Profesionalism in efficient customer service

Welcom
e
to SEAIETI’s
Online International Training
Series

Southeast Asian Institute of Educational Training, Inc.
International Training on Professionalism for
efficient customer service
For inquiries, please contact us:
09175142715 (Globe)
09081744462 (Smart)
www.seaieti.com
seaieti@gmail.com
Southeast Asian Institute of Educational Training, Inc.

Speaker’s Profile
Timothy Wooi
Principal Consultant for Lean and Kaizen Management
Certified ‘Train the Trainer’ with 35 over years working
experience.
FOUNDER, Tim’s Waterfuel an alternative fuel supplement using Water to add power to
automobiles.
International Educational Speaker for South East Asian Institute of Educational
Training Inc.(SEAIETI)
An Innovative Engineer that trains MNC on Creativity & Innovation for Continuous
Improvement.
Rode 24 Countries, 18,290km, 4 months 11 days, 6 3/4 hours from Malaysia to
London on just a 125 cc.
Add: 20C, Taman Bahagia, 06000, Jitra,
Kedah
Email: timothywooi2@gmail.com
H/p: +6019 4514007 (Malaysia)

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This program offers a practical,
personalized learning approach, backed up
by theory and research.
You will be exposed with technology, digital
tools and methodologies of Professionalism
for efficient customer service
to sharpen up your leadership capabilities
to understand how to capitalize on your
strengths and improve your weaknesses.
You will get a well-rounded understanding
of Professionalism for efficient customer
service in a digital age to pair your
experience with Leading Digital Business
Transformation or Digital Strategy.

M
E
T
H
O
D
O
L
O
G
Y
This course will adopt an instructor-led and facilitated
e-learning model, where the content of the course will
be delivered through elements and activities that are
arranged into a chronological order and where each
participant is expected to perform the same tasks and
deliver the same outputs.
The course is scheduled and led by a qualified
instructor and/or facilitator though an online learning
platform.
E-learning content and open educational resources
(OER) for individual study will be integrated with
instructor’s lectures, individual assignments, and
collaborative activities among participants.

M
E
T
H
O
D
O
L
O
G
Y
Learners, facilitators and instructors can use
communication tools such as emails, discussion
forums, chats, polls, whiteboards, application sharing,
and audio and video conferencing to communicate
and work together.
At the end, participants are expected to submit a
technology integrated lesson plan to determine if they
can properly integrate technology in the teaching and
learning process.
Learning activities for the course will be delivered by
an Asynchronous method through online e-learning that
takes place at any time, self‐paced and time‐independent.

Course Objectives:
 To be exposed to the importance of Professionalism for
excellent customer service in the digital era.
 To benchmark excellent professional customer service
attitude as the foundation of an excellent customer service
strategy making lasting first impression to significantly impact
business success.
To understand the definition and the importance of customer
service quality, strategies and skills and to apply them in providing
an excellent customer service with professionalism.
 To understand the Principles of an efficient customer service
skills with 21 examples to develop from.

Course Content
Session 1
Introduction to Professionalism in customer service.
Why is professionalism important to customer service?
What Does It Mean to Be Professional in Customer Service?
Why Is Professionalism an Important Skill?
Session 2
What makes a good customer service professional?
Customer Service Skills:
Definitions and Examples
Why are customer service skills important?
What are the important qualities of customer service.
How to improve your customer service skills

Course Content
Session 3
How do you show professionalism to a customer?
The Six Strategies:
1. Maintain a Helpful and Positive Attitude
2. Outsource Your Customer Service
3. Require Work-Appropriate Attire
4. Provide Prompt Responses
5. Follow Up
6. Final Takeaway
Session 4
Principles of an efficient customer service skills and how to
develop them.
21 efficient customer service skills to develop

This course will adopt an instructor-led and facilitated e-learning
model, where the content of the course will be delivered through
elements and activities that are arranged into a chronological order
and where each participant is expected to perform the same tasks
and deliver the same outputs.
Methodology
The course is scheduled and led by a qualified instructor and/or
facilitator though an online learning platform. E-learning content
and open educational resources (OER) for individual study will be
integrated with instructor’s lectures, individual assignments, and
collaborative activities among participants.

