is calling you when they are already frustrated and, to them, you are the face of the organization that they believe is causing the frustration. Responding to anger with anger will only lead you to get terminated from your position. Instead, the need of the hour is that you try to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Once you do, it will not only reduce the likelihood of you getting angry but will also increase the chances of you grasping the problem at hand.
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Gain Knowledge About Your Company and its Offerings
When a customer tells you about an issue, there are two ways you can approach things. If you know how to solve the issue, you tell them. If you do not know or are not capable of solving it, you refer your concern to the relevant department. Now, a top performer would like to be able to solve as many issues as possible themselves rather than asking someone else in the company to do it for them. This is because of two main reasons:
- The customer is satisfied as their issue gets resolved sooner.
- The time of another person in the company is not spent resolving the issue thereby saving company resources.
Nonetheless, there are always some instances in which you do need to refer the issue to someone else. This is where knowing more about the company helps as you will know exactly which department to refer the problem to. For similar reasons to the two mentioned above, you will be able to create positive value as an employee.
Conclusion
To keep this article to a readable length, we could not go too much into the specifics of how to perform excellently as a customer service agent. Nonetheless, we do believe that this article will act as a helpful starting guide in your quest to learn about excelling in your field.
