Hiring excellent customer support agents is integral to enhancing customer satisfaction and increasing customer loyalty. In order to strengthen the backbone of your company’s customer service segment, you require candidates who can effectively address customer requirements, work as team players, and help to realize the organization’s goals.
Building the perfect customer support team is easier said than done as perfection is not easy to come by. Rather, the aim should be to develop a team of customer support agents who excel at their job. This starts right from the hiring stage of customer service representatives. So, what are the traits that make a candidate better suited for the role of customer support agent than others?
We reveal to you the traits to look for when hiring a customer support agent.
Attitude
Attitude comes before experience. While hiring customer support agents, look for candidates who possess the right attitude for the job. The profile of customer support agent requires people who are cooperative, compliant, and sympathetic. If a candidate does not have prior customer service experience, he or she can be trained to fit the bill. But a candidate with the wrong attitude can do more harm than good for your business.
Communication Skills
Effective communication plays a crucial role in customer service. An agent might possess all the qualities required to address a customer’s needs effectively, but without fluent communication skills, he or she might not be able to grasp quickly what the customer is saying or reach out to the customer to explain something. So, it is essential for customer support agents to be able to listen effectively, articulate their ideas, and speak in a clear and coherent manner.
Empathy
A must-have skill for customer support agents is empathy. The ability to emphasize involves gauging a customer’s emotional state and handling the customer through effective communication. In most cases, customers want urgent solutions to their issues. But issue-resolution may sometimes take time. This is when an agent must empathize with the customer and try to know the exact reason for the issue. The agent has to make the customer feel assured that the issue is being looked into and full measures are being adopted to resolve it effectively.
Patience and Politeness
Patience and positivity are two key traits that no customer support agent can afford to ignore. Handling customer complaints requires a lot of patience, and politeness helps to deal with all kinds of customers. A patient hearing of the customer issue, understanding the problem in its entirety, and then offering a solution is the simple rule followed by the most efficient customer support agents. Added to that, a polite approach helps to calm down even the most frustrated customer. That is why the combination of patience and politeness is indispensable while hiring for a customer support agent.
Problem-solving skills
Every customer service agent needs to be a problem-solver in their own right. If you want your company to excel at customer service, your team of agents must possess the skills to think and offer logical solutions to customer issues. They must be able to understand the issue and think of a solution even before the customer poses the question.
Willingness to Learn and Grow
A candidate who is interested in being a customer support agent must be willing to learn and grow. This trait is important for the progress of both the company as well as the candidate. A willingness to learn and improve will help the candidate to adapt to the needs and requirements of the job as well as the company. In its turn, the company will have an employee who will try to uphold the organization’s goals and improve customer service quality.
Commitment and Loyalty
A significant quality to look in a potential customer support agent is commitment and loyalty. With the high turnover rate of customer support agents plaguing the industry, it becomes essential to look for agents who show signs of remaining committed to their job and their company. Every company spends resources and revenue to hire, train, and equip new staff with the necessary skills and information. A committed and loyal agent will save the company from the hassle of going through the whole process again.
Also Read, Three Levels of Call Center Agent Burnout