E-learning content and (OER) for individual study will be
integrated with instructor’s lectures, individual assignments,
and collaborative activities among participants.
Learners, facilitators and instructors can use communication
tools such as emails, discussion forums, chats, polls,
whiteboards, application sharing, and audio and video
conferencing to communicate and work together.
At the end, participants are expected to submit a technology
integrated lesson plan to determine if they can properly
integrate technology in the teaching and learning process.
Learning activities for the course will be delivered by:

Mode of Assessment
Submission of Participants’ test answers on reflection,
case studies and feedback on application of learning, to
real work setting, followed by an Evaluation.
Purpose
To gage effectiveness of
Participant’s
understanding of topics
delivered, so as to apply
learning at real workplace.

Professionalism is also the foundation of an excellent customer
service strategy. It's the attitude you should demonstrate with
every customer encounter.
Session 1
Even when someone is
upset or behaves rudely,
it's up to a customer
service representative to
stay calm and diffuse the
situation.

First impressions last, and they’re sometimes the only ones you’ll
have the chance to make.
The adage certainly applies to
customers discovering a brand
for the first time.
Thus, it’s no wonder that many
companies go to great lengths to
project a professional image.

In today’s marketplace, service professionalism can significantly
impact business success.
This brings us to the topic
of why professionalism is
important in customer
service.

Take a second to think about successful businesses you know.
Chances are, most of them understand the value of maintaining
a professional image when dealing with customers.
In general, projecting the
right image means paying
attention to your
appearance and showing
professional conduct and
behavior at all times.

Professionalism is also the foundation of an excellent customer
service strategy.
It’s the attitude you should
demonstrate with every customer
encounter.
Even when someone is upset or
behaves rudely, it’s up to a
customer service representative
to stay calm and diffuse the
situation.

However, serving a frustrated customer while keeping a level head
isn’t always easy.
If you want to provide high-
quality service, it’s best to ensure
your service representatives are
well-trained and capable of
representing your brand
professionally.

In most work settings, professionalism is a basic skill every employee
should possess.
But why is professionalism
important in customer service?
It’s especially vital for customer
service workers because polite
behavior and good judgment can
improve customer satisfaction
and retention.

Customer service representatives are often the face of companies.
Consumers and clients usually interact with them instead of
meeting with managers or business owners directly.
Most successful companies
have excellent customer
relations because they have
professional representatives
who keenly listen to concerns
and deal with customer needs.

The more effectively you handle complaints, the more likely you
are to have repeat customers. Meanwhile, professionalism in
communication is crucial in building customer confidence.
If your business excels in this
area, it’s easier to convert leads
into loyal customers.
More discerning shoppers are
looking to buy from someone who
shows professionalism and
competency.

In short, communicating
on a professional level
encourages trust and
reflects well on your
business.
Many customers are even willing to pay more for goods and services
if your communication conveys a higher degree of professionalism
than your competitors.

•Take 5!
This ends Session 1 on:
and we will continue after this break on
Session 2:
What makes a good customer service professional? &
How to improve your customer service skills.

Session 2 Course Content
Customer Service Skills:
 Definitions and Examples
 Why are customer service skills important?
 What are the important qualities of customer service.
 How to improve your customer service skills

Session 2
Customer Service Skills: Definitions and Examples
Customer service skills are traits and practices that equip you to
address customer needs and foster a positive experience.
In general, customer service skills rely
heavily on problem-solving and
communication. Customer service is
often considered a “soft skill,” including
traits like active listening and reading
both verbal and nonverbal cues.

For many businesses, people working in customer service roles or
using customer service skills are the human face of the company.
These businesses rely on
employees who can create
a positive dialogue with
customers, helping to
foster loyalty and a good
reputation.

If you are in a customer service role, common in industries like food
and beverage or retail, a large part of your success might be attributed
to your ability to provide positive experiences to customers.
Learning and developing
traits that make a strong
customer service worker
paired with on-the-job
experience can help you
advance in your role.

