Welcome to Technical Support Soft Skills! After watching this video, you will be able to: Define technical support soft skills, and discuss how to improve your soft skills. What are soft skills? They are positive behaviors and attitudes that you use every day, and They enable you to communicate and collaborate effectively with your team and with clients to avoid conflicts. Why are soft skills important? When used well, these skills can enable you to actively listen to clients, Work with others to resolve problems, and diffuse stressful situations. When you have strong soft skills: You have a customer service mindset. Your top priority is providing customers with a positive experience with your company. You also use strong communication skills to share information clearly, ask the right questions, and be concise. And your strong written communication skills will help as you take notes and document interactions with clients. You can get organized by using: Notes, messages, emails, and by developing a system to organize your work and access it quickly. You have leadership skills, even if you’re not a manager. You motivate, encourage, and resolve conflicts within your team. You can solve problems. You are the type of person who uses critical thinking skills to figure out a problem, and you explore the problem until a resolution is found. You can be flexible and adaptable by: Being open to new ideas, changing direction quickly, and learning new strategies. So how does it all add up? Knowledge of technology is one part of the equation in technical support. Another part is being able to work with others and manage social situations. Add to that positive behaviors and attitudes, and you can communicate, collaborate, and manage conflict with confidence. So how do you set yourself up for success in technical support? Use your soft skills! Start by asking questions of your peers and supervisors. Take good notes, and write down directions that are repeated and ideas that are important. Stay organized, know where your notes are, and discover what organizational style works best for you. Remember that it’s OK to say, “I don’t know.” But follow it with “I’ll find out.” Then, be ready to find the answers and add them to your notes. How do you build a customer support mindset? Be empathetic and emotionally connect with a customer. Be customer-centered by encouraging interaction and remaining positive, even if you have to deliver bad news. And, be patient by actively listening. After a negative experience, reset and start over again with the next client. You can learn how to improve your soft skills on the job. The best way to learn is to document your notes on everything as you work so you can learn from what went right and what didn’t. Next, read suggestions and notes from supervisors to get better. You will have times when you’re under pressure and stressed. Try to learn new techniques to withstand pressure and reduce stress. You might question whether your experience is enough. Lack of work experience doesn't mean that you lack interest or passion in technology. Use your passion for technology to boost your self-confidence. Remember that success in technical support isn’t just based on knowledge of technology. Your positive behaviors and attitudes can help you succeed. So, be ready to level up your soft skills. Where do you learn to fine-tune your soft skills? Learn from additional online courses Search for podcasts and audiobooks about developing soft skills, and Reach out to your peers and social groups to practice and refine your soft skills. In this video, you learned that: Soft skills are positive behaviors and attitudes that are used to effectively communicate, collaborate, and manage conflict. Soft skills include having a customer service mindset, communicating, being organized, leading, solving problems, and being flexible and adaptable. A customer service mindset is being empathetic, customer-centered, and patient. And learning to improve soft skills is important to succeeding in technical support.