Whether you are running an inbound or an outbound call center, your agents need to learn and cultivate certain skills to ensure successful interactions with customers. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell a product, troubleshoot a problem or update a client account—without the right skills, customers will be left feeling uncertain, frustrated, or unhappy with their experience. Here are five of the most important skills call center agents need.

  1. Active Listening

Everybody knows that call center agents are working from a script. By now, customers can tell if an agent is reading a pre-written message and/or following a set protocol to proceed through a call. While these scripts are important and necessary—they ensure that all the required information is collected and documented and that all the right steps are taken to address an inquiry—it’s also critical that agents are able to actively listen to customers and then adjust and react on the fly. Customers hate having to repeat themselves and they hate feeling like their time is being wasted—if they spend a few minutes explaining their situation and the type of support they are looking for only for the agent to proceed to the next step in the script instead of directly addressing what was said, customer satisfaction is going to drop fast. Agents must be incredibly skilled active listeners.

  1. Clear Communication

Nearly as important as active listening is the ability to communicate clearly. Customers are taking time out of their day to speak with an agent and misunderstandings and miscommunications will only serve to stoke frustration. During a conversation with a customer, an agent should constantly be checking to make sure the customer understands the situation and everything that is being said. They should make it impossible for the customer to point to a misunderstanding at a later date if their issue is not resolved. All information that is transferred should be clear, simple and easy to understand.

  1. Patient Call Control

This one can be a bit tricky for agents to get exactly right. While agents must be listening and reacting to what the caller is saying, it is also their responsibility to keep the call moving forward. What’s more, they have to do this without making the customer feel rushed or making it seem like their issues are not being directly addressed. That’s where the patience part comes in. Sometimes, it’s as easy as acknowledging everything a customer has said before moving on to the next step in the script, while other calls may require more of a detour before the agent eases things back on track. The ability to deftly and patiently steer a call is a critical skill.

  1. Empathy

Of all these skills, empathy is the one that has made the fastest rise in importance in recent years. Speed and efficiency have been replaced of late by customer satisfaction as the biggest call center metric, so expressing and communicating empathy has become more important than ever. Customers not only need to feel heard, but they also need to feel understood. Being genuinely empathetic and making this clear through the rapport developed with the customer is the fastest way to achieve this feeling.

  1. Positivity

While obvious, the impact of a positive attitude cannot be overlooked. It doesn’t matter how crabby, frustrated, or impatient the customer is—the agent must be positive and optimistic that they will be able to resolve every customer’s inquiry before they hang up the phone. If they aren’t, it will only serve to fuel the customer’s frustration and further cement a negative attitude towards the business as a whole, which could lead to a diminishing bottom line. Positivity is a gold standard that must be upheld.

Once your agents have developed and nurtured these skills, they will be ready to successfully interact with customers. The other component that will ensure successful customer interactions is an easy-to-use call center platform like CallShaper that helps them move effortlessly through calls. To learn more, contact us today.