What's the best way to motivate front line customer service agents?

It's essential for a front line agent to feel as though they're part of the company and have a hand in the overall strategy, otherwise the disconnect will result in poor output and eventually attrition. Remember that these guys talk to your customers on a daily basis and have a great handle on how things are working for the average person. Take feedback about your product and processes seriously when it comes from your agents, and provide some transparency about improvements.

Great question. My advice is to empower the front line customer service folks is the best way to go. Change them from a passive individual to a highly empowered member of the team with the golden opportunity of having the customer contact. Example; I called lamps plus a few weeks ago to buy another light fixture. This person knew her products, loved her company, listened and worked with me and again in a span of 3 months I purchased more than I had expected, totally based on this person's reaction... She was totally empowered and wanted me business. Sometimes in customer service we forget to empower these great individuals!

The same thing that motivates everyone else motivates front-line customer service reps.
But before I answer the question in general remember the key to motivation is to motivate people individually. What motivates one person may not be a motivator to another.

But key motivators are.

1. Great Boss
2. Great Co-workers
3. Interesting work
4. Growth/opportunity
5. Family friendly environment
6. Empowerment
7. Fun place to work
8. Understand how the job fits into the big picture
9..Recognition.

Another way to keep front line customer service people engaged and motivated is for their direct manager to show a genuine interest in them and their careers.

Regular one-on-one sessions, coaching & skill building and career pathing go along way toward making people feel valued. All of the comments above are also very valuable so what we're talking about here is creating an employee centric culture in order to retain and grow our employees and therefore, serve our customers better.

There is a major web hosting company that has a different approach to delivering great customer service. Each customer is asked immediately for feedback on their experience and whether they were properly assisted. The customer is asked to give a scaled rating to the rep and those ratings determine the rate of pay the rep receives.

One system that almost always makes for poor customer service is where reps are judged on the number of calls they handle or a minimum number they must handle in a specific time period. Time is the controller not solver problems.

There is no best way. Ask the individuals involved what motivates them and then design your "contest" to suit the players.

Your front-line people have, in the eyes of the customer, all of the accountability. Make sure they also have the power and authority to balance that out. Without empowerment, front-line work is the most frustrating work there is. With empowerment, it is also the most rewarding.

I agree with Mr. Wittenstein also, that feedback in as close to real time from customers, especially those reporting positive interactions, is a great motivator. But only where a front-line employee has the power to direct those interactions.

Together, let's put the fun back into work!
Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com

Statistically the #1 motivator is acknowledgment, acknowledgment of a job well done, by feedbacking specifically what you liked about what they did, said, or responded to a client or customer. I would add that there is no #1 best way, people are people and are different, however, one consistent is to have their managers, direct reports, and everyone in the company aligned and walking their talk!

I'd like to go back to the first statement that Mike made regarding Voice of the Customer data. In my previous experience, we ensured that all front line staff were informed of what the Customers were saying about their phone experience and interaction with the Representative. This promoted transparency amongst the various levels of support within the organization and ensured that once a Customer was off the phone, that they simply didn’t cease to exist.

However, we also took this to another level. In the event that negative feedback came through, we would loop the front line staffer into the review process. They would be responsible for walking the audit team through the interaction (as they recalled it). They would also be responsible for listening to the call and creating a self-styled action plan to isolate and rectify potentially counter-productive behaviour. This helped foster learner-managed action plans and encouraged coaching amongst the Reps and their direct Managers.

Lastly, we would have that Representative contact the Customer back directly to rectify the issue (if applicable) with the help of a Real-time Feedback Coach (someone who could help mediate the conversation if the Rep faltered). Not only did this place accountability back on the Rep, but the Customer also got the opportunity to see that their feedback was legitimately followed up on.

While some may think that this would simply exacerbate the issue, the contrary was usually the case; Front Line Staff would take extraordinary measures with their Customers to ensure that they were happy by the end of the interaction. A happy Customer lead to positive feedback and a reduction in the amount of follow-up work they would need to conduct had the Customer been unhappy.

While fear of retribution may have been the initial motivator in this case, receiving glowing Customer feedback and a solid VOC score quickly replaced that.