8 Customer Care Skills to Work as a Call Center Agent

Are you the right person to work as a call center agent?

No matter we are talking about call center companies or client service departments of international corporations, the customer care agent jobs inside call center companies continue to spread on the job market and the need to find the right people to take these positions continues to grow.

Additionally, as call center agents, such individuals are now vital in maintaining a good connection between companies and consumers, to become real voices of the big companies in the market, where the brand’s reputation is more important than ever before.

Let us find out together the 8 top qualities any call center agent needs to possess in order to become a great people person.

 

8 Skills You Need to Become a Great Call Center Agent

 

1. Attention for details

As a customer care agent, you will communicate with a great number of people that encounter various issues and you need to find solutions. For this reason, you have to pay attention to details in order to understand each particular situation and use the right solutions for each case.

At the same time, there are customers who contact the support agents for a number of times to deliver additional pieces of information. Thus, a customer care agent needs to remember and consider all the different data in order to have the large picture of the issue and come with the right answers.

2. Well-organized

Call center agents need to be very well organized since they are working in a changing environment, where they have to deal with great many people in a short period of time.

To troubleshoot successfully various technical or commercial cases, the agent needs to be well organized so that he or she may approach each customer according to how difficult or important that particular case is.

Therefore, a well-organized agent is not late at work or at the established meetings and manages to solve successfully the difficult issues that appear.

3. Professional curiosity

Call center agents need to know very well the product(s) or the service(s) offered by the company they represent. They have to be up-to-date with the latest novelties in the company, no matter the information arrives from inside the corporation or from the media.

Any professional in the client service industry knows how important it is to stay connected to your company’s evolution and know exactly the quality of your company’s services.

In the end, these pieces of knowledge give agents a growing trust into their own abilities conveying this data into a positive attitude towards the final customer.

4. Communication abilities

Advanced communication abilities are necessary for any call center agent.

The agent needs to be able to communicate with various people that may be sometimes at a great distance and they should have the ability to display trust and professional care.

By analyzing each case in a unique manner and listening carefully to people looking for the necessary assistance, the call center agent needs to prove a high level of empathy so that a constructive communication may be maintained.

Consequently, advanced communication abilities are more than important to anyone looking to access this field of work. Many times, human abilities are more important than the technical skills an agent may display in a customer care environment.

5. Discipline

Another important quality for a call center agent is the ability to work under pressure, while dealing with a great number of people and cases.

Experienced agents in the client service industry have the ability to control their inner feelings and take advantage of this powerful personal aptitude in their career, no matter we talk about customer care or other industries.

6. Up-to-date with the latest technological novelties

The client service industry has always been strongly connected to the IT environment.

It is simply natural for a great number of IT professionals to have started their careers in a customer care position since many jobs in the client service industry require advanced knowledge of software skills.

Therefore, the two fields are strongly connected and we should not be surprised if we notice many professionals who evolve inside their companies from one area to the other.

7. Team work abilities

Working in a customer care department is not a one man show activity. More than any other position in the market, a job inside a call center means that you are working with people and for the people.

It is therefore essential to have social skills and an ability to collaborate with your team.

At the same time, it is vital to improve your understanding of human psychology and take care of those around you. All these social abilities are strongly connected to raising the company’s financial evolution and overall performance.

8. Empathy

Empathy is an important quality for every man residing inside a society. It is even more important for a professional who interacts with people, no matter we are talking about reaching out by phone, chat or email.

Empathy or understanding the difficulties people meet every day is required from any customer care agent who wants to understand an issue. In the unfortunate case where a customer feels his requests are not addressed fast, he may choose to leave for another company.

As we have been able to notice in so many cases before, it is more important to have inside your call center people who are able to master a number of psychological abilities than people who are there simply for their technical skills.

It is well-known the fact that any technical knowledge can rather be acquired, whereas psychological abilities which offer the possibility to communicate in an optimum manner with people are rather inborn and are difficult to obtain.

 

Are you the right person for a customer care position?

As we were saying at the start of our article, customer care positions continue to appear throughout the software, communications and IT industries and the demand for great professionals is constant.

At the same time, it is true that not any individual can work in such a position and it is vital for anyone who wants to work in such an industry to possess a set of skills and abilities.

However, we have to say that most abilities can be successfully acquired in a job like this over a certain period of time, so if you believe you are able to occupy a customer care position inside our company, please let us know.

 

Blue Point is a call center company offering customized solutions for outbound (telesales, telemarketing, surveys, etc.) and inbound (customer support, helpdesk info line and technical support, loyalty programs, cross sell upsell & inbound) services. The most popular clients assisted by our company are ING Bank, Metropolitan Life, Heineken, Hochland, Reader’s Digest, Ţiriac Auto, Vodafone and Xerox.