What do some of the brightest minds in customer support and success think it takes to become a great customer support representative?
We asked them, they told us.
Which do you think is the most important? Share your favorite quote on Twitter or Linkedin.
Empathy
“You can’t truly serve a client without empathy. Empathizing with a client is the fastest way to unlock what success looks like for them, de-escalate any negative emotions, and provide a human touch”.
– Jacob Scoville | Director of Customer Success @ Advanced Problem Solving
“Empathy. You have to be able to understand the issue and feel the pain that issue is causing your customer. By having empathy your customers become real people which creates a greater sense of urgency to fix their problems.”
– Nico Chaparro | Customer Success Team Lead @ Zight (formerly CloudApp)
“Empathy is a crucial skill to have when working with customers because this allows a support rep to provide real, genuine assistance that makes customers happy.”
– Christina Trocco | Director of Customer Success @ Zonos
“Human Experience. When you are close enough to your clients and as a result can easily articulate what makes them different from the rest of their industry… game over.
The customer success team should be a revolving door where customers come and go as they need support on how to not only use your product, but also win in the marketplace.
That level of connection is only done when you see a person, not a customer or client. HX is the future of customer support!”
– Jared Olsen | Head of Customer Success & Product Evangelist @ Motivosity
Effective Communication
“Effective communication! When QA’d well it not only encompasses listening and responding, but also empathy, product knowledge, and proactive problem solving.”
– Tiffany Timmermann | Director of Customer Success @ Canopy
“The ability to give the customer confidence that the issue will be resolved. No matter how well you solve the problem, or how well you know the issue, if the customer doesn’t FEEL that in your communication, the customer will not walk away euphoric about working with your company.”
– Nathan Jones Senior Manager | Customer Success @ States Title
“The mark of a great Customer Success Manager is the ability to proactively guide their customer as a strategic advisor. The role of a CSM is not to be reactive to customer problems, but to know their customer so well that they can provide a solution before it becomes a problem.”
– Matt Patrick | Manager, Customer Success Team @ Instructure
Listening
“Listening is one of the most crucial skills for a support rep. Listening will help unearth the root cause of the issue. That’s the first step to resolution.”
– Aktar AnwarJan | Technical Client Success Manager @ Dsco.io
Problem Solving
“Every Support Rep needs problem solving skills. This involves identifying the root cause of issues and creating a plan of both how to solve the issue and how to communicate with the customer. To retain customers, your Support team needs to earn and keep trust by successfully resolving issues.”
– Angela Carmack | Director of Client Success @ Awardco
“Self-reliance. The job is more than research skills and critical thinking. It’s having the attitude of “If it’s meant to be, it’s up to me.” The best support agents always dig deeper, teach themselves new skills, ask questions, and do whatever it takes to ensure that issues are thoroughly resolved.”
– Savannah Morgan | Senior Customer Success Manager @ Zight (formerly CloudApp)
“Customer success is proactive, customer service is reactive.
The best customer success reps have excellent time management and prioritization skills. Knowing that everyday presents “urgent” needs, critical deadlines and the potential for frustrated customers; You have to be able to shut out all of that noise.
Ultimately, your responsibility is to ensure the customer achieves the desired outcome with your product or service and distractions interfere with that.
You have to come into each day with a plan of attack, stick to an agenda, communicate effectively, and say “no”, a lot to be successful.”
– Kayla Davis-Beckstrom | Sr. Director of Customer Success @ VidArmy
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