What is customer service?
Customer service is both a type of job and a set of job skills. As a
job, customer service professionals are responsible for addressing
customer needs and ensuring they have a good experience.
As a skill set, customer service
entails several qualities like
active listening, empathy,
problem-solving and
communication.
Customer service is used in
many jobs at every level.

What is customer service?
While traditionally you might think of customer care as a service from
a business to a consumer, it is also applicable within a business.
For example, you may be in
a role that provides services
to other, internal teams. In
this case, you would want to
ensure that you understood
and were able to meet their
needs.

What are customer service skills?
Customer service skills are the set of behaviors you rely on when
interacting with a customer. They can also be useful when following
up after an initial conversation.
For example, if you work as a
virtual assistant for a
technology company, you
may need to help customers
troubleshoot problems with
their devices.

What are customer service skills?
To accomplish this, you will likely use several different skills.
Different Customer service
skills are:
Communication.
Empathy.
Patience.
Technical knowledge.

Communication.
You will need to be responsive in a timely manner. You will need to
communicate with them in a clear, easy-to-understand way to solve
the problem.
Empathy.
Your interactions may begin with
someone who is frustrated or
unhappy. It is important that you
understand and identify with the
feelings of others and
communicate accordingly.

Patience.
Clients and customers might ask several questions, be unhappy
or ask you to repeat instructions several times. Patience is
important to keep the conversation on track, remain personable
and provide a positive experience.
Technical knowledge.
To effectively solve problems,
you will likely need to know a
bit of technical or industry
knowledge to help them
resolve the issue at hand.

After your conversation, you will likely use active listening skills to
record action items and complete any follow-up tasks.
Effectively working with others
will require different skills to
help create an effective
solution for everyone.
You can also easily apply skills
like these to situations with
colleagues, as well.
Customer service skills

Customer service skills list and examples
Although customer service is often seen as a skill in and of itself,
there are many associated skills that support strong customer
service abilities.
Necessary customer service skills include:
1.Active listening
2.Adaptability
3.Attentiveness
4.Conflict resolution
5.Creativity
6.Decision-making
7.Dependability
8.Effective communication
9.Empathy
10. Friendliness
11. Knowledge of your product or service
12. Open-mindedness
13. Patience
14. Quick thinking
15. Reading physical and emotional cues
16. Responsiveness
17. Timeliness

How to improve your customer service skills
Anyone can benefit from improving their customer service skills.
Being a good communicator, having empathy and actively listening,
for example, will help you be a better employee and colleague
overall.
Additionally, expanding your
technical knowledge and skills
will make it easier to provide
service to others.
Here are several ways you can
improve your customer service
skills.

1. Ask for direct feedback from customers and colleagues
If allowed by your employer, ask customers to provide feedback
on the service.
This can help you understand
whether you are providing a
great experience for customers
on a daily basis.
Avoid taking any negative
criticism personally.

All customer feedback is important, even if it isn’t positive. You may
want to consider asking for feedback at regular intervals, such as
quarterly or annually.
Keep track of your
feedback, and reflect on
it with each new round to
get an idea of your
improvement.

2. Ask a manager for feedback
Managers are often responsible for observing how employees work
with customers. As such, you may want to ask a manager for
feedback on your customer interactions.
If most of those interactions
happen over email or other digital
means, it might be helpful to
forward or print out your
communications for your manager
to highlight your strengths and
areas for improvement.

3. Read customer feedback reports
If your employer provides customers with service feedback forms,
take the opportunity to review them if available to you.
Reviewing customer feedback
may give you a different sense
of your current customer
service abilities than what you’ll
get internally from
management or colleagues.

4. Practice new skills
You may find it helpful to practice your customer service skills.
You can practice skills like friendliness and patience with everyone
on and off the job, including colleagues and customers.
You may also find that
improving your knowledge of
the service or product your
employer offers improves your
ability to resolve issues with
customers.

