This was an ongoing question for me as I managed staff. At any point in time during the years while working for the City, I employed 6-9 part-time staff in our athletic facility, up to 25 various sports officials for basketball, softball, volleyball, dodgeball, and soccer, as well as 40 seasonal aquatic staff including lifeguards and managers. Many times, these staff members were under the age of 20 and while they were unique and wonderful in their own way, many times they did not have the soft skills I was hoping for. While I gave everyone a customer service training as part of their hiring process, generally speaking, it wasn’t enough.
I’ve recently discovered, it’s the soft skills that allow people to work well with customers. You have to have people skills to work well in customer service, people skills are soft skills, and soft skills “allow you to care,” So, how do you train someone to “care.” How do you train or develop a soft skill. It’s easy to teach someone the technical details. It’s easy to teach someone how to do Excel or how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but to teach someone to give a cranky and emotional pregnant woman their breakfast because she woke up late, didn’t have time for breakfast, is having a low blood sugar attack and is about to pass out is altogether a different situation.
So what can we do? We focus on the following:
- Communication.
- Leadership.
- Critical thinking.
- Listening.
- Adaptability.
- Organization.
- Teamwork.
- Punctuality.
These are topics and areas of expertise that will help mold you and your staff into “people” people. If you focus on these things, which aren’t “things” at all, you and your staff can be better equipped to give your customers a great experience, not just provide them a simple service or a simple product. Give them something to remember!
