Customer service managers are the type of people who are so skilled in the field of customer service that they have decided to make it a long-term career. These are the people who watch over the customer service trainers and representatives in their respective jobs.
Customer service managers need to be skilled in a wide variety of fields, which most especially include conflict resolution and employee management.
Let’s look at conflict resolution first.
When a regular customer service representative is dealing with a caller who is very irate, that caller may ask to speak to a manager. If this does happen, then the burden of turning an angry customer into a happy one falls from the customer service representative to the customer service manager.
At this point, the customer service manager has to use the skills at his or her disposal to ensure that the customer calms down and does not escalate in their anger to the point where the call has to be disconnected.
To do this, the customer service manager will often use techniques they have learned throughout their customer service career to please the customer and help ensure they are happy when they get off the phone. It may seem like a difficult task to do this, but customer service managers are skilled at it, that is why they are in the position they are.
The second area that they need skill in is employee management.
Working as a customer service representative can be a stressful job for some individuals, with the constant stream of calls, the issues with irate customers and the hours that tend to change on a regular basis in some call centers, and it is up to the customer service manager to keep employees happy and stress levels down.
To do this, the customer service manager will implement a wide variety of techniques to make an employee more at ease, including relating to them, speaking with them and giving them a breather when things become a bit too stressful.
As well, the customer service manager will have to occasional speak with customer service representatives to make sure that they are keeping on their job and providing the quality of service expected by the company.
Often, this will entail to listening in on calls and grading the customer service representative following the call, or during a weekly review.
When dealing with employees who do not wish to excel as customer service representatives, it can be a stressful situation for the customer service manager and things may need to be done to limit the damage a weak-link in the customer service chain can do.
When you are a customer service manager, you are skilled enough that the company is going to take the chance on you and have you monitor other customer service representatives, fix problems they cannot, as well as manage other employees of the company.
It is a lot of extra responsibility, but as they say, with more responsibility comes bigger paycheques!
