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How do you keep your customer service reps engaged?
My company's customer service team seems to have waning enthusiasm to cater to our customer base. How can I keep them invested in our clients' satisfaction?
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3 Answers
Your question leaves many other questions to be answered.
What is their enthusiasm waning?
What are they finding out from the customers?
Is there a process for them sharing the feedback?
Could sales be doing a better job up front?
I have seen such problems in other companies.
Sales was not fully trained on the product as to what it is for how it works etc.
They could sell the product but the customer had many more questions.
Customer Support also had the problem with inadequate training in regards to the product. They had internal support to fall back on the design team.
There was no policy or procedure in place for customer support to provide feedback to what they were learning from engaging with the customer.
The problem leads to irate customers to deal with, th e lack of understanding makes it more difficult to contend with when they are upset with you the messenger.
I think you get the point.
What I learned when I was in customer service is this,
I will not let myself be intimidated...this helps me keep composure under the most stressful condition
It isn't a personal attack on me I am just the messenger and my job is to get shot...not literally I hope!
Tell yourself that you will provide the best service possible because that is who you are.
It is also good to get together with your peers for lunch and have a "bitch" session as this helps you get it out of your head and into the open to be discussed. You will feel better afterwards.
Provide a system for feedback and ensure that steps are taken to alleviate the problems before they become problems.
Use social media alerts about your company to trigger customer support calling the customer up proactive instead of reactive. The support team will feel better about helping the customer.
Imagine the surprise of a customer who just Tweeted their problem and in 5 - 10 minutes the phone rings, I understand that you are having issues with our product how can we help you resolve them?
Ask them what they need to perform better, then listen to their ideas and discuss them and implement the good ideas and give credit.
There are three common elements to employee satisfaction:
1) The job (and work environment) needs to be interesting
2) The employee needs to feel appreciated
3) The employee needs to feel they are well informed
Start asking around and see if these are being fulfilled.
Also, you say that "lately" the agents have been unmotivated. So what has changed? Has there been an increase in volume and a decrease in agents? Has there been a change in the company's financial situation? Is the company doing well and is not have you kept your team informed on the company's situation. What is your incentive program like? Has that taken a hit due to budget cuts. Is there a rumor going around about some pending event?
These are but a small sample of the questions that you should be asking. Look at Mr. Mullin's answer for more and a bunch of great ideas.
Good luck,
Michael Barbagallo
Principal and President
Shenandoah Analytics
While most everyone can use a telephone - not everyone is cut out to work in a Customer Service Call Center environment. And while someone may have “The Right Stuff” to deliver great Customer Service & Support – it doesn’t necessarily follow that the same individual is also a good fit for the more demanding & sales-oriented requirements of Up-Sell/Cross-Sell/Customer Win-Back.
Top Performing Customer Care Call Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through Superior Hiring Tactics. Hiring the wrong Customer Service Representative (CSR) to begin with is the Root Cause of most Performance Issues. It’s also a significant drain on your Budget & Bottom Line, on Customer Satisfaction Ratings, and on Up-Sell/Cross-Sell/Customer Retention Results. Every failed hire represents wasted dollars down the drain. Not to mention the Lowered Productivity, Poor Morale & Higher Absences associated with a Poor Job Fit.
Call Center work is generally acknowledged to be tedious, stressful, repetitive & boring. A CSR job requires an employee to uniquely combine reliability with flexibility - and mix adherence to a schedule & procedure with adaptability in order to meet customers’ needs. CSRs are rewarded for metrics such as customer satisfaction, volume of calls taken, sales quota and product knowledge - to name just a few. CSRs have to manage customer interactions constantly – in an environment driven by targets – while their job is constantly monitored electronically. Each of these realities contributes to employee stress – decreases job commitment – increases absenteeism – and potentially decreases the quality of service delivered to customers.
Typically there are 3 grades of CSRs found in a Call Center: (Above Average), (Average), and (Below Average).
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(Average) CSRs perform their duties adequately enough “to get by” - but no better. They are the partially competent. Generally they’re strong from a Skills standpoint but missing a key ingredient or two from a Job Fit standpoint.
(Below Average) CSRs are the people who just don’t fit somehow. Sometimes they’re good people in the wrong jobs. They need extra coaching & supervision just to achieve average results. Often they cause unnecessary conflict. (Below Average) CSRs have the Highest Levels of Absenteeism, Lowest Levels of Productivity & Sales, Poorest Performance & Customer Satisfaction Ratings, and generally have a Negative Impact on Team Morale. They represent the real problems in a Call Center workforce. While (Average) & (Below Average) CSRs may seem fully qualified at the Interview Stage – they’re a Poor Job Fit – the cost of hiring them is enormous – with little value add to an organization.
SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software is easy-to-deploy, very cost-effective and highly-predictive of an individual's suitability for a particular Call Center job. SPAS Software screens out the Job Candidates who will burn out fast because they aren't suited for the work - and identifies the people with the Personality/Job-Fit, Soft Skills, Motivation, and Work Ethic to be Top CSRs. With SPAS as part of your Hiring Process you will be able to select new CSRs who will fit your specific employment needs better - and stay on the job longer - leading to a CSR Workgroup that has more experience and is more productive.
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