Improving your customer service skills can help you move from
providing good customer service to great customer service. Good
customer service results in customers who are pleased with the
service they received, but who may not go on to provide feedback
or reviews for you and the company.
Great customer service,
however, makes customers want
to give you high ratings on
customer reviews and will make
them more likely to share the
story of their positive experience
with others.

What are the important qualities of customer service?
Many customer service skills are soft skills. As you help learn how
to more effectively communicate, make decisions, think
independently, and expand your understanding of empathy, you’ll
find you can more easily relate to and assist others.
Employers value people
with strong soft skills
because of how well they
can interact with both
customers and colleagues.

•Take 5!
What makes a good customer service professional? &
How to improve your customer service skills.
We will continue after this break on
Session 3:
The Six Strategies:

Session 3 Course Content
The Six Strategies:
5. Follow Up
6. Final Takeaway

Session 3
Once you’re clear on why professionalism is important in customer
service, it’s time to learn strategies to improve this aspect of your
business.
The Six Strategies
 1. Maintain a Helpful and Positive Attitude
 2. Outsource Your Customer Service
 3. Require Work-Appropriate Attire
 4. Provide Prompt Responses
 5. Follow Up
 6. Final Takeaway

Session 3: Six Strategies to show Professionalism to Customers
When you have a disgruntled customer on your hands, it helps to
remember that you’re there to assist and find a solution.
It’s easy to get defensive and match
a customer’s behavior, but this rarely
resolves a distressing situation.
Most of the time, customers are just
looking for reassurance and are
more likely to calm down when they
realize that you’re doing your best to
meet their needs.

Session 3: Six Strategies to show Professionalism to Customers
What better way to show you care for customers than investing in
a professional team equipped with skills and training to provide
effective customer service?
Service professionalism entails
finding knowledgeable agents
who can competently answer
questions and resolve issues.

Although you may choose to hire service representatives yourself,
bear in mind that it can take months and high costs to train a
professional.
On the other hand, a good call center
already has outstanding training
programs and innovative
telecommunications infrastructure.
They know best why professionalism
is important in customer service and
strive to deliver exceptional solutions.

What employees wear also affects how customers perceive your
business.
Aside from reminding them to put
on well-kept clothes suitable for
your work environment, you can
also provide attire that makes it
easy for customers to identify
employees.
For instance, employees might
wear a uniform or a specific color
combination.

Customers today expect quick solutions. By offering timely answers,
you show customers that their time is important.
Utilizing technology that assists in
handling customer interactions can
reduce waiting time and increase
satisfaction.
Better yet, be more proactive in
preparing solutions to common issues,
such as providing a knowledge base
and FAQs. Customers can then resolve
concerns quickly themselves.

5. Follow Up
When you follow up with customers, you make sure they are satisfied
with your product or service.
Taking this extra step encourages
them to continue patronizing your
business because you demonstrate
empathy in fulfilling their needs and
commitment to improving their
experience.
In the future, they know that they can
always count on professional and
quality service from you.

6. Final Takeaway
In the end, it pays to think about why professionalism is important
in customer service carefully.
How customers perceive your
business ultimately influences
your bottom line.
When you show knowledge,
competence, and trustworthiness,
you’re more likely to enjoy better
relations with your consumers.

•Take 5!
The Six Strategies:
We will continue after this break on
Session 4:
Principles of an efficient customer service skills and how
to develop them.

There are four basic key principles of an efficient customer service.
These principles have the biggest influence on the customer
experience.
Session 4
Principles of an efficient customer service and how to develop them.
The four basic key principles
are:
1.Personalized,
2. Competent,
3. Convenient, and
4. Proactive.

1.Personalized:
Good customer service always starts with a human touch.
Personalized interactions greatly
improve customer service and let
customers know that your company
cares about them and their
problems. Instead of thinking of
service as a cost, consider it an
opportunity to earn your customer’s
business all over again.

2. Competent:
Consumers have identified competency as the element that plays
the biggest role in a good customer experience.
To be competent, a customer support
professional must have a strong
knowledge of the company and its
products, as well as the power to fix the
customer’s problems.
The more knowledge they have, the
more competent they become.

