4 Traits You Should Look for When Hiring a Customer Support Expert to Help With Your Clients

During my first group session in Brad Hussey's group, an interesting topic came up from one of the participants, Fran Black. Fran has been a solo entrepreneur, or solopreneur as she puts in here bio, for over 20 years. She's been a graphic designer since the early 90's. She's worked with top agencies in Jamaica and was the creative director of a boutique agency. However, with time Fran has found that she no longer has the patience to deal with many of her client's nitpicky requests.

I'm sure that many of us can relate to Fran who have a client or an interaction where someone is nitpicking the minor details and wants something to be redone, touched up, reworked, edited, adjusted, reconfigured or whichever verb they have chosen to basically say "I want you to spend more of your time on my project instead of working elsewhere".

In the group session, one such solution was charging more from clients; enough so that Fran would not mind the constant back-and-forth with clients. The other suggestion was the inspiration for this post.

Brad brought up the possibility of a Product Manager (PM) to help, which Fran mentioned she had tried but to no avail. The other suggestion was a Customer Support Expert, which Brad mentioned he used and continues to use for his Udemy courses to help answers all his incoming questions.

Brad’s passion for teaching and creating content was being hindered by the overwhelming amount of questions he received from his students. He recognized that his time and energy could be better spent on creating new courses and producing more high-quality educational content. So he made the decision to outsource the customer service aspect of his course creation to someone who excels at interacting with people and providing helpful answers. This allowed Brad to focus on what he does best, while ensuring that his students receive the support they need.

As with other aspects of freelancing, outsourcing makes sense when you know you'll get a great return on investment (ROI) and it's a pretty great ecosystem in Brad's example.

Brad's customer support expert has a source of income and learned directly from Brad [they were previously a student for one of his courses], the students' questions are answered promptly and as if he was the one answering, and best of all, Brad's can focus on what he likes doing, creating content for his students.

This is a bit similar to Fran's situation at the beginning of the story. She loves to be creating and would want to focus her time and effort there and it might be best for her to hire a customer support expert to help answer incoming user questions and queries.

Having previously worked 3 years in customer support and working management in the retail for over 10 years, I wanted to share my takes on what you should look for if you want to hire a customer support expert to help you with your clients. That way you can do what Brad did and focus on your work and business. I also checked various job postings for customer support roles and spoke with a recruiter at Wix for his insight on this valuable role.

1. Customer-centric approach

It makes all the sense that a position with Customer Support should have someone that is customer centric as the top trait, especially if they will your client's point of contact. Your ideal hire should be someone who is passionate about getting to know your clients, their needs and helping the client succeed in their business. In fact, when I spoke with a recruiter, he said a customer-centric approach is the main thing he looks for.

I would also seek this trait when hiring retail workers because being able build loyalty with your clients ensures repeat business, positive testimonials and referrals which helps build a positive brand and it's not a trait that can be taught nor does it come naturally for many applicants.

These are some bullet-points I found in various job listings related to a customer-service role that you might want to include while posting.

• You find meaning and pleasure in helping others succeed and are curious to know what really drives users.

• Goes above and beyond to meet the needs and expectations of customers

• Develop and maintain positive customer relationships and satisfaction.

• Help users solve problems while exposing additional ways they can achieve their goals and succeed online.

• Has a positive and friendly attitude when interacting with customers, both in person and over the phone or online

• You love building relationships and helping others succeed.

• Obsess over customer experience. We deeply understand what we’re building and who we’re building for and serving.

Protip:

These are questions as provided by the recruiter that you can ask while interviewing to gauge their customer-centric approach.

• Why do you want this role?

• Tell me about a time you went above and beyond for a user

• What does good customer service mean to you?

• What do you dislike about customer service?

• Tell me about a time you couldn't help a customer. How did you manage it?

2. Empathy

Empathy is essential in the customer service industry. This goes hand-in-hand with the previous trait but your expert should be able to communicate and listen, and I mean really listen, to the client and understand what it is they want.

I mentioned in our meeting with Fran and the group but those clients who want to keep talking to her and demanding changes usually want to make sure their values are being met. There's a concept in politics and project management called "The Iron Triangle". Most clients won't think of scope when reaching out to you so usually they think of one of the values below:

Of course, everyone would like the cheapest, quickest, highest-quality thing all the time but your client probably has one of these as their main value, with one of these as secondary and the other tertiary.

