Every week, I ask a question to our newsletter community. With such a diverse group of support pros, it’s the best place to turn for questions that need lots of different viewpoints.
This week’s question was simple:
What’s the best piece of advice you have for people new in customer support?
Here’s what you had to say.
“My tip: never forget that we’re here to make up for other people’s mistakes. It’s tough work, but someone’s gotta do it! Might as well do it right.” – Aaron Wheeler
“My best piece of advice for a prospective customer pro is to listen. If you are not a great listener, then I would recommend another profession, or practice, practice, practice. Every customer that contacts a support team wants a solution. It will be your responsibility to provide the right solution to them. Failure to do so will impact their satisfaction rating of your service during the interaction. They may also take their business to a competitor.” – Robert C. Gregory
“To be human” – Rooshdi Ali
“The best advice I can give is to truly be helpful. Find ways that you can help the customer and make their experience more enjoyable.It’s my advice to listen very well to what the customer is saying, ask lots of questions, and then recommend what you would do if you were in their shoes.
Lastly, I would say that you should completely focus on the job that you were hired to do. At one of my previous jobs I was so consumed by what the company had in store for me so I could get a promotion. I was trying so hard to get noticed and show people what I was capable of. When focusing on that, I ended up giving mediocre service. When I realized that I was doing this, I made it my goal to focus completely on the customer and making sure that I matched them up perfectly with what they were expecting and went above and beyond in recommending solutions for them. When focusing 100% on listening to the customer and being very helpful really made a big difference in how enjoyable it was to come to work.” – David M.
What would be your one piece of advice to give to people new to the support world?