3. Convenient:
Customers want to be able to get in touch with a customer service
representative through whichever channel is the most convenient
for them.
Offer support through the
channels of communication
your customers rely on
most, and make it easy for
customers to figure out how
to contact you.

4. Proactive:
Customers want companies to be proactive in reaching out to
them.
If one of your products is
backordered or your website is
going to experience downtime,
proactively reach out to your
customers and explain the
problem.

They may not be happy about the situation, but they will be thankful
that you kept them in the loop.
By building your customer
service strategy around these
four main principles, you'll
create a positive, hassle-free
customer experience for
everyone who deals with your
company.

While delivering consistently good customer service requires work
and alignment across your entire organization, a good place to start
is your support team.
It’s important to hire people who
genuinely want to help your
customers succeed, and to pay
rates that are attractive to skilled
professionals. Finding the
perfect hire for a support team
can be challenging.

No particular checklist of job experiences and college diplomas
adds up to the perfect candidate. Instead, you’re looking for
qualities that can’t necessarily be taught.
These folks thrive on one-on-one
interactions within their
community. They love problem
solving.
They’re warm, approachable, and
great at teaching other people
how things work.

Here are the 21 customer service skills that every support professional
should seek to develop and every leader should look for when hiring
new team members.
1. Problem solving skills
2. Patience
3. Attentiveness
4. Emotional intelligence
5. Clear communication skills
6. Writing skills
7. Creativity and resourcefulness
8. Persuasion skills
9. Ability to use positive language
10. Product knowledge
11. Acting skills
12. Time management skills
13. Ability to read customers
14. Unflappability
15. Goal-oriented focus
16. Ability to handle surprises
17. Tenacity
18. Closing ability
19. Empathy
20. A methodical approach
21. Willingness to learn

Customers do not always self-diagnose their issues correctly. Often,
it’s up to the support rep to take the initiative to reproduce the trouble
at hand before navigating a solution.
That means they need to intuit not just
what went wrong, but also what action
the customer was ultimately after.
A great example?
If somebody writes in because they’re
having trouble resetting their
password, that’s ultimately because
they want to log into their account.

A good customer service interaction will anticipate that need and
might even go the extra mile to manually perform the reset and
provide new login details, all while educating the customer on how
they can do it for themselves in the future.
In other situations, a problem-
solving pro may simply
understand how to offer
preemptive advice or a solution
that the customer doesn’t even
realize is an option.

2. Patience
Patience is crucial for customer service professionals. After all,
customers who reach out to support are often confused and
frustrated.
Being listened to and handled with
patience goes a long way in helping
customers feel like you’re going to
alleviate their current frustrations. It’s
not enough to close out interactions with
customers as quickly as possible. Your
team has to be willing to take the time to
listen to and fully understand each
customer’s problems and needs.

3. Attentiveness
The ability to truly listen to customers is crucial to providing great
service for a number of reasons.
Not only is it important to pay
attention to individual
customers’ experiences, but it’s
also important to be mindful and
attentive to the feedback that
you receive at large.

3. Attentiveness
For instance, customers may not be saying it outright, but perhaps
there is a pervasive feeling that your software’s dashboard isn’t
laid out correctly.
Customers aren’t likely to say,
“Please improve your UX,” but they
may say things like, “I can never find
the search feature” or “Where is
(specific function), again?”
You have to be attentive to pick up
on what customers are telling you
without directly saying it.

A great customer support representative knows how to relate to
anybody, and they’re especially good with frustrated people.
Instead of taking things
personally, they intuitively
understand where the other
person is coming from and
they know to both prioritize
and swiftly communicate that
empathy.

Think about it: How often have you felt better about a potential
grievance simply because you felt immediately heard by the other
person involved?
When a support rep is able to
demonstrate sincere empathy for a
frustrated customer, even just by
reiterating the problem at hand, it
can help to both placate (the
customer feels heard) and actively
please (the customer feel validated
in their frustration).

