• Login
  • Status
  • Support
  • Partners
  • Pricing
  • Careers
  • ENLanguages
    • English
    • Deutsch
    • Français
    • 日本
    • 简体中文
    • العربية
    • 한국
    • Español
Customer Experience (CX) AI Platform
  • Customer Experience (CX) AI Platform×
  • Platform

      CXone Mpower Platform

      • Platform Overview

        Complete AI platform for customer service automation

      • Enlighten AI

        Powering smarter CX with AI-driven insights and automation.

      • Cloud Architecture

        Innovative cloud-native foundation to rapidly scale extraordinary CX

      • Voice as a Service (VaaS)

        Crystal-clear, scalable voice interactions for effortless interactions

      • Dashboards & Reporting

        Gain a full operational picture of your contact center, with enhanced visualization of real-time and historical insights

      • Integrations

        Seamlessly connect your business systems with our platform

      • Trust & Compliance

        Securing your trust with every interaction

      Discover the full value of AI in customer service

      Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

      Calculate your savings

    • Products
      • Explore all Products

      • Capabilities

      • Workflow Orchestration

        Workflow Orchestration

        Evolve from interaction management to workflow orchestration across the entire organization.

        Learn more

        • Omnichannel Routing

          Reduce wait times and boost conversions with smart customer-agent matching.

        • Proactive Engagement

          Generate more revenue, minimize hang-ups, and proactively connect to reduce friction.

        • AI Orchestrator

          Unify and optimize every customer service workflow from intent to fulfillment.

        • Agent Desktop Workspace

          Connect front and back office teams with data, conversations, and workflows together in one place.

      • Workforce Augmentation

        Workforce Augmentation

        Move beyond tools to empower employees with real-time, actionable intelligence that elevates performance.

        Learn more

        • Specialized AI Copilots

          Elevate human performance with specialized AI copilots for every role.

        • Workforce Engagement Management

          Elevate employees, adapt to flexible work, and meet expectations - without compromise.

        • Automated Notetaking

          Instantly summarize interactions to accelerate resolution times and efficiency.

        • Voice of the Customer

          Unlock customer insights to enhance experiences, drive loyalty, and boost business growth.

        • Interaction Analytics

          Gain AI-powered insights from 100% of interactions to drive continuous improvement.

      • Service Automation

        Service Automation

        Go beyond answering questions to fully automate customer intent through fulfillment.

        View Products

        • Intelligent Virtual Agent

          Boost self-service satisfaction and conversion with conversational AI agents.

        • Experience Optimization (XO)

          Synthesize real customer conversations to identify your top automation opportunities.

        • AI Agents

          Instantly create no-code AI agents powered by your data—build once, deploy everywhere.

        • Proactive AI Agent

          Keep customers engaged in conversation from onboarding to installation, service, and retention.

        • Knowledge Management

          Activate AI-powered enterprise knowledge to increase self-resolution rates and loyalty.


      • Solutions

      • By Industry

        By Industry

        • BPO

          Business Process Outsourcers

        • Financial Services

          Customer experiences that count

        • Government

          Elevate citizen trust

        • Healthcare

          Healthy patient experiences

        • Insurance

          Secure policyholder experiences

        • Retail

          Delight customers where they shop

        • Telecom

          CX for Telecommunications

        • Travel & Hospitality

          Boost traveler and guest loyalty

        Discover the full value of AI in customer service

        Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

        Calculate your savings

      • By Business Initiative

        By Business Initiative

        • Grow Revenue

          Boost conversions and win rates to accelerate growth

        • Engage & Empower Employees

          Create a workplace of truly engaged employees

        • Boost Customer Loyalty

          Improve customer loyalty on interactions across the journey

        • Drive Digital Transformation

          Integrate digital technology at the center of CX

        • Small and Medium Business

          Drive growth and boost revenue with smarter, cost-effective customer service built for SMBs.

        • Call Center Software

          Empower agents to provide better experiences

        • Increase Operational Efficiency

          Leverage AI and automation to increase agent retention

        • Move to the Cloud

          Elevate experiences by moving operations to the cloud

        • Improve Compliance

          Protect your consumers with pre-built compliance solutions

        • Proactive Customer Engagement

          Elevate customer satisfaction with proactive conversational AI

      • Integrations & Custom Solutions

        Integrations & Custom Solutions

        • CXexchange Marketplace

          Discover partner solutions to extend capabilities on our platform

        • Pre-Built Integrations

          Seamlessly connect your business systems with our platform

        • Developer Tools & APIs

          Endless customization options with RESTful APIs and robust SDKs

        • Partner Ecosystem

          Embark on a journey of shared success and collaboration

        91% of customers recommend NiCE as a preferred CCaaS vendor

        Gartner® named NiCE the only Customers’ Choice CCaaS vendor in its 2024 Peer Insights™ “Voice of the Customer for Contact Center as a Service” report.

        Get report


      • View All Products
    • Services
      • Explore all Services

      Professional Services

      • Professional Services

        Industry-leading expertise, tools and know-how

      • Implementation Partners

        NICE-certified implementation partners

      • Business Consulting

        Your partner for successful transformation

      Training

      • Contact Center Training

        Tailored education delivered by CX experts

      Support & Assistance

      • Customer Support

        Global support you can depend on

      Make the smartest buying decision with the latest Gartner analysis

      NiCE has been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Contact Center as a Service for the 10th consecutive year and is positioned furthest on Completeness of Vision.

      Get report

    • Resources

        Knowledge Base

        • All Resources

          Whitepapers, datasheets, demos and more

        • Analyst Perspectives

          Contact center reports from third party analysis

        • Terms Glossary

          Detailed descriptions of industry-related terms

        • FAQs

          Contact center focused frequently asked questions

        • Guides

          Expert insights for superior CX

        Learning & Insights

        • On-Demand Webinars

          Browse our extensive webinar catalog

        • Interactive Product Tours

          Explore the complete platform with our self-guided demos

        • Blog

          CX industry guidance by contact center experts

        • Why NiCE? Video Series

          Step Inside The Room Where It Happened to see CX AI in action

        • NiCE & Simple: Video Demo Series

          Brilliant, bite-sized videos from our top product pros

        Community

        • Events

          Upcoming events and webinars

        • Customer Stories

          Our customer's success is paramount. Read case studies about real CX transformation

        • NiCE Clubs

          Collaborate, learn, and share best practices for customer service excellence

        Discover the full value of AI in customer service

        Understand the benefits and cost savings you can achieve by embracing AI, from automation to augmentation.

        Calculate your savings

      • Company

          Company

          • About Us

            Powering seamless cloud experiences

          • Investors

            Investors relations, reports and filings

          • Global Offices

            Interactive map of locations worldwide

          • Careers

            View job openings and learn about our culture

          • NiCE Leadership

            Meet our global leadership and executive team

          News & Media

          • Events

            Upcoming events and webinars

          • Press Releases

            Find the latest updates from NiCE

          • Media Center

            Media contacts and resources

          Corporate Governance

          • NiCE Trust Center

            Securing your trust with every interaction

          • Market Leadership

            Discover why NiCE is the market leader

          • Corporate Responsibility

            In a world where you can be anything, be NiCE

          Make the smartest buying decision with the latest Gartner analysis

          NiCE has been named a Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ Leader for Contact Center as a Service for the 10th consecutive year and is positioned furthest on Completeness of Vision.

          Get report

          • ENLanguages
            • English
            • Deutsch
            • Français
            • 日本
            • 简体中文
            • العربية
            • 한국
            • Español
          • Get Started
            • Login
            • Status
            • Support
            • Partners
            • Pricing
            • Careers

          Company

          • About Us
          • Careers
          • Global Leadership
          • Media Center
          • Investors
          • Awards
          • Global Office Locations
          • Contact Us
          • CCaaS
          • Customer Experience
          • NiCE Public Safety
          • NiCE Actimize
          • NiCE RPA

          Partners

          • NiCE Partners Overview
          • Developer Partners (DEVone)
          • CXone Mpower Partner Portal
          • NiCE Help Partner Portal
          • NiCE User Group

          Customer Support

          • Customer Support Overview
          • CXone Mpower Support Login
          • NiCE Customer Support
          © 2025 NiCE
          • Terms of Use
          • Site Map
          • Privacy Policy
          • Legal
          • Cookies Settings
          • Accessibility

          Stay Connected

          © 2025 NiCE
          Happy and cheerful businesswoman using smartphones.

          11 Soft Skills For Customer Service Teams That Make Customers Happy

          NiCE
          by NiCE
          December 1, 2017
          Share

          Soft skills are often underrated when it comes to contact centers and customer service teams. This is likely because soft skills can be rather difficult to master.

          These skills, also called interpersonal skills, require a significant amount of psychological work and neurological strengthening. They are something that requires a lot of effort and fine-tuning in order to master. According to a recent LinkedIn survey, interpersonal skills are both important and also more difficult to find. 59% of managers reported they have trouble hiring people with the right soft skills.

          Interpersonal skills

          So the question becomes, does every agent have the ability to master soft skills in customer service?

          No one is born with flawless capability to master soft skills, and no one walks into their first job with a perfect set of skills. Although some can be personality traits, it would be hard to find someone who masters them all.

          With soft skills training for customer service, learning can be done in time.

          Any employer would be remiss to hire an agent without evaluating or at least asking about their soft skills. There are tons of them. Nearly all of them will aid your employees’ performance and some may be more specific to your line of work. Regardless, you should always be identifying and strengthening customer service soft skills.

          1. Ability to Listen

          Research finds that 60% of business problems can be attributed to poor communication. That means that an agent must be able to listen and listen well. It should be the first soft skill your agents work on.

          Since phone calls are still the consumers’ preferred method of contacting customer service, the ability to listen will reap valuable returns for any organization. If you cannot listen to the customer on the phone, you will never solve their problem.

          Online support staff also need the ability to listen and solve issues. Listening consists of understanding not only the customer’s problem but also the way they feel in order to reply the right way.

          2. Communication

          As much as you train in listening, you’ll get nowhere if your agents cannot communicate effectively, both internally and externally.

          Internally, your agents need to be able to listen to one another and listen to the managers to learn what is expected of them. Externally, your agents need to listen to the customer and respond appropriately. This one is slightly easier to train on than the listening portion.

          According to a study by CCW, training is the number 2 priority for contact centers in 2018, as they believe tools and training play crucial roles in driving the agent experience. Use customer service role-playing activities and give feedback to work on both skills simultaneously.

          3. Emotional Intelligence

          Emotional intelligence means understanding and managing your emotions, and the emotions of others. Managing the customer’s “happiness” is exactly what emotional intelligence is about.

          Of the five components of emotional intelligence, three of them – self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy – are a direct result of becoming aware of emotions.

          Emotional intelligence

          Training agents in emotional intelligence is crucial for them to understand how the customer might be feeling. It is also important in helping agents deal with their own emotions during customer interactions.

          4. Empathy

          It’s only natural for customers to want to feel understood and heard, especially with the chaos and anxiety going on in the world these days. In order to successfully validate a customer’s wants and needs, empathy is crucial. According to research conducted by Customer Think, nearly 80% of consumers want customer service to be more empathetic or more responsive or both in a post-pandemic world.

          If the customer knows that you not only understand their issue and can see where their frustration is coming from AND work to find a solution with their emotions in mind, you are practicing empathy, and your customers will feel much more understood and comfortable in the resolution process.

          The bottom line is that empathy will not only enhance customer experiences, but it can rescue the bad ones. Luckily, empathy is a soft skill that can constantly be enhanced and improved upon, whether that be through training or through practicing customer service empathy statements.

          5. Enthusiasm

          No customer wants to call your company and get stuck with an agent who is clearly hating every second spent on the phone. Even if agents may not be naturally enthusiastic, they need to employ an outgoing front when speaking to a customer.

          Building enthusiasm into your quality assurance process is a great way to hold agents accountable for that soft skill during their customer interactions. A US-based health meal delivery service incorporates the soft skills they look for when they hire agents into their evaluations process. According to their director of infrastructural efficiency, “We’ll evaluate interactions and evaluate if they were as outgoing as they could have been.”

          If the customer thinks the agent doesn’t care about their work or company, they will think the company does not care about them.

          6. Works Well Under Pressure

          Everyone gets nervous. Everyone panics. Everyone has to deal with pressure. When an agent is dealing with a tough or urgent situation with a customer, they can’t afford to panic because your company’s reputation is on the line.

          Since stressful situations can be entirely unavoidable, it’s important to learn how to channel and deal with the pressure in a healthy and productive way. In doing so, your agents not only survive difficult customer service situations, but thrive in spite of them.

          One surefire tip that is easy to start practicing today is keeping a calm voice and speaking coherently instead of in a rushed, confused manner will inspire confidence in your customers.

          7. Independence

          No customer enjoys being transferred from department to department just to get an answer to their inquiry. Of course, sometimes it’s normal for agents to ask for help from other departments but they shouldn’t hand things off unless it is absolutely necessary.

          Agents should be independent enough to find answers on their own and deliver them to the customer with confidence, straight from them, not from another department.

          And while it is easy for a company to put the entirety of the responsibility for this soft skill on the agent, it is also important that the agent is properly equipped to answer any and all questions that come their way. Putting proper process documentation in place is a great way for customer service agents to quickly find answers to most customer questions and it is also a great way to prepare them for a multitude of scenarios that may present themselves.

          8. Organization

          Customer service staff deal with many customer issues. Those experiences could easily blur together for someone who is not well-organized. Customers don’t want you answering the question that you promised another person you would get for them 10 minutes ago. Agents need to keep their cases organized and communicate the correct information for the specific task at hand.

          Types of organizational skills employers seek

          Organizational skills are a fun soft skill to teach because there are so many different ways to be organized in the workplace. It is important to accept your agents for what they are best at. Some agents might be better at higher-level organizational tasks, while others may be better at more collaborative aspects of organization.

          9. Writing Skills

          Believe it or not, employers these days consider writing a “soft” skill. Being able to write well is crucial for almost any position.

          For customer service agents, the ability to craft a carefully worded but positive, informative, and brief written communication is a must. These kinds of messages help customers feel cared about and important, especially if their issue is going to take some time to resolve or if your agent is busy with other tasks.

          One way to ensure your agents are continuing to work on their writing skills is to reward them for when they write a particularly good response to a customer. Going does a great job at this by incorporating writing into their quality assurance system and offering recognition to the agents that earned that badge.

          10. Follow Up Skills

          Jumping off from the writing skills, follow up skills are hugely important in customer service. If something goes unresolved, an agent needs to follow up on it. If an agent needs to get more information and circle back, make sure they know to do it, and how.

          According to New Voice Media, feeling unappreciated is the #1 reason customers switch away from products and services. If the customer feels neglected or forgotten, you’ve lost an opportunity to impress and further strengthen customer loyalty and trust.

          11. Friendly

          Last, but absolutely not least for customer service soft skills, is friendliness. Having a careless or defensive tone should never happen. A friendly tone can be as easy as smiling while customer service staff are on the phone or on the chat with customers. Friendliness is about creating a human touch to every facet of customer service operations.

          According to Kristin Smaby from Being Human is Good Business, “In an era when companies see online support as a way to shield themselves from ‘costly’ interactions with their customers, it’s time to consider an entirely different approach: building human-centric customer service through great people and clever technology. So, get to know your customers. Humanize them. Humanize yourself. It’s worth it.”

          Although many of these things come with time and training, many can also be inherent to the people you hire.

          Some of the best and easiest ways to train for soft skills is:

          • Through role-playing activities. Role-playing activities are not only fun ways for your team to engage with one another, but they are easy to do even in a remote work environment.
          • Practice, practice, practice. Sit down with your agents and pretend to be a customer. See how the interaction goes and tell them where you can use one of these skills more.
          • Find the situations in which these skills are important and give your agents feedback on how well they execute the behaviors associated with them. This can be done easily through a robust quality assurance program.

          The nature of the job is to interact with people in a meaningful and positive way. These skills are absolutely something worth helping your employees grow. According to TLNT.com, 80 percent of workers agree that having the opportunity to learn new skills at work makes them more interested and engaged in their job. Invest in their ability to succeed in every customer interaction and you will see your customer experiences get better and better.

          NiCE

          About the Author

          NiCE

          No description

          See All Blogs

          Follow Us

          Follow us to get the latest news from your preferred Social Network

          linkedinlinkedinlinkedinlinkedin

          Popular Posts

          July 21, 2025

          25 moments that made Interactions 2025 a NiCEr world

          Read

          July 18, 2025

          A supervisor’s story: Where trust meets oversight to create a high-performance world

          Read
          Asian call center agent

          July 8, 2025

          Service reimagined: AI creating dynamic end-to-end possibilities for a thriving contact center

          Read
          5 reasons why AI without memory is just guesswork

          July 2, 2025

          AI that forgets isn’t worth paying for: 5 reasons memory is key to AI-powered experiences

          Read

          July 1, 2025

          Create a streamlined world: Where tickets and data live in one place

          Read

          More from the blog

          AI

          25 moments that made Interactions 2025 a NiCEr world

          From the electric energy of Las Vegas to an iconic rugby stadium in the heart of London’s tech hub, NiCE Interactions 2025 brought together thousands of CX leaders across continents.

          July 21, 2025

          Call Center Best Practices

          A supervisor’s story: Where trust meets oversight to create a high-performance world

          In a seamless contact center, your supervisors are the key to everything. Supervisors show up there every day to support their teams – to manage, coach, guide, motivate, and when necessary, steer through chaos.

          July 18, 2025

          Asian call center agent
          Back Office Performance

          Service reimagined: AI creating dynamic end-to-end possibilities for a thriving contact center

          As customer service becomes more dynamic, contact centers play an ever-evolving role in creating exceptional customer experiences.

          July 8, 2025