The Connection Magazine AIM MUTUAL Spring 2020 | Page 24

SOFT SKILLS
TOP 7 SOFT SKILLS
YOUR EMPLOYEES
NEED TO BE TRAINED ON
BY: JOHN DIJULIUS, PRESIDENT OF
THE DIJULIUS GROUP
CUSTOMER SERVICE and soft skills are
not common sense, they are not innate, and
people are not born with them. The quality of
your customer service, and the level of your
organization’s customer service, comes down
to one thing and one thing only: The service
aptitude of every employee you have. The
most critical component in building a worldclass
customer experience culture is the
service aptitude of every individual employee
in your company.
Service Aptitude: A person’s ability to
recognize opportunities to meet and exceed
customers’ expectations, regardless of the
circumstances.
SERVICE APTITUDE
DOES NOT APPLY TO
THE TECHNICAL OR
OPERATIONAL SIDE OF
THE EXPERIENCE, WHICH
IS ALSO A CRITICAL
PART OF A COMPANY’S
CUSTOMER SERVICE.
SERVICE APTITUDE
REPRESENTS THE
HOSPITALITY SIDE ONLY,
HOW AN EMPLOYEE MAKES
ANOTHER PERSON FEEL.
There are seven key interaction
traits that determine a person’s service
aptitude competency.
1) Compassion & Empathy
Compassion is the ability to feel for
another living being, which results in your
desire to help. Having strong empathy
to a customer’s situation, seeing and
understanding it from their perspective,
and walking in their shoes.
2) Enthusiastically Engaging & Warm
Employee is obviously happy in what
they do and whom they are doing it
for. He or she beats the greet; seeks eye
contact and smiles from long distances.
Immediately puts the customer at ease by
being friendly, cheerful, and caring.
3) Driven By A Purpose to Serve
Someone who intentionally focuses
on the experience of the person they are
serving above anything else.
4) Own It
Does whatever it takes to ensure
the customer leaves happy with their
experience. Acts with the same care
and thoughtfulness an owner of the
company would.
5) Charitable Assumption
Acts as if no customer has bad intentions.
Does not want to punish 98 percent of your
customers for what you are afraid that two
percent might do.
6) Must Be Present To Win
Always 100 percent in the moment of the
person they are interacting with.
7) Go Above & Beyond
Constantly looking and capitalizing on
ways to surprise and delight customers.
John R. DiJulius
John R. DiJulius III best-selling author, consultant, and keynote speaker, is the President of The DiJulius
Group, the leading Customer experience consulting firm in the nation. He blogs on customer experience
trends and best practices. Learn more about The DiJulius Group or The Secret Service Summit, America’s
NO.1 Customer Service Conference. In The Customer Service Revolution, DiJulius points out how
numerous companies have made customer service their biggest competitive advantage, are dominating
their industries, and have made price irrelevant. As a result of this customer service revolution, people
are being treated differently, better, and in a way like never before. This is a result of how companies
and management are treating their employees and how employees are treating each other and the
customer—which ultimately permeates into people’s personal lives at home and in their communities.
thedijuliusgroup.com
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