Soft skills is general terminology. I have more than 16 yrs ex in operations and customer in communication and service catering to customer ranging from corporates top govt officers, govt agencies to common man on the road. What organisations/corporates fails to understand that for each industry/customer the skill required is different. Hence while choosing the skill training schedule they need to keep up the customer's profile in mind.
Skills training should be industry oriented. For example take two booming industry Telecom and Insurance. In each industry the customer care department is not well equipped to cater to the basic needs of the people. Customer is not comfortable in reaching the touch points or care centers. The staff is trained through ready made packages in a manner to service the educated customer and not the ordinary ones.
This leaves a lacuna in catering to the majority of the customer who makes a large proportion of their customer base.
Front end force needs to be trained to speak in customer's language and understanding to make them understand and make best utilisation of company's services and add on services. This would to a great extent avoid follow ups on churn management or retention activities.
In other terms skill is nothing but the way we communicate that is easy and understandable to other person across. Be it client , customers, departments,peers, subordinates etc.