A great customer support representative knows how to relate to
anybody, but they’re especially good with frustrated people.
Instead of taking things
personally, they intuitively
understand where the other
person is coming from and
they know to both prioritize
and swiftly communicate that
empathy.

Your customer support team is on the front lines of problem solving
for the product itself, and serves as a kind of two-pronged bullhorn.
On one side, they’ll be the voice
of your company to your
customers. That means they
have to have a practiced grasp
on how to reduce complex
concepts into highly digestible,
easily understood terms.

On the other, they’ll represent the needs and thoughts of customers
to your company.
For example, it doesn’t
behoove the customer to
receive a long- winded
explanation on the ins-and-
outs of solving a particular
bug.

The ability to communicate clearly when working with customers
is a key skill because miscommunications can result in
disappointment and frustration.
The best customer service
professionals know how to
keep their communications
with customers simple and
leave nothing to doubt.

6. Writing skills
Good writing means getting as close to reality as words will
allow.
Without an ounce of
exaggeration, being a good
writer is the most
overlooked, yet most
necessary, skill to look for
when it comes to hiring for
customer support.

6. Writing skills
Unlike face-to-face (or even voice-to-voice) interactions, writing
requires a unique ability to convey nuance.
How a sentence is phrased can
make the difference between
sounding kind of like a jerk
(“You have to log out first”) and
sounding like you care
(“Logging out should help solve
that problem quickly!”).

6. Writing skills
Good writers also tend to use complete sentences and proper
grammar — qualities that subtly gesture toward the security
and trustworthiness of your company.
Even if your company offers support
primarily over the phone, writing
skills are still important. Not only will
they enable your team to craft
coherent internal documentation,
they signify a person who thinks and
communicates clearly.

7. Creativity and resourcefullness
Solving the problem is good, but finding clever and fun ways to go
the extra mile — and wanting to do so in the first place — is even
better.
It takes panache to infuse a typical
customer service exchange with
memorable warmth and personality,
and finding a customer service rep
who possesses that natural zeal will
take your customer service out of
“good enough” territory and straight
into “tell all your friends about it” land.

7. Creativity and resourcefullness
Chase Clemons at Basecamp advises the following:
“You want to have somebody who you don’t have to give a lot of
rules and regulations to.
You want to have somebody who is talking
to a customer and understands ‘‘Their
boss is really yelling at them today. This
person is having a really bad day. You
know what? I’m going to send them some
flowers to brighten things up.’ That’s not
really something you can teach. They
have to go the extra mile naturally.”

Oftentimes, support teams get messages from people who aren’t
looking for support — they’re considering purchasing your
company’s product.
In these situations, it helps to
have a team of people with
some mastery of persuasion
so they can convince
interested prospects that your
product is right for them (if it
truly is).

It’s not about making a sales pitch in each email, but it is about
not letting potential customers slip away,
because you couldn’t
create a compelling
message that your
company’s product is
worth purchasing!

Effective customer service means having the ability to make minor
changes in your conversational patterns.
This can truly go a long way in
creating happy customers.
Language is a crucial part of
persuasion, and people
(especially customers) create
perceptions about you and your
company based on the
language that you use.

For example, let’s say a customer contacts your team with an interest
in a particular product, but that product happens to be back-ordered
until next month.
Responding to
questions with positive
language can greatly
affect how the customer
hears the response:

Without positive language:
“I can’t get you that product until next month; it is back-ordered and
unavailable at this time.”
With positive language:
“That product will be available
next month.
I can place the order for you
right now and make sure that it
is sent to you as soon as it
reaches our warehouse.”

The first example isn’t negative, but the tone it conveys feels
abrupt and impersonal and could be taken the wrong way by
customers, especially in email support when the perception of
written language can skew negative.
Conversely, the second
example is stating the same
thing (the item is unavailable),
but it focuses on when and
how the issue will be resolved
instead of focusing on the
negative.

The best customer service professionals have a deep knowledge
of how their companies’ products work.
Without knowing your product from
front to back, they won’t know how
to help when customers run into
problems.
All new employees, for example, are
trained on customer support during
their first or second week on the job;
it’s a critical component of our
employee onboarding process.

