Research continues to show that customers prefer talking to someone when they have a problem. So companies need to have great customer service heroes on the front line, ready to deliver a “wow” experience. But keeping the heroes in place can sometimes be a big challenge.
In fact, 55% of customer service leaders said increasing employee morale is one of the biggest challenges they face, according to an Intradiem contact center productivity survey.
It’s understandable: While customer service work is most often rewarding, it can be demanding, repetitive and stressful. Veteran and new contact center reps can fall prey to the pressure and lose their motivation and engagement in the work.
What you can do now
These tips from a Jacada and Pelorus white paper can help any leader keep service pros motivated and ready to deliver outstanding experiences:
- Offload routine work. Regardless of their tenure, most customer service professionals like to be challenged. Day full of tedious, repetitive work can destroy morale. Work toward automating tedious, repetitive tasks as much as possible. Even better, ask reps to be part of a team that looks for tasks to automate or eliminate, as well as ways to accomplish it.
- Spread the power. Train reps regularly so they have the skills and knowledge to handle more and more customer issues without help or approval from a supervisor. Once they have a track record of doing what’s right for customers and the company, give them a small budget to solve problems and enhance the customer experience.
- Showcase talent. Many customer service pros get frustrated by a lack of advancement opportunities. That’s why it’s important for leaders to showcase their employees’ talents and accomplishments throughout the company. They may be good fits for other areas or in contact center management. The more leaders know about them, the more likely they’ll move into those positions.
- Be flexible. This is one area where customer service has an advantage. Many occupations can’t offer the flexibility in scheduling that a contact center can. Give customer service pros who meet and exceed performance expectations scheduling flexibility. Beyond that, try work-from-home opportunities with reps who are self-motivated and creative problem-solvers.
- Build a ladder. Many service professionals don’t want to move up and out of the contact center. They’re passionate about helping customers and are challenged and rewarded in that kind of work. But almost everyone wants to take on more responsibility to earn more money. Establish different job classifications that include increased responsibilities in the areas of training, supervising and giving proactive service — and offer raises that go along with each step up the internal ladder.
