10 Proven Strategies to Inspire and Motivate Your Customer Service Team
Offer your CS team members the right tools
Empowering them with the right tools is extremely important, and there are many different things to take into account here. For example, a very good tool is a CRM, since it can help track customer interactions and the service requests. It can also be a great database for info, which any CS member can access at any given time.
Aside from that, other tools that you can use when wondering how to motivate a team would include a ticketing platform and a knowledge base as well. Those things truly help and they will convey a tremendous value every single time.
Always promote two-way communication
The thing we have to remember here is that creating a safe environment for your CS team is crucial. What motivates you to provide excellent customer service? That's the question you should ask your team. A lot of the time, being able to have the right tools and them offering anonymous feedback does help. Plus, you also want to have one on one meetings with the team and connect with them as much as you can, because it will help.
Create a fair, yet competitive environment
A great idea on how to motivate call center employees is to offer a competitive environment with rewards based on performance. Make sure that everything is fair though, because it can be easy for some people to have an advantage. Once you keep things fair and focus specifically on performance, you will see that your team will be motivated to work and move onward. That will only make the process better, and it will provide an extraordinary outcome.
Organize various team building events
One of the best ideas to motivate employees in a call center is to have team building events. These can be great especially because they establish an environment where team members collaborate with each other. You also want to arrange regular meetings, and you also want to offer skill development opportunities, too.
All of these things are great customer service motivators. People love connecting with others and stepping out of the comfort zone. Plus, some of the CS persons might not end up talking to one another due to their work. With team building events, you create an environment for them to do that fast and easy.
Always offer comprehensive training
What's great to note about motivating your CS team is that they always want to have very good training. An adequate onboarding program is crucial, because you want your team to know everything and provide customers with the best possible experience. You can also try to use various, engaging training methods. Those can be inherently fun, and they could actually bring in front a unique set of mechanics to consider as well.
Try to maintain a happy work environment
It's a good idea to focus on motivation for customer service, and keeping a happy work environment is certainly one of the top things to focus on. Ideally, you want people to collaborate and work with one another.
Setting the right goals and expectations is another major thing that you do want to focus on here. And at the same time, try to show you care about and promote work-life balance. For a lot of people, this type of job can be stressful. Ensuring there's time to unwind and relax, without tons of overtime work, that can be extremely helpful.
Share customer feedback
Getting positive feedback from customers is one of the major customer service motivators. The thing you have to realize here is that sharing feedback shows those CS representatives that they are doing a good job. And you do want them to know that.
Not only will it make their work better, they will also feel the motivation to keep it going and even improve or find ways to enhance their knowledge/expertise. A lot of companies don't end up doing such a thing, and that can be quite challenging. But in the end, it's always a good idea to motivate your CS team, and sharing feedback is definitely a major approach towards that.
Regulating the workload
A problem that most CS representatives have is they end up with a ton of workload. And that can affect their performance, motivation and patience levels, among many others. Learning how to set goals and ensuring those goals are set appropriately can be a much better idea than expected. Yet at the same time, you do want to use workload management tools. Automating some tasks and even using chatbots as a helpful tool before reaching CS can be a great idea. That way, you have a much better experience, and the value can be extremely good in the end.
Talk to your team and learn their motivators
Sometimes when you want to motivate customer service, it's as simple as talking with the team and learning from them. That's why it's a good idea to ask them for feedback and learn what the team has to say. Another approach is to study the data and see the ticket resolution times, reviews, satisfaction scores and so on. You always want to test different approaches and stay in direct communication with the team. That will help provide a better experience in the end, with results that can be extremely impressive.
Provide rewards and appreciate your team
Yes, rewards are always great customer service motivators. You can tailor rewards based on performance or any metric you want. The main focus is to be transparent and not have any bias. As we said earlier, if the environment is competitive, things will be a lot better for everyone. You don't want to have bias, and you do need to maintain a professional approach. If possible, offer advancement opportunities to those that deserve it.
When people see this type of stuff, they will appreciate it and it will only make the results better for your business, too. Of course, you always want to show your focus on being there for your team and offering them a friendly, healthy and happy environment. Once you do that, combined with rewards, they will surely appreciate everything a whole lot more.
We are firm believers that motivating your customer service team stems from learning their challenges and finding ways to make things easier for them. Plus, a bonus or reward system also helps, because it leads to a much better experience, and you don't need to worry about anything else. You just have to create a solid, professional and great environment to work in, while also listening to feedback. Once you do that, it will bring a much better environment for the team. That's how to motivate team members to deliver their best, and it will always be worth it!