According to Help Scout’s Elyse Roach, “Having that solid product
foundation ensures you’ve got the best tricks up your sleeve.
It helps customers navigate
even the most complex
situations, it also helps you
build an understanding of
their experience so that you
can become their strongest
advocate.”

Mitigating gaps in product knowledge
It takes time for team members to build up their product knowledge.
And if you have a very complex
product, it may take your team
members years to learn every
one of its ins and outs.
However, the right customer
support tool can help you
mitigate those gaps in product
knowledge.

For example, with Help Scout program, you can:
 Create a database of saved replies that support agents can use
to answer frequently asked how-to questions about your product.
 Search your help center articles and insert links to them in
responses without ever leaving the conversation view.
 Set up automated workflows that attach helpful internal
notes to conversations with instructions on how to reply.
 Search all previously sent responses by keyword, tag, and
more to see if someone else on the team has already
answered the question.

11. Acting skills
Sometimes your team is going to come across people who you’ll
never be able to make happy. Situations outside of your control (such
as a customer who’s having a terrible day) will sometimes creep into
your team’s usual support routine.
Every great customer service
professional needs basic
acting skills to maintain their
usual cheery persona in spite
of dealing with people who
are just plain grumpy.

12. Time management skills
On the one hand, it’s good to be patient and spend a little extra
time with customers to understand their problems and needs.
On the other hand, there is a
limit to the amount of time
you can dedicate to each
customer, so your team
needs to be concerned with
getting customers what they
want in an efficient manner.

It’s important that your team understands some basic principles of
behavioral psychology in order to read customers’ current emotional
states.
As Emily Triplett Lentz writes:
“I rarely use a smiley face in a support
email when the customer’s signature
includes ‘PhD,’ for example.

Not that academics are humorless, it’s just that :) isn’t likely to get
you taken seriously by someone who spent five years deconstructing
utopian undertones in nineteenth-century autobiographical fiction.”
The best support pros know
how to watch and listen for
subtle clues about a customer’s
current mood, patience level,
personality, etc., which goes a
long way in keeping customer
interactions positive.

14. Unflappability
There are a lot of metaphors for this type of personality “keeps their
cool,” “staying cool under pressure,” and so on — but it all
represents the same thing:
The ability some people have
to stay calm and even
influence others when things
get a little hectic.

14. Unflappability
The best customer service reps know that they can’t let a heated
customer force them to lose their cool.
In fact, it is their job to try to be
the “rock” for customers who
think the world is falling apart
as a result of their current
problems.

Many customer service experts have shown how giving employees
unfettered power to “wow” customers doesn’t always generate the
returns many businesses expect to see.
That’s because it leaves
employees without goals, and
business goals and customer
happiness can work hand-in-
hand without resulting in poor
service.

Relying on frameworks like the Net Promoter Score (NPS)
can help businesses come up with guidelines for their
employees.
That allows plenty of
freedom to handle
customers on a case-to-
case basis, but also leave
them priority solutions and
“go-to” fixes for common
problems.
NPS
A method of
measuring how
willing your
employees to
recommend their
workplace to their
family or friends.

16. Ability to handle surprises
Sometimes, customers are going to throw your team curveballs.
They’ll make a request that isn’t covered in your company
guidelines or react in a way that no one could have expected.
In these situations, it’s good to
have a team of people who can
think on their feet. Even better,
look for people who will take the
initiative to create guidelines for
everyone to use in these
situations moving forward.

17. Tenacity
Call it what you want, but a great work ethic and a willingness to do
what needs to be done (and not take shortcuts) is a key skill when
providing the kind of service that people talk (positively) about.
The most memorable customer
service stories out there
— many of which had a huge
impact on the business
— were created by a single
employee who refused to just follow
the standard process when it came
to helping someone out.

18. Closing ability
Being able to close with a customer as a customer service
professional means being able to end the conversation with
confirmed customer satisfaction (or as close to it as you can
achieve) and with the customer feeling that everything has been
taken care of (or will be).
Getting booted before all of their
problems have been addressed is
the last thing that customers want,
so be sure your team knows to take
the time to confirm with customers
that each and every issue they had
was entirely resolved.

