Finding the right call center career gives you more than just a secure source of income; it also equips you with skills and competencies that will help you build your career. The hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job can propel you forward into specialized call center roles, managerial roles, or other jobs that require a honed collection of technical and soft skills.
As you search for new job opportunities in call centers and elsewhere, pay close attention to the software, technical, and interpersonal skill training different employers provide. But also look for opportunities that give you technical proficiency in multiple areas and hidden skills in everything from active listening to analytical thinking.
Why Call Center Roles Offer More Than Meets the Eye
From the outside, call center roles can seem simple: you answer calls. But within that core task are opportunities to develop emotional intelligence with customers and coworkers, strengthen your communication skills, and fine-tune your problem-solving abilities.
Whether you’re intentionally starting your call center career or you think a call center job is interesting, you’ll learn on-the-job skills that translate to virtually every career, giving you more flexibility as you pursue future roles and responsibilities. Consider these hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job among the many benefits of working in this career field.
Communication Mastery
Tijuana is a developing market for call center agents because bilingualism is a powerful tool. As a call center agent, you’ll regularly speak in both Spanish and English to help customers across North America. You’ll develop more cultural awareness through idioms and communication styles in different regions and pick up technical vocabulary in niche markets.
But good communication mastery goes beyond technical communication skills. You also gain:
- Active listening practices that cultivate great customer experiences
- The ability to express product knowledge to technical and nontechnical audiences
- Practical experience with wording and delivery in negotiations, sales, and support
All of these skills can help you grow your career, and you’ll practice them every day.
Emotional Intelligence and Empathy
Being an excellent call center agent requires empathy and control of your emotions. Customers may already be frustrated, confused, and impatient by the time you answer their call. Responding with empathy, understanding their problem, and demonstrating that you’re there to help can streamline conflict resolution. This is a crucial skill in any job.
As you develop customer service expertise, you’ll create your own strategies for recognizing customer emotions, controlling the conversation, and minimizing negative emotions.
Adaptability and Flexibility
While call center jobs have a predictable structure, every day can be a little bit different, and the daily routines of call center agents will vary. Some of the ways you’ll gain adaptability include:
- Being able to “triage” and respond to callers on the fly
- New training sequences for new product releases or service protocols
- Adapting to new software and customer management systems as your call center evolves over time
Being flexible to new programs and best practices instead of getting too used to static processes can make you even more valuable in Tijuana’s quickly growing call center industry.
Can You Develop Time Management and Organization?
One of the hardest elements of any job is time management, and there are plenty of hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job that will make you excel at time management. During your first month as a call center agent, you may feel overwhelmed by multitasking, the fast pace of answering calls, and the need for short call resolution times.
But as you adapt, you’ll create multitasking techniques that allow you to answer calls and note down key details, resolve conflicts while managing your own stress and emotions, and clear away lingering to-dos at the end of each work period. You can take those same skills into managerial roles, training roles, and increasingly specialized or complex call center jobs.
Problem-Solving and Critical Thinking
With basic calls, you can follow a playbook to deliver responses and complete the steps in common customer problems. But as calls become more complex, they’ll stretch your analytical thinking. You might:
- Quickly apply different negotiation skills and sales techniques to a conversation with a cold lead
- Need to quickly learn the history of a customer account as they’re on the phone
- Apply your product knowledge to a niche use case or question
As part of good teamwork collaboration, you may also be asked to help with a coworker’s call, and being known for fast critical thinking can give you a valuable reputation.
Will You Learn Conflict Resolution and De-Escalation?
As you develop your emotional intelligence, there are two additional hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job over time: conflict resolution and de-escalation. Frustrated customers can be impatient and ready to escalate at any delay. But active listening and staying calm can help counteract their high energy and keep the conversation focused on solutions.
Some tactics for great conflict resolution that you’ll develop are:
- Being able to offer the most likely solutions in easy-to-follow, nontechnical language
- Multitasking so you never have to put a customer on hold
- Repeating and reframing what they say to indicate understanding
- Apologizing for the inconvenience and demonstrating that you empathize with their emotions
Solving the problem quickly is only half the challenge—it’s just as important to manage the customer’s experience and minimize combativeness.
What Technical and Digital Skills Can You Develop?
There are dozens of technical skills you’ll learn throughout the course of your call center job. You’ll gain familiarity with the controls and shortcuts of the phone system, cutting down uncertainty and streamlining your processes. You’ll also develop technical familiarity with ERP software, CRMs, knowledge center programs, and time-tracking software.
Coming into future interviews with months or years of experience with digital systems is a big advantage in your career. Demonstrating excellent data entry accuracy and speed with a high words per minute count (WPM) also prepares you for future advancement.
Discover Your Hidden Talents—Start Your Journey With Seguros Confie
The best way to start growing the hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job is to apply to a call center that supports your career growth.
Seguros Confie offers training for entry-level agents, ongoing training and resources for team members who want to advance their careers, and internal opportunities. Seguros Confie also provides constructive feedback, so you can grow your feedback handling skills along the way.
Ready to find a job where you can learn critical skills and build a professional future? Explore the open positions with Seguros Confie today to launch your success.
FAQs
What Soft Skills Can I Gain From Working in a Call Center?
Call center agents can gain many soft skills from their daily tasks. These include:
- Active listening
- Confidence
- Patience development
- Empathy
- Organization
- Time management
- Stress management
Are Call Center Skills Useful Outside the Customer Service Industry?
Call center skills are useful everywhere, including outside the customer service industry. The hidden skills you’ll gain in a call center job can prepare you for any fast-paced work environment, whether you need excellent data entry accuracy or the ability to stay calm in high-stress situations.
Can I List Call Center Experience Under Technical Skills on My Resume?
Call center experience can add technical skills to your resume. You’ll develop faster typing speeds, technical product knowledge, and familiarity with a wide range of enterprise business software platforms.