Do You Have What It Takes?

If you have never worked in the area of customer service, and are considering moving into a career field that will require you to perform some sort of customer service, whether it be in retail and face to face, or just on the telephone, in any scenario, you need to consider ahead of time what kind of personality and skills are required to effectively do the job. I am sure most all of us have all experienced bad customer service at one time or another, so we kind of have an idea what it looks like, so now put yourself in that scenario and ask yourself how you would have handled the situation.

If you have a quiet, reclusive type personality, and maybe lack the confidence for speaking in public, then maybe customer service is not for you. Confidence is a trait that not everyone has, and often cannot be simply learned through training. Training can give you the confidence in knowing your job, but the ability to channel that confidence into outwardly speaking to people is a trait that some do not perform well with. In other words, it comes down to presentation.

I have seen some of the most well trained, most intelligent people in their field, get up and give the most horrible presentation of the facts. Not everyone has the ability to transfer that depth of knowlegde into an adequate presentation to aid a customer effectively. If you know this to be a weak point in your personality, then seeking a customer service type position is probably not in your best interest in the long run.

Many service positions require you to also have the skill of persuasion. Obviously most sales positions require this, but all service in one way or another can have times where this is needed. For instance, an angry, frustrated customer will need to be persuaded that you can and will be helpful to them. You have to be able to combine your confidence with your persuasive ability quite often to get the job done correctly.

I know of so many times where I have been on the phone with a customer service person, and can tell that they are simply reading from a script. If a question is posed that has veered from the script, it throws them for a loop. I have heard them actually have to start over, and repeat the whole procedure, just to get back on track. This is where knowledge and confidence work hand in hand. You can't be confident if you do not know much about what you are doing or saying. Scripts are a launch pad, a way to get the ball rolling if someone asks a certain question, but you have to know where to go from there, and all the ins and outs along the way.

Having a firm grasp on the various aspects of the product or service your company provides is of utmost importance. So many companies just hire anyone that can speak/read, give them the least amount of salary, provide minimal training and hand them a bunch of scripts to follow, and then throw them to the wolves. This is not a smart plan in the long run, and reveals a lack of care that the company has for the customer.

A company who is in it for the long haul, and who cares about providing good customer service, will provide you with the proper training, and provide all of the means necessary for you to learn and grow in the position. However, you need to first have the proper materials in your personality, to work with to truly excel in such a position. Do you have what it takes to be a great customer service representative?

Jeff McCormack resides in Virginia Beach, VA. where he works as a web designer by day. In his off time he is a husband, father, and musician. Aside from being a freelance writer for this Customer Service Jobs blog, he also seeks to assist in career choices and information by contributing to other Nexxt blog sites.