English Soft Skills

TL;DR: Grammar and fluency are not the same as being able to have a real conversation. The English soft skill that decides whether someone can speak well with a client is called interactive communication. It is the ability to start, continue, and develop a two-way conversation. You can score it in any interview. This post explains what it is, why it matters most for client-facing roles, and gives you a rubric to use.

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A hiring manager at a Hong Kong logistics firm had 200 applicants for three jobs. All three jobs needed a person who could speak with clients every day, in English.

Every CV said the same thing: "English — fluent." So she tested their English. She gave each shortlisted candidate a short written task and a quick chat about their experience. Their grammar was correct. Their vocabulary was good. But she never tested their English soft skills. She hired three people.

Then the first client calls happened. One candidate gave long, correct answers — but never asked the client a single question. One stopped talking every time the client started a new topic. One kept interrupting the client by mistake, speaking before the client had finished. Then this candidate could not continue when the client sounded annoyed.

Their English was good. Their conversations were not. And in a client-facing role, talking well with the client is most of the job.

If this has happened to you, it is not your fault. A normal interview is not built to find this. You can test someone's English for an hour and still miss the one skill that matters most on a client call. By the end of this post, you will know exactly what that skill is and why it matters. You will also know how to score it the next time you interview.

When good English still fails the client

Here is the false belief that costs companies real money: "We checked their English, so we are covered."

You are not covered. "English proficiency" is not one skill. It is several. Most interviews only test the parts that are easy to see in a written test. They miss the part that only appears in a live, two-way conversation.

What poor communication costs

The cost of missing it is not small. Poor communication is one of the most expensive problems in business:

• The Project Management Institute found that for every US$1 billion spent on projects, poor communication risks US$75 million. It also found that poor communication is the main cause of project failure one third of the time (PMI, The Essential Role of Communications, 2013).
• The Economist Intelligence Unit surveyed U.S. staff. Communication problems caused project delays or failures for 44% of people, and lost sales for 18% (EIU / Lucidchart, 2018).
• Some business leaders reported losing business because of poor communication. Of these leaders, 86% valued the lost business at US$10,000 or more, and 22% valued it at US$50,000 or more (Grammarly + The Harris Poll, 2022).

For a client-facing role, the risk is even more direct. Qualtrics estimated that US$3.7 trillion of global sales were at risk in 2024 because of bad customer experiences. It also found that customers spent less or stopped spending after about half of poor experiences (Qualtrics XM Institute, 2024). A weak conversation with a client is a bad customer experience. That is exactly the work you are hiring this person to do.

What this English soft skill actually is

So what is the skill the interview missed? It has a name: interactive communication. It is an English soft skill — a soft skill that the person has to perform in English, not in their first language.

Think about the difference between a monologue and a conversation. A monologue is one person speaking. A conversation is two people building something together, in real time, without a script. Interactive communication is the skill of the second one.

This is not a new or unusual idea. It is part of the framework most HR teams already trust. You have probably seen the CEFR scale on CVs — the A1-to-C2 levels. The Common European Framework of Reference for languages treats interaction as one of four separate modes of communication. The CEFR uses its own words: interaction "involves both reception and production, but is more than the sum of those parts." It even has its own scoring scales for turn-taking, cooperating, and asking for clarification (CEFR Companion Volume, Council of Europe, 2018).

In other words: the framework you already use says interaction is its own skill. Most interviews just do not measure it on its own.

Five things you score, only one needs a live partner

Here is the clearest way to see the difference. A professional speaking assessment scores five separate things. Four of them you can judge from a person speaking alone. Only one needs a live partner:

A candidate can score well on the first four and still fail the fifth. That is the candidate who looks great in a written test and then struggles on a client call.

The four parts of interactive communication

To score this English soft skill, you need to divide it into parts you can observe. Interactive communication has four. (These match how language-assessment researchers describe it — Galaczi and Taylor, 2018, list topic management, turn management, interactive listening, and breakdown repair.)

1. Initiating — does the person ask their own questions and bring up relevant points, or only answer? A strong communicator helps move the conversation forward. A weak one only waits to be asked.
2. Responding and developing — does the person add to what you just said, or give a short answer and stop? Good interaction adds something. "Yes, and the reason that matters for your team is…"
3. Turn-taking — do the two people take turns naturally? Watch for long silences before they speak, or for interrupting you before you finish. Both make a client uncomfortable.
4. Repair and clarification — when something is unclear, can the person fix it? Strong communicators check understanding, say it again in different words, and continue the conversation. "Sorry, let me say that a different way." Weak communicators stop and need you to help them continue.

These four are not about perfect grammar. A person can have small grammar errors and still be excellent at all four. Another person can have perfect grammar and be poor at all four. That is the whole point.

Why this skill makes clients stay

Strong interactive communication is what builds client trust — and client trust is what keeps clients. That is why this one skill matters more than the others for a client-facing role.

Compare the three people the manager hired with a fourth candidate, strong at interactive communication, on the same kind of first client call. She asks the client a question early. She adds to what the client says. She notices when the client sounds unsure, and she checks: "Sorry, let me say that a different way."

The client feels that she understands them. The conversation is easy and natural. She notices and fixes small misunderstandings early, before they become big problems.

What the research shows

This is one of the most consistent findings in the psychology of how people judge each other.

• When we form an impression of someone, we judge two things: warmth (can I trust them?) and competence (are they capable?). We judge warmth first. Together, these two judgments explain more than 80% of our impression of a person (Fiske, 2018). A person who responds well, listens, and fixes misunderstandings looks warm and trustworthy — quickly.
• In real service relationships, rapport is a friendly interaction with a personal connection between a customer and an employee. This rapport is linked to higher customer satisfaction, more loyalty, and customers who recommend the company to others (Gremler and Gwinner, 2000).
• In a controlled experiment, some people received active-listening responses. The listener repeated their point in different words and asked them to say more. These people felt more understood and more satisfied than people who got a simple "uh-huh" (Weger and colleagues, 2014).

And the business reason to protect a client relationship is large. Frederick Reichheld of Bain studied this, and Harvard Business Review reported his findings. He found that raising customer retention by 5% raises profits by 25% to 95% (HBR, 2014). The person on the call is the one who keeps that client, or loses them.

In these markets, people do most business in English. So when you hire for a client-facing role, interactive communication is not optional. In Hong Kong, English is in the "moderate" band on the EF English Proficiency Index 2025. Across the region, real proficiency varies a lot. Most of your candidates are not first-language English speakers, and their CVs all say "fluent." You need a way to see who can really talk well with a client.

How to assess it in an interview

The good news: you do not need special software to start. You need to change what you watch for and how you score it.

Three steps:

1. Create a live, two-way moment. A written test or a rehearsed "tell me about yourself" will not show interaction. Ask the candidate to explain their reasoning, describe how they would solve a real problem, or handle a short role-play — for example, you play a client with a complaint. A few minutes is enough. The point is a real two-way conversation they cannot prepare for.

2. Notice the four parts. As they speak, ignore small grammar mistakes for a moment. Instead ask: Did they ask questions back and bring up relevant points? Did they add to what I said? Was the turn-taking natural? Did they check and fix the problem when something was unclear?

3. Score it the same way every time. Use a fixed rubric, not a feeling. A rubric makes your decision fair across candidates, and it lets two interviewers agree. This is the same reason structured interviews are more reliable than casual ones.

This is exactly how we built the speaking assessment behind BEST. The third section is a live AI role-play — a difficult client, a disagreement, a negotiation. It shows how a person handles a real, difficult conversation they cannot prepare for. Senior examiners then score interactive communication on a fixed five-band scale. They map the result to CEFR and IELTS levels, so the score means the same thing to everyone. You can run a simpler version of this yourself, today, with the rubric below.

A rubric you can use in your next interview

Here is a short version you can use straight away. The full five-band rubric — the exact wording our examiners use — is in the free download.

Score each candidate on this scale right after, while you still remember the conversation. Three candidates who all wrote "fluent" on their CV will not get the same score — and now you will know why.

Frequently asked questions

What is interactive communication? It is the ability to start, continue, and develop a two-way conversation in real time. It includes asking questions, adding to what the other person says, taking turns naturally, and fixing misunderstandings. It is a soft skill, and non-native speakers must use it in English.

Is interactive communication the same as fluency? No. Fluency is how smooth and connected your speech is when you talk. Interactive communication is how well you handle a live conversation with another person. Someone can be fluent when speaking alone and still be poor at conversation.

Can I test it in a normal interview? Yes. Create a two-way moment — ask the candidate to explain their reasoning, discuss a real problem, or handle a short role-play. Notice the four parts (initiating, responding and developing, turn-taking, repair). Then score it with a fixed rubric.

How is this different from an English proficiency test? Many proficiency tests focus on grammar, vocabulary, and reading or writing. Those are useful, but they do not show whether a person can have a real conversation. Interactive communication is a separate skill, and the CEFR treats it as one of four distinct modes of communication. You can see how a full assessment reports it in a sample BEST report.

The bottom line

• "English proficiency" is not one skill. Grammar, vocabulary, fluency, and pronunciation can all be judged from a person speaking alone. Interactive communication cannot — and it is the one that matters most on a client call.
• It has four parts you can notice: initiating, responding and developing, turn-taking, and repair.
• It is the skill that creates client trust, and client trust is what makes clients stay.
• You can score it today with a live, two-way conversation and a fixed rubric.

Stop testing only the English you can see in writing. Test the conversation itself — because for a client-facing role, that is most of the work.