Instead of looking at optimizing your customer support operations 10,000 feet above ground, you might want to tackle your endeavors one simple task at a time. As you can probably imagine, once you’ve gotten several small enough wins, your entire operations will end up becoming optimized.
So the game plan is, just focus on doing the next right thing. Once you do enough of these “right things”, you’ll be in a place where your customer support operations will run like clockwork.
What “right things” am I talking about, you might ask? Read one…
Regular Meetings and Q&As
This is a big one. Many customer service agents are relegated to the desk and computer for extended periods of time- not only is this boring, but it can result in lowered morale, which in turn affects performance. It’s important to have your employees interacting with each other and with you face-to-face.
Regular meetings are necessary to learn from your employees on the ground what customers are thinking, what they’re having problems with, and what you can be doing to improve.
Encourage Collaboration and Communication
Don’t try and keep your employees locked into single-desk cubicles. Open it up a bit- give them room to maneuver and space to breathe. No matter how good your customer support agents are, a single one might not know all the answers. Allowing your employees to work together and in groups not only has a positive impact on morale, it allows them to get help if they need it while helping your customers out.
In addition, open communication means that problems can be noted as soon as they begin and dealt with promptly. While regular meetings are great, a problem arising in the office can be more quickly fixed, on the spot, through the usage of good communication between employees.
Keep Morale High
You’ve seen morale mentioned a lot in this article, but let’s take a moment to talk about why it’s important. Low morale means that your employees aren’t engaged with your business and their jobs. People working in customer support need to be upbeat and engaged in order to be effective, so as to avoid making a poor impression on a customer that’s already frustrated and needs help.
Keeping morale high means that your employees are motivated, which encourages higher productivity.
Identify Employee Weaknesses
Unfortunately, your employees may not be suited for their jobs. Ask supervisors or coworkers about how various employees are doing, and take a look at performance statistics. Employees who are performing poorly should be evaluated. Ask them what’s hindering their performance, and what you could do to help them improve. Your customer support team is full of people with all kinds of different strengths and weaknesses- arrange them properly, and good things are sure to happen.
Closing
While there are certainly other strategies that you employ to optimize your customer support operations, the above tips I shared above are a good place to start.
To learn more about customer support, service and satisfaction, read our blog or contact us for a consultation.
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