The ability to indicate that you have an understanding of what the customer says or asks for. (That includes the ability to repeat it back in a concise summary if appropriate. Also the ability to listen, which takes patience and a sense of timing. Understanding and the demonstration of it will surpass every smile or other gesture of courtesy. Lack of perceptible understanding is a door that has opened for dissatisfaction.)
When possible, the ability to put your service to use in your own, natural language. (I don't feel like I have been engaged by someone that cares about what I am looking for when I call a large organization, such as a phone company, where I live. This is because I can often hear the person using a standardized script and just doing their best to fill in the variable blanks along the way. The language the person uses does not find a welcoming home in my ear, because I am hearing someone paid to follow orders and conduct themselves as a robot or else, and the words used on me are as good as the ones used on the next 20 or 30 people in too obvious a way. I recognize that the company needs to make money, but I only hear that they are only interested in making money when I hear someone who has been hired to conduct themselves robotically rather than to bring their personally honed sense of caring and problem resolution to a given situation. The best way to satisfy a person is to recognize that it is a person who needs something and to be one yourself--it's interpersonal. This is not possible in all customer service positions.) No, I have not had any recent bad experiences, but you are asking for views on what the best interpersonal skills are in a customer service context, and these are mine.
I guess the things that mean the most to me in the interpersonal area have to do with language and how you use it. | 
