Soft skills are defined as a set of personal qualities that allow you to connect to a customer. Soft skills include active listening, oral communication, nonverbal communication, conflict resolution, professionalism, and empathy.

Four categories of soft skills:

• Problem solving related to cognitive skills
• Teamwork skills
• Oral communications skills
• Personal qualities

Although all customers have a problem that needs to be solved, in the long run it is more important how problems are solved than whether they are solved. Customer focused companies make serving their customers' needs their highest priority. Customer focused businesses usually perform better than company focused businesses.

Methods include:

• Customer surveys
• Using customer information to fine tune products/services to meet customer needs
• Quality check procedures
• Employee training to deal better with customers
• Timely resolution of customer problems

Ways to improve customer satisfaction

• Use information from customer surveys
• Informational resources: FAQs, websites, automated response systems
• Stress reduction for help desk technicians
• Ensure privacy and respect for property
• Always take ownership of customers’ problems and ensure that the problem will be solved
• Always maintain a positive, helpful, and professional attitude
• Treat all customers with respect at ALL times
• Never blame the customer for anything. Never blame the problem on the company. Always focus on the solution to the problem
• Always ask the customer if the problem has been resolved to their satisfaction and whether they have any other problems before ending a call