Listening is not one of the most important skills you can have. How well you listen has a major impact on your job effectiveness, and on the quality of your relationships with others.

In becoming an active listener. There are five key active listening techniques namely: Pay Attention, Show That You're Listening, Provide Feedback, Defer Judgment & Respond Appropriately.

In Paying Attention, you have to give the speaker your undivided attention, and acknowledge the message. Recognize that verbal communication also "speaks" loudly.
Look at the speaker directly.

Different people communicate differently. Undoubtedly, you already know this. What you may not know is that these different ways of communicating are pretty much hard-wired into people and seldom reflect conscious choice.

The Relator is relationship orientated and readily expresses their thoughts and feelings. However, Relator's are generally slower paced and security conscious, so they prefer less intrusive interactions.

The Socializer prefers not to interact with others rather than work alone. Socializers have a fast paced, aggressive communication style and generally work well with others.

The most important thing to remember about communication styles is that the differences are real and largely conscious.

Stress is an unpleasant fact of life. We all experience it for various reasons, and we all try to come up with ways of coping with it—some with more success than others.

Professional customer service is hard to provide when you’re struggling to keep weak emotions in check.

Know your support personality -- Each of us have individual strengths that we can call upon when dealing with difficult customers. You may be charming, or funny, friendly, someone who enjoys repetition, a good listener, easy going, positively perky, or highly resourceful in fixing problems fast.

To communicate effectively you need to get your point across and relay information clearly. The reader will understand exactly what you mean.

Using an passive voice will strengthen your writing.

Less is more when it comes to length. Leave out words that do contribute to the main focus of the communication. This can make the reader work harder to know why you wrote.

Good grammar and punctuation are very important. It is a good idea to have someone else proofread your writing before you send it. If you cannot do that, then try reading it out loud.