19. Empathy
Perhaps empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings
of another, is more of a character trait than a skill..
But since empathy can be
learned and improved upon, we’d
be remiss not to include it here In
fact, if your organization tests job
applicants for customer service
aptitude, you’d be hard pressed
to look for a more critical skill
than empathy.

In customer service, haste makes waste. Hiring deliberate, detail-
oriented people will go a long way in meeting the needs of your
customers.
1. They’ll be sure to get to the
real heart of a problem before
firing off a reply. There’s
nothing worse than attempting
a “solution,” only to have it
miss the mark entirely on
solving the actual issue.

2. They’ll proofread. A thoughtfully written response can lose a lot
of its problem-solving luster if it’s riddled with typos.
Proofread the written response for:

“Hey! Remember that
bug you found that I said
we were looking into?
Well, we fixed it.”
That’s a loyal, lifetime
customer you’ve just
earned.
3. The most important among the three is regularly follow up.
There’s nothing more impressive than getting a note from a customer
service rep saying,

An important side note:
The best hires are able to maintain their methodical grace under
regular fire.
Since the support team is often
tasked with the tough work of
cleaning up other people’s messes,
it’s especially important they
understand how not to internalize the
urgency, and potential ire, of
frustrated customers.
Instead, they know how to keep a
cool head and a steady, guiding hand.

While this is probably the most general skill on this list, it’s also one
of the most important. After all, willingness to learn is the basis for
growing skills as a customer service professional.
Your team members have to be willing
to learn your product inside and out,
willing to learn how to communicate
better (and when they’re
communicating poorly), willing to learn
when it’s okay to follow a process, and
when it’s more appropriate to choose
their own adventures.

Those who don’t seek to improve what they do, whether it’s
building products, marketing businesses, or helping customers,
— will get left
behind by the
people who are
willing to invest in
their own skills.

Professionalism is particularly important in the customer service
sector since job skills, good judgement and polite behavior can
leave consumers feeling satisfied and encourage them to remain
loyal customers.
Summary
Efficient customer service skills are
very necessary to communicate with
others, solve problems, demonstrate
patience and understanding, ensure
customer satisfaction, and resolve
customer complaints timely reaching a
win-win situation.

Conclusion and Recommendations
Customer service can make or break a business. But not everyone agrees
on what it is or how to do it well. Setting up your business up for customer
service success with professionalism in efficient customer service is key
to delight consumers, making them feel satisfied and to remain loyal
customers.
10 Tips for Effective Communication with Customers
Recommendations for next level in professionalism
for efficient customer service is Improving Client
Satisfaction by:
• Use of proven strategies to build customer loyalty.
• Measure customer effort score.
• Manage clients' complaints and compliments.
• Motivate your customer service team.
• Be available via social media.

•Take 5!
Let us Reflect
what we have
learned.

Sum up what you have learned from this
Online Seminar on Professionalism for
Efficient Customer Service and submit your
Assessment Output to the Organizer.
Assessment Output Questions.

1. Why is professionalism important to customer
service?
2. What makes a good customer service
professional?
3. Why are customer service skills important?
4. What are the four most common customer
service skills?
Question for your Output Assessment

Case Studies
1. Study the 17 examples of customer service
associated skills that support strong customer
service abilities and pick up two that you
can apply and practice at your School setting.
2. Justify your choice.

Sharing Experience
1. With your experience, discuss which out of the 6
strategies of showing professionalism to a customer
that is not viable at the moment, to practice at your
school setting and
2. Why is this strategy not applicable in your school
setting and what are the suggestion needed to put in
place this practice for future implementation.

Application
1. Which 2 out of the 21 efficient customer service
skills that you can develop and immediately practice
in your school setting without incurring additional
Cost, infrastructure and investment?
2. Share your thoughts/ outcomes of this application.

Profesionalism in efficient customer service

Profesionalism in efficient customer service

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