I would handle de-escalations while working customer care and I would keep these values in mind. If the client is upset or is insistent of talking to you, it's either because they feel this is costing them time, this is costing more than they expected or they feel they have given their time and money but the quality isn't where they expect it to be. Once that is determined, your hired expert should be able to assure them that their standards and your standards are being met.

Here are some bullet-points for traits to find an emphatic individual:

• Listens actively and provides support when needed

• Maintains a non-judgmental attitude towards others

• Adapts communication style to meet the needs of others

• Demonstrates a genuine concern for others and their well-being

• Able to build strong relationships with coworkers, clients, and customers

3. Resourcefulness/Flexibility

So this trait is really two traits but they are a bit similar so I'm including both here. As the goal with hiring a customer care expert is to lessen your workload, they should be able to work autonomously. If not and they are reaching out to you to help answer each and every one of the client's questions, it kind of defeats the point of the role, right?

A hired customer expert should be able to find answers themselves and search resources. For example, I'm using Editor X to design sites so my prospective hire would know how search the knowledge base to help the client figure out how to change text, or upload their images. If you have certain workflows or tools you use when working with clients, they should be able to locate the right answers for all of the tools you use.

This goes hand-in-hand with the previous traits as well because if they genuinely want to help the client succeed and empathize that their values are not being met, they will try. (I know I would do whatever I can to help someone reaching out to me ☺️)

The ability to be flexibility and resourceful are important since the clients will be different, the scope of the project might be different, the field might be different if you don't have a specific niche, or your work might entail various disciplines like web design, social media marketing, SEO, copywriting, ecommerce, etc.

If you have a lot clients, there will be more people the customer support expert needs to move through so it's important they can navigate tasks efficiently. The method of communication might change from client to client and as mentioned previously, different clients will have different values that they want met.

You can see that there are a lot of variables when working on a project and with different clients so hence why these traits are important.

What to include in a job description to find flexible/resourceful individuals:

• Demonstrates the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and environments, and is comfortable working in a fast-paced and dynamic setting

• Possesses a can-do attitude and is willing to take on new challenges and responsibilities as needed

• Possesses strong organizational skills and is able to prioritize tasks and manage multiple projects simultaneously

• Is comfortable working independently and taking ownership of projects and tasks, while also being a collaborative team player when needed

• Is able to remain calm and composed under pressure, and is skilled at navigating complex or difficult situations with professionalism and tact.

4. Communication Skills

Communication skills are essential for a customer service representative to effectively assist and satisfy customers. This enables the expert to actively listen, understand the client's needs, and provide clear and concise answers to their questions. A customer service representative with strong communication skills can show empathy for the client's problem and make them feel heard and valued.

They can also use their communication skills to defuse tense situations, handle complaints, and provide detailed explanations in an easy-to-understand manner.

The other reason for communication skills are important is that your customer service expert will be the liaison and go-to person for you and your client. Concerns and communication for your client will be dictated by them and then forwarded to you. Thankfully there are tools with many design tools like Figma notes, share for feedback for Adobe tools, Editor X: Get Feedback, and various other examples as populated by Hubspot here.

BONUS:

I also wanted to include a trait that I don't think is as important but I saw brought up in a few a few times and that is Technical Skills.

Many of the job postings I saw online include apps and online platforms that you should be proficient in when applying for the role. Now some traits such as organization and being creative can and probably are useful in the web design world, for this role you might not need your customer care expert to know the platform before being hired. Of course, that changes if you don't want to teach them the basics of the job but generally, I would always prefer to hire someone who didn't know anything about retail but had that innate drive to learn and help others over the person who knew everything but wasn't a people-person. That second individual would probably be better suited for a backend position but not for helping clients. I always remembered my District Manager telling me

That always stuck with me and the same holds true here. Granted and to reiterate, you might want someone who knows web design if you don't have time or a drive to teach but you should probably expect to need to pay the customer care expert more if that's the case (though you could offset that cost to the client in the included price regardless of the expertise-level you are looking for).