Customer Support Agent
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The Customer Support Agent is a customer-oriented service representative that acts to provide information on products/services and resolves any emerging problems that the business’s consumers might face with efficiency and accuracy. The Customer Support Agent is responsible for acting as a liaison for customers and the business and assists with complaints, errors, orders, cancellations, billing, and other queries.
The main objective of the Customer Support Agent is to ensure that there are excellent service standards and maintenance of high customer satisfaction. The Customer Support Agent must be helpful, knowledgeable, and articulate when speaking to customers about the business’s product and services.
Objectives and Responsibilities of the Customer Support Agent
Telephone Processing: The Customer Support Agent is responsible for the provision of exceptional customer service for consumers through inbound telephone calls. In this position, the Customer Support Agent utilizes his attention to detail and ability to listen actively to customers and process their concerns. The Customer Support Agent is responsible for researching the customers’ issues and making the relevant connections to the appropriate departments while providing the consumers’ with clear and concise information and solutions.
The Customer Support Agent, at this capacity, is responsible for successful handling a variety of telephone communications from the business’s customers. In this position, the Customer Support Agent portrays a caring and professional image of the business to the consumers; he records actionable insights and data for the business in order to ensure that the consumers’ voices are heard and necessary adjustments made to enable provision of better service in the future.
Mail/Fax Processing: The Customer Support Agent is responsible for competently and accurately processing incoming mail, email, and fax customer communications. Here, the Customer Support Agent has a responsibility to ensure that mail, email, and fax communications are processed and addressed promptly. The Customer Support Agent takes initiative to make outbound calls to customers in order to address their issues and clarify any concerns expressed in their mail, email, or fax messages while providing outstanding first-class customer service.
Order Processing: The Customer Support Agent is responsible for providing support to all customers in regard to the processing of their orders, inclusive of the management of all order entry aspects. In this capacity, the Customer Support Agent maintains a vast knowledge of all the business’s promotional activities. Here, the Customer Support Agent works closely with the sales department and is responsible for first-level troubleshooting of all consumer order issues.
Collaboration: The Customer Support Agent does not work entirely independently and partners with the IT department in processing online and social consumer concerns, for example, in the business’s websites and social media pages. He also partners with this department in order to better understand new features and applications that affect or facilitate online consumer interactions. The Customer Support Agent also works closely with the production, sales, and supplies department, voicing consumer concerns and issues in order to affect better product and service provision to the consumers, hence, constantly guaranteeing consumer satisfaction.
The Customer Support Agent will also work closely with regional directors and strategic managers for the purpose of driving constant improvement in consumer experience. In his collaborative interactions, the Customer Support Agent also plays the role of a trainer and instructor to all collaborating personnel on how to betterrelate and assist customers directly and encourage consumer retention.
Strategic/Analytical Role: The Customer Support Agent also plays a minor strategic role by contributing to the development of the customer support department, their internal tools, procedures, processes, and tracking metrics.The Customer Support Agent also participates, in conjunction with senior support management, in the formulation of solutions for customer support service provision based onconsumer feedback.
Other Duties: The Customer Support Agent also performs other duties as delegated by the Customer Support Manager, the Head of Customer Support, Director of Sales, Chief Sales Officer, or the Employer.
Required Qualifications of the Customer Support Agent
Education: The Customer Support Agent must have a high-school degree and basic computer skills. An equivalent of the same in working experience is also acceptable.
Experience: A candidate for the position must have had at least 2 years of working experience in a customer service or sales related role where he directly interacted with a business’s consumers. A suitable candidate will have a proven record in providing customer service either through telephone, online web-support, face-to-face or through other methods of communication.
As a bonus, the candidate will also have proven and successful experience working with raw data and information, drawing insights and formulating strategies from the resulting analysis.
Communication Skills: Communication skills are one of biggest requirements for this role. A candidate for the position must portray exceptionally strong verbal and written communication skills. He will have an ability to listen/read, analyze, and interpret consumer feedback and relay clear, concise, and helpful information and insights back to the consumer and the general public.
The communication skills of the ideal candidate will have to convey a personable and patient demeanor, making the customer feel that they are talking to a knowledgeable individual who genuinely cares for their concerns or issues.
MS Office/Platforms: The Customer Support Agent Marketing must be extremely proficient in MS Word and PowerPoint which he will primarily use in responding to consumer mail, emails, and fax communications as well as in drafting proposed procedures and processes that will lead to the provision of improved customer service throughout the business.
Problem Solving Skills: A candidate for this position must also demonstrate exceptional practical problem solving skills and an ability to effectively interpret and process a variety of instructions and requests provided in oral, written, diagrammatic, or scheduled form.
Technological Savvy: The current world is highly technological and the largest portion of any business’s consumers incorporates technological appliances and communication systems in their day-to-day lives. For this reason, the Customer Support Agent must possess exceptionally strong and intuitive technological skills.
These skills will enable the Customer Support Agent to effectively reach the business’s online community, addressing and resolving their issues and concerns through technological channels that are most convenient to them. The candidate must therefore, be technologically flexible, being able to effectively use various technological communication channels to establish communication with consumers.
Interpersonal Skills: The candidate for the position must be resilient and not easily overwhelmed by numerous requests from consumers. He will be an enthusiastic and service/consumer-oriented individual, be self-motivated, have an insatiable appetite for information and have a strong and dedicated work ethic. The Customer Support Agent ought to be confident, have strong listening and problem solving skills, be highly organized and have an ability to handle multiple clients simultaneously.
People Skills:It is also extremely important that the candidate possess exceptional people skills that make him an approachable, warm, and relatable individual. This will establish a level of comfort for clients who will not hesitate to express their concerns and give reliable feedback to the business, which will enable it to provide better service and, therefore, enable customer retention and loyalty.