They say if you want to make your customers happy then begin by making your employees happy. Only a happy workforce can create a happy customer base. The same is backed by various researches across industries and regions. A 2016 employee engagement benchmark study by Tempkin Group reports that the companies who experience better customer experience and financial performances have more engaged employees. Another study by warwick revealed that happy workers are 12% more productive.
When you think of your customer service agents; you know that they are no exception to the rule of happy employee making happy customers. However, what might worry you is how you make your agents happy in their demanding work schedule which might continue from one shift to other because of work pressure, incentives or commissions. How do you keep them motivated amidst so many answered, unanswered calls, e-mails and noisy atmosphere? Here are some strategies that can help you make your agent feel like they’re on summer vacation:
- Appreciate, appreciate and appreciate
A research by Glassdoor (a career site) on what motivates people to work harder revealed that it’s appreciation that drives majority of population (81%). And to appreciate your customer service agents, you do not have to wait for yearly appraisals or monthly performances. Appreciate them for their small yet sincere efforts whenever you a get a chance to do so. A motivated employee would always love his work and his work place which holds true for customer support agents too. Also, do not forget to pass on the customer praise to your agent who has actually earned it. You can consider the following while planning for appreciation and recognition:
- Appreciation over mail or in person
- A public announcement or announcement over the bulletin board
- A regular thank you mailer or monthly newsletter appreciating efforts of all the employees and how it is contributing towards goal of the business.
- Plan for learning and development of your customer support agent
This is equally applicable to all the employees irrespective of their domain. Every employee wants to feel that they are learning and developing their skills which in turn would help them in grabbing the opportunities for growth and promotions. Make a clear L&D plans for all your customer support agents and guide them how they can improve and master their skills.
- Encourage them to use their entitled holidays and offs
Study by Harvard Business Review reveals that vacation results in increased productivity. Another study by HBR on time off’s report that for 90 percent of the respondents paid offs were very important. When employees come back after their holidays, they are likely to be more productive, rejuvenated and happy.
- Team Outing
Though you must be doing it already now and then, better would be to fix a day for it. Go out with your team for some coffee, dinner or some fun activity. Give your customer service agents chance to come out of their stress. Help them build a team in true sense through different fun and learning based exercises.
- Keep the work environment pleasant
You and your customer service agents spend fair amount of their day within the four walls of the company. Would not it be prudent to make the life within those walls comfortable and desirable. You can make this happen by;
- Ensuring that sufficient tea, coffee and refreshments are available for consumption of your employees . Providing a free food to the employees is an excellent way to motivate says a survey of 1200 employees across 20 companies
- Taking care of proper lighting, ventilation and temperature.
- Work towards monetary rewards
Money is a big driver when it comes to motivation and loving the workplace. Apart from incentives, you can offer
- Family lunch /dinner as reward
- A ticket for two for some concert/movie /sports event
- A shopping voucher etc
- Plan surprises
Plan surprises for those demanding, exhaustive and not so great days. This is just to add a little enthusiasm to your customer service agent workforce when they have very exhaustive and stressful afternoon. This would keep them going for the later half or for that matter the next day. You can offer them surprises like evening ‘pizza party’.
- Allow your customer service agents to balance their work and life
Companies who recognize the importance of balancing personal and professional lives are increasingly attractive to employees. You can offer flexibility and work from home opportunities whenever possible. This would help your agents meet their family needs and in turn they would be more satisfied and inclined towards the company.
- Keep updating you technology and system
Take a regular check of your free knowledge base software, hardware and scripts that are in use. Your employees may not feel like coming to work if you offer them inefficient system and technology to work on.
Conclusion:
Customer service agents are the face of any company and when they say we are “happy to help”, they should actually feel happy to do or say so. If not, then customer satisfaction and business goals can never be achieved. Hence, it is imperative that the agents feel rejuvenated and motivated when they come to their workplace. Discussed above are some of the strategies that can make them feel that they are on summer vacation; when they are in office.
Offering excellent support to the customer is the key to customer satisfaction and retention and it had always been so.
Gone are those days when a customer support team with telephonic support setup was what most businesses had in place.
The major benefits of using suitable help desk solution include:Enhanced helpdesk efficiency, less time required for grievance and query resolutionBetter resource sharing and collaboration between teamsEnhanced customer satisfaction- leading to enhanced retentionBetter visitor to buyer conversionStrong brand image development along with positive word of mouthFactors to analyze when you want to select the most apt customer support software There is no shortage of helpdesk software solutions but you should not pick randomly.
Not all the customers will be tech savvy and still they will need to access the support team, online or by other means.Integration and compatibility with software, apps- This is a major parameter to consider when you shop for support desk software for the company.
The helpdesk solution has to be compatible with these existing applications.
You will not like it if installing the software and configuring it to suit operational needs takes a lot of time, leads to making many changes and productive time is wasted.
To scale businesses nowadays is very hard and need to keep more effort on to that.
In past days it is wearing different hats like sales and marketing where understanding taxes and corporate compliance that can involve interacting with users on a daily basis.
Don’t put more focus on the short-term outcome of your work.
It is better you need to look to the long term and you can build sincere value and look to help the users.
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