Posts for IT professionals about IT customer service, emotional intelligence, how to be a better listener, dealing with difficult people, stress management, and similar topics to help IT pros build great careers and relationships.
Delivering bad news is never easy. Unfortunately, it’s occasionally part of your job in IT customer service. Being able to deliver bad news with grace and aplomb is an important career skill. When you have to deliver bad news, the people who receive it will remember when you do it well and when you do …
IT Customer Service 101: How to Deliver Bad News Read More »
Are you planning on helping your team up their customer service game? Here are nine customer service training ideas you can use to help your team excel. Creating a culture of customer service is not limited to training sessions. You must also demonstrate, by your behavior choices, how you want your team to act with …
9 Inspiring Customer Service Training Ideas for Your IT Team Read More »
Empathy is one of the core customer service skills. In fact, it’s one of the five principles of IT customer service success. Your leadership team may have talked about the importance of empathy for your customers. You’ve probably read many articles about the importance of empathy, but how can you improve your empathy? Empathy is …
Customer Service Skills: 7 Ways to Improve Your Empathy Read More »
Customer service pros know there are six steps in a successful tech support session. Understanding and using them helps ensure your customer is satisfied, both with the technical solution and the manner in which you handled their issue. Don’t think of the following steps as a script to be followed verbatim. Dealing successfully with people, …
6 Steps in a Successful Tech Support Session from the Customer Service Pros Read More »
Are you communicating or just spewing information? Information is text, charts, and graphs. Just because you share it, doesn’t mean people understand it. Communication occurs when the people who receive your information understand it. The communication model you choose helps determine whether the receiver understands the message you intended. The burden of responsibility for communication …
Choosing the Right Communication Model in IT Customer Service Read More »
I called my insurance provider with a simple question. The agent sighed audibly and spoke in a condescending manner. His instructions weren’t clear and he was impatient with me as I asked questions for clarification. I’m unwilling to let people treat me like that, especially when there are alternatives available for their products and services. …
Active listening in IT customer service makes the difference between a good customer experience and a poor customer experience. It’s really that simple. People who listen well gain the respect of others, gain more complete information, and solve problems faster. People who interrupt and talk over others are annoying, unhelpful, and take longer to solve …
Can you teach empathy techniques in an IT customer service course? Can empathy be taught at all? The answer is a resounding yes! In fact, there’s some research that indicates our brains are wired naturally for empathy. Your ability to imagine what your end-user, another type of customer, or coworker is going through is a …
How to Teach Empathy Techniques in an IT Customer Service Course Read More »
Compassion is principle number two of the 5 Principles of IT Customer Service Success. It’s a simple concept of caring about another person. Compassion in IT customer service training programs involves teaching how to notice another’s suffering, combined with a desire to help. Of course, as in many aspects of customer service, it’s sometimes easier …
How to Teach Compassion in IT Customer Service Training Programs Read More »
How technically competent are you? How about your team? How do you know? When you’re working with your team, one of the first ideas for IT customer service training is to help them develop technical competence. Perhaps you’ve heard someone say to hire based on cultural fit, attitude, or personality; that you can’t teach people …
Ideas for IT Customer Service Training on Competence Read More »
