Skilled

Why Customer Service is More Than a First Job

Alma P Ángel

• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781637301593
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Development Economics
• Index: Economics

Don't let a job in customer service discourage you-let it empower you.

Have you ever worked a customer service job thinking it was temporary or unnecessary because it was not your ultimate career choice? What if you found out you were actually developing critical skills during that job that could prove essential to your career path? Skilled: Why Customer Service is More Than Just a First Job will show you how.

In this book, you will learn about the soft skills, or transferable skills, people develop when they work in customer service and how those skills are critical throughout one's career. These skills include:

• Using active listening to identify a problem and prepare how to respond based on what you hear and see.
• Using emotional intelligence to build effective relationships in business and in life with those around you.
• Managing stress in fast-paced environments.

There is value to be found in customer service jobs; the skills you learn there you can take anywhere. If you are looking for a way to stand out as you pursue your future career goals, this book is for you.

Part One

Chapter 1

What Is Customer Service?

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“I’ll have the vegetable soup.”

It was a busy Friday night. The restaurant was full of people eating and talking while waiters, waitresses, and busboys were running around taking orders, delivering food, and cleaning tables. I had five tables with three to five guests each, and they all progressed differently with their meals. One table, a family with three kids, took a long time to order, preventing me from checking on my other tables. I would normally check in to see if my customers were enjoying their meals and find out if they needed anything else. I kept looking around to keep an eye on my other tables, and my responses to my current customer’s questions were quick and short.

The man at the table, we’ll call him Greg, asked, “What soups do you have tonight?”

I quickly said, “Vegetable soup and chicken soup,” not pausing between them. My tone was also stressed because I knew one of my tables needed drink refills, and I was taking too long to get them for the table.

Greg wasn’t happy with my level of service and spoke to my manager later, who then came to me and said, “Your table said you were being short with them.”

I realized I failed to make the customer feel valued and important. I was so concerned with everything I had to do and all the tables I was waiting on that I forgot this customer needed my full attention. In that moment, my other tables didn’t matter. Greg and his family should have been my main focus.

I was doing my job of taking orders and answering customers’ questions, but how I did it was subpar. The how is important, especially in restaurants where your tips depend on how your customers feel about how you provided service to them. You bring the food out quickly and keep their drinks full, but if you seem cold to them, their experience isn’t as pleasant.

So what exactly is customer service?

Though it may not seem like it, customer service is more than doing or denying what the customer wants or demands from you. Different customer service variations and definitions exist, just as different businesses exist. Let’s look at a few definitions, which will define customer service for the purpose of this book.

One definition is from Betterteam.com, a recruitment website, which defines customer service as what you do to “help customers with complaints and questions, give customers information about products and services, take orders, and process returns.”12 Customer service activities can range from answering emails and phone calls to bringing out desserts and singing happy birthday.

So how do you provide excellent customer service? Do you respond to emails generically, not anticipating possible questions to your response? Do you answer the phone with annoyance? Do you greet customers with a grimace on your face or with a genuine smile? What you do is the customer service job description, while how you do it is the human side of the job.

Another way to define customer service was provided by award-winning writer Lisa McQuerrey, who won the “Microenterprise Business Person of the Year” for Nevada in 2009.13 She wrote in a customer service article, “Quality customer service is about making sure your customers feel they are valued, treated fairly, and appreciated by your business.”14 This definition focuses on the how, or the human side, of customer service.

Your customers need to feel that you see them as people, not numbers for potential sales. When customers feel valued and heard, their perspective on you and your business can be positive, even if you can’t do everything they ask. Shep Hyken, a customer service and experience expert, wrote, “Customers want to be treated like people, not account numbers.”15 He cited Gladly’s, a service platform, 2018 survey, which found that “59 percent of customers said being treated as an individual was more important than how fast the issue was resolved.”16 17 Customers want to know you’ve heard them, that you understand where they’re coming from, and why the problem is an issue for them.

My sister, for example, left a phone company after having a horrible experience with the customer service representatives. She said, “I didn’t want to deal with them anymore because their customer service was terrible because of how they treated me.”

The last definition I’ll touch on is one by Mitchell Grant, a successful investor who began writing for Wells Fargo Investment Advisors.18 He says, “Customer service is the direct one-on-one interaction between a consumer making a purchase and a representative of the company that is selling it.”19

The key phrase is “one-on-one interaction.”

When you interact with the customer, it’s you and them, not the company and them. You are the one listening to the customer’s needs and wants; you take in the information given to you and determine what you can or cannot do. Yes, you do refer to company policy, but you decide if the policy applies based on the customer’s situation.

Your response affects how the customer reacts. Of course, customers want to hear you can fix whatever the problem is with no further questions, but that is not always possible. You must determine how to de...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• Introduction
• PART ONE
• What Is Customer Service?
• Soft Skills Explained
• PART TWO
• Active Listening
• Emotional Intelligence
• Empathy
• Problem-Solving
• Teamwork
• Managing Stress
• Negotiation
• Overcoming Intimidation
• PART THREE
• Careers in Customer Service
• Careers Outside Customer Service
• Conclusion
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix