Persuasion and negotiation skills are customer service techniques and tactics that are used to persuade and negotiate with customers in particular situations. Persuasion is the process of convincing someone to believe in or agree to an outcome or transaction while negotiation is the process of reaching an agreement or compromise between two or more parties.

Examples of persuasion and negotiation skills include:

– Active listening to identify customer’s needs and goals
– Exploring customer’s expectations, options and alternatives
– Providing customer focused service
– Using positive, consistent language to differentiate proposed customer solutions
– Establishing customer trust
– Establishing mutual understanding
– Framing customer agreements persuasively and positively
– Keeping customer requirements front of mind
– Utilising persuasive and negotiation techniques to resolve customer issues.

Why are Persuasion and Negotiation Skills Important for Customer Support

Persuasion and negotiation skills are important in customer support as they can help employees better handle customers’ expectations and resolve customer disputes. The customer support representative must be able to apply techniques to persuade customers to accept solutions or compromise. Following are examples of how persuasion and negotiation are important in customer support.

1. Resolving Complaints: When customers reach out with a complaint or dispute, customer support representatives must listen to the customer and work to find a mutually satisfactory resolution. Through persuasion and negotiation techniques, customer support representatives can identify customer needs and expectations, address customer concerns, and ultimately successfully solve the customer complaint.

2. Upselling and Cross-selling: Upselling and cross-selling are essential customer support activities that require negotiation and persuasion skills. For example, if a customer requests a particular model, it may be beneficial for the customer support representative to recommend an alternative, more cost-efficient model. This requires persuading the customer on the merits of the alternative, while ensuring not to appear manipulative or dishonest.

3. Retention and Loyalty: Customer retention and loyalty are key objectives for customer support. Through persuasion and negotiation, customer support representatives can effectively engage customers and prevent them from canceling service or subscription. For example, customer support representatives can use persuasive language and negotiation skills to offer discounts, special offers, or other incentives to customers.

Overall, persuasion and negotiation skills are important in customer support as they can help customer support representatives successfully, and ethically, resolve customer complaints and disputes, upsell and cross-sell, and retain and the loyalty of the customer.

How to Improve Your Persuasion and Negotiation Skills

1. We provide training for our customer support agents on persuasion and negotiation skills.
2. We have regular meetings with customer support agents to discuss appropriate persuasive techniques and strategies.
3. We monitor customer interaction recordings and mentor our agents on persuasive techniques.
4. We give recognition incentives to our customer support agents who successfully implement persuasive conversations.
5. We create role-playing opportunities to help customer support agents to practice persuasive conversations one on one with a mentor.
6. We provide guidance to customer support agents on how to handle difficult conversations and remain calm under pressure.
7. We use psychometric assessments of our customer support agents to measure their persuasion and negotiation skills.
8. We provide in-depth case studies to customer support agents to give examples of how to successfully improve persuasion and negotiation skills.
9. We provide customer support agents with virtual help platforms they can use to continually hone their persuasive skills on their own.
10. We support customer support agents in understanding customer psychology by providing them reading material on effective persuasion techniques.

Persuasion and Negotiation Skills FAQ

1. What is the most important factor for using persuasion and negotiation skills in customer support?
Answer: The most important factor for using persuasion and negotiation skills in customer support is understanding your customer’s needs and the desired outcomes, and being able to communicate effectively to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

2. What should I consider when addressing customer objections and complaints?
Answer: When addressing customer objections and complaints, you should consider their perspective, sympathize with their experience, understand the root of their complaint and keep the conversation positive and constructive.

3. How can I use persuasion and negotiation to reach a positive outcome?
Answer: To reach a positive outcome through persuasion and negotiation, you should look for common ground, and focus on potential solutions that both parties can agree on. Be flexible, and open to hearing different perspectives.

4. How can I set boundaries when it comes to customer requests?
Answer: You can set boundaries by having a clear idea of what you are willing and able to do, and communicating that to your customer in a respectful and understanding way.

5. What techniques can I use to be more persuasive?
Answer: To be more persuasive, you could try using positive language and speaking in terms of benefits that the customer can receive. You can also try emphasizing mutual goals by emphasizing both parties’ desired outcome.

6. What should I be aware of to negotiate a better deal for the customer?
Answer: When negotiating a better deal for the customer, you should be aware of the terms and conditions of both parties, as well as the customer’s needs and goals. You should also be aware of the current market and your competition.

7. How can I stay in control when negotiating?
Answer: To stay in control when negotiating, you should focus on the outcome you want to reach and ensure that the conversation remains focused on the topic. You should also remain professional, listen actively, and be prepared to compromise if needed.

8. What tactics should I avoid when negotiating?
Answer: You should avoid tactics such as aggressive bargaining, threats, ultimatums, and overpromising.

9. How can I use persuasion and negotiation in customer service?
Answer: You can use persuasion and negotiation in customer service to help customers make decisions, resolve conflicts, and get outcomes they are happy with.