10 tips to help you ensure customer service agents are on the top of their game
How do you increase customer retention while improving word-of-mouth referrals at the same time? Simple: improve your customer service – a factor that’s often overlooked. According to a Statista survey, 27% of Americans say ineffective service is a major customer service frustration. Customer interactions within your company have a lasting impression on consumers, and you should always find ways to improve customer service.
So, what can you do to ensure customer service agents are at the top of their game? Let’s look at ten examples how you can ensure your CS agents provide optimum performance.
1. Establish a rapport with your staff
Often, company executives overlook the need to build a relationship with their employees. Thinking of them as subjects who have to follow orders is the wrong way to go.
Be free with your CS members, build friendships, and make it comfortable for them to ask questions, express their thoughts, raise concerns, and propose ideas. A workplace filled with secrecy promotes mistakes and devalues the overall organizational reputation.
The best way to build rapport is by ensuring frequent interaction between management and agents. You can do this by scheduling weekly individual or group meetings or daily stop-ins. As much as it might expend time, it is the most effective way to significantly improve collaboration among teams.
2. Make sure they understand your products
All customer service agents need to be intimately familiar with your products and services. You should acquaint the agents with adequate information and help them believe in the products.
Remember, customer service agents have the utmost responsibility to help customers get the most out of their bargains. Having all the product and service information at their fingertips will help them provide customers with reliable and helpful information. It will also build trust among customers if they exude confidence while giving information.
3. Hire problem solvers
Lousy customer service can increase the customer churn rate. Customer support services agents should make problem-solving a central part of their support role so that they’re able to bring back disappointed clients. A good problem solver is one who has the customer’s interests at heart and is interested in serving others even in difficult situations.
One strategy for hiring problem solvers is you should employ people who are interested in helping others.
Empowering your customer service agents to solve customer problems independently is also the best practice to keep them on top of their game. You can create a knowledge base with information on handling different situations.
4. Encourage active listening among agents
Listening is an essential skill for customer service agents. Customers need to feel like someone cares, understands their problem, and is ready to help. Encourage your team to focus totally on the words and other verbal cues from the customers say and respond in a way that validates them.
Active listening also involves asking questions. Encourage your team to ask questions whenever they do not understand the customer. Competent customer service agents should also repeat to the customer their request to show them they understand and are paying attention. Doing so will make them feel heard and unravel a sense of satisfaction.
5. Conduct continuous training
Train your new and old customer service agents to deliver exceptional customer service. Through gradual effective training, agents improve their problem-solving abilities, which decreases the number of return calls. On the other hand, phone etiquette training will boost the number of successful interactions between customers and agents and leave customers feeling appreciated and respected.
6. Encourage a culture of empathy, patience, and consistency
Your personnel should be ready to show empathy toward your customers and provide the same level of service throughout. Customer empathy nurtures friendlier relationships and helps agents identify customer needs and manage conflicts effectively. This in turn, increases customer satisfaction and builds brand loyalty.
7. Equip your team with the right tools
Whether starting or buying a franchise, provide your customer service agents with the right helpdesk software to integrate with different devices. With tools for financial management, knowledge management, and other systems, your team will effortlessly engage with customers and resolve consumer issues quickly and effectively. Systems also bridge the gap between customers and the customer service department.
8. Make team morale a key pillar
Motivated and engaged employees increase customer retention by about 18%. Ensure that your customer service agents stay happy and motivated by providing satisfactory working conditions, career advancement opportunities, corporate hampers, decent compensation, and the necessary infrastructure.
9. Make customer service everyone’s duty
It’s important to let everyone in your company understand their contribution to the overall customer experience–from the management team, product development team, finance department, and support staff everyone needs to be at the top of their game and behave like “The customer is king!”. Remember, even those who do not interact with customers, their support enables the company front liners to deliver the best customer service.
10. Seek feedback from customers
Last but not least, customer feedback enables managers to monitor interactions between customers and the business and resolve any issues before they affect normal business operations. By identifying the causes of conflict or the seriousness of customer issues, you can better determine how to respond in a way that improves the customer experience.
In addition, customer feedback enables you to find areas that need improvement, be it bugs in the system, unavailability of agents, poor knowledge base, etc. Customers can provide feedback through phone calls, emails, or online surveys.
Bottom line
Keeping your customer service agents motivated and up to the task can be daunting. However, there are numerous benefits, the main being business success. With the above tips, you can leverage the potential of your customer service department and improve your business’s general performance and reputation.