Customer service skills can be an important element to add to your resume. Here are five of the most important skills all customer service professionals should have.
Five Customer Service Skills To Add to Your Resume
Customer Service Skills
The customer service experience requires a lot more skills than most people think. Customer service representatives must fulfill orders and answer various customer questions, all while maintaining a positive and professional attitude throughout the day. Let’s take a closer look into what customer service is and what great customer service looks like below.
What Is Customer Service?
Customer service encompasses a broad range of jobs that can’t be pinned down to just one industry. Typically, customer service is the front line of retail businesses and deals with customer needs and customer support. Good customer service treats customer interactions as issues to solve. These employees will use their listening skills and help out when needed. Great customer service, on the other hand, makes use of these critical skills to not only ensure customer satisfaction but to foster proactive customer relationships too. Customer service involves a lot of problem-solving, active listening and emotional intelligence to enhance the overall customer experience.
Top Five Customer Service Skills
A good customer service team should have the right know-how to deal with all kinds of customer issues. Here’s a quick list of the top five most important customer service skills any good customer service rep should have.
Communication skills
This is the most essential customer service skill. Clear communication lets customers know that their needs are being met. It also makes the customer feel more comfortable asking for help.
Customer service agents should also demonstrate active listening. Automation can’t replace a face-to-face interaction where someone can see your open and inviting body language. If a customer is having an issue, it’s up to you to help them out. By listening to customer feedback, you can implement a solution that benefits everyone.
Conflict resolution
Sometimes you will get angry customers that will use any chance to take their rage out on you or your team members. It’s never fun to deal with frustrated customers, but it is one of the most essential customer service skills to have.
Using positive language, exercising self-control, and maintaining an even tone of voice can all help to de-escalate most situations. At any rate, proving you are able to handle difficult customers or clients can tell recruiters a lot about your problem-solving skills as a whole.
Time management
Time management skills are crucial in any industry, even if you aren’t working in customer service. Being able to maintain a strict schedule for store hours, breaks and other in-store events is a great transferable skill to have.
Adaptability and problem-solving
Good customer service skills require more than just being able to talk to the customers. You also need to be able to think on your feet if a customer has a problem. Often, a customer’s problem can be solved pretty easily just by talking to them.
Let’s say you work at a video game store and a parent is looking for a new game for their kid. They might not know the exact name of it, only a vague genre or other aspects of the game. You can then help them work out the exact game their kid is looking for by asking them more questions or by showing them different games popular with children in the same age bracket. A frazzled customer will be more appreciative of a customer service agent who tries to help them out instead of standing by.
Product knowledge
When you work for any given company, you should always know what product or service you’re offering your customers. This is a pretty basic rule but an important one that some people might forget.
For instance, if you work at a bakery and a customer asks what you would recommend, you need to be familiar with all the kinds of pastries available. Your enthusiasm and knowledge can encourage new customers to come back again and again, thus boosting customer retention. The bottom line is that prioritizing your work and the customer experience can be a great sign of excellent customer service.
FAQs: Customer Service Skills
Where do I put customer service skills on my resume?
You should list your customer service skills in the skills section of your resume. This section should be a good mix of hard skills and soft skills to demonstrate that you are capable of working in the industry of your choice. You should also provide examples of responsibilities in your work history section that show these skills at work.
Technical skills such as working with different programs, equipment or other tools around your job are great hard skills to add. Soft skills mainly pertain to good communication, time management skills, and being proactive in the workplace.
Should I talk about my customer service skills in my cover letter?
The cover letter is one of the best places to talk about your skills outside an interview. A cover letter gives a hiring manager a better sense of who you are and how you can contribute to a role. Additionally, you will stand out from any other candidates who didn’t bother to write one.
For more tips on how to write a good cover letter, visit ResumeNerd’s blog for more.
Are there free resume templates I can use?
ResumeNerd has a resume builder tool that can help you construct a great resume. With dozens of templates, samples and other tools for you to use, you can build the best resume for the job in just a few minutes.
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