A day’s worth of work in a call center can be unpredictable. Employees have a hectic schedule to follow that changes daily, as they interact with numerous customers with varying levels of concerns and demands. Despite this, people from the customer service track need to be headstrong throughout the adversity to provide quality services.
As a manager, it’s integral to foster a positive environment for your employees to boost team morale and performance. However, like all valuable efforts within a company, this cannot happen overnight.
To help you get started, this guide will walk you through tips on improving teamwork in your customer service team and creating the ultimate ideal workplace for everyone.
The Importance of Teamwork
Although having skilled individuals is a definite advantage in any team, customer service work requires teamwork more than you might think. Since it revolves around a series of processes, a seamless internal collaboration leads to faster service, satisfying 75% of customers who want a consistent quality service experience.
Apart from building strong relationships, reactive and proactive members can help eliminate stress and exhaustion within the group. With 74% of agents at risk of burnout, having an easy and even distribution of work can snowball into improved team performance, boosting overall business numbers.
How to Improve Teamwork in Your Customer Service Team
If you’re yet to come up with strategies to enhance your customer service team’s teamwork, here are several effective ones you can try:
1. Establish and optimize communication channels
“Communication is key” is a commonly used phrase in most businesses—and for good reasons. Whether you’re working in-person or remote with your team, it’s a must to communicate effectively to serve customers properly and resolve any issues quickly.
A straightforward way of maintaining contact internally is through team chats or meetings. Besides aligning for customer-related tasks, conversations can also involve brainstorming, evaluations, and suggestions on how the group can improve. Keep in mind that each session must have a primary focus to emphasize productivity.
Google Meets and Zoom are a few common channels you can use in your operations. Alternatively, you may look into Slack, which allows for private messages, team huddles, and data storage to keep things organized.
2. Align internally on team goals and beliefs
Having an outline of your team goals enables each person to dedicate themselves to their roles. The point of this is to create a timeline of what you want to accomplish, as focusing on a clear target in a customer service environment can ultimately lead to better performance.
Take the average response time as an example. According to a recent report, it takes around 12 hours and 10 minutes for a team to handle a request. With this, a goal you can set for your group is to have a quicker response time that doesn’t affect quality.
3. Clarify and distinguish roles and responsibilities
Individual roles and responsibilities play an integral part in line with team goals. Each member should be comfortable and confident with their job to perform effectively. You must clearly communicate each one’s responsibilities and your expectations about them. To achieve this, you need to seek feedback from your employees and schedule productive team meetings.
Through these methods, you will see if there’s a need to reorganize the team’s dynamic. As a manager, this allows you to place people on tasks they’re good at and happy to do. Remember, finding the fit for the roles ensures quality work.
4. Encourage out-of-office hangouts
Having after-hours hangouts is a vital part of building team chemistry. Casual events such as out-of-office dinners and weekend movie nights are a great way to establish trust and rapport among team members.
Other activities such as out-of-town trips and holiday parties are major get-togethers to look forward to. This allows employees to socialize with others more, encouraging open communication in the workplace.
5. Empower employees
An American Psychological Association (APA) survey shows that 93% of employees who feel appreciated are motivated to do their best at work. With data to back it up, be sure never to miss a chance to recognize your employees’ contributions.
Showing appreciation and encouragement are some of the simple ways you can boost your employee’s morale. You want to create a positive atmosphere that encourages everyone to keep working hard and promotes a constructive dynamic. Working in an unappreciative environment is toxic not only for your crew but for the enterprise at large.
6. Incorporate a task management system
Task management systems are used to streamline daily operations and increase team productivity, which is why it’s essential when improving teamwork within your customer service group.
One of the most recommended collaborative work management apps today is Trello. Conveniently, it allows you to schedule tasks, organize multiple schedules, and post documents with the option for everyone in the workspace to collaborate. With Trello, numerous people can share an assignment to speed up the process while managers monitor the progress.
7. Improve customer service strategies
Sure, having a set of updated strategies can provide better quality and increased customer satisfaction. But did you know it can also make a grand impact on your team’s harmony?
When the clients win, your employees win as well, which is why it’s vital to revamp your customer service methods on a schedule to make both parties happy. If your playbook is due for an upgrade, here are a few things to consider for the new one:
- Having consistent availability or coverage
- Engaging with customers on various social media platforms
- Assigning the right representatives to specific customer needs
8. Enhance employee engagement
No matter how skilled and experienced your employees are, there could still be a dent in their performance if they’re unhappy with their overall work experience. Because of this, it’s important to know how the team feels, as it can improve the work they’re doing daily.
Engaging with them through suggestion boxes, surveys, or one-by-one meetings is one way to do it. You may utilize an employee engagement template to get an insight into what your staff feels and what you need to change to make them feel better.
Much like a chain reaction, as you promote positive changes within your crew, you can be sure to see happier employees right after.
9. Consider flexible work hours
There are different types of people in the workplace. Some are early starters, while some are more productive later in the day. With customer service almost always on-demand, considering to allow flexible work hours might just level up your crew’s productivity rate, especially when all are working in the hours they’re most comfortable.
Aside from that, such flexibility can also promote collaboration with members who are working simultaneously, which ultimately increases the job done in a day.
10. Create an open communication
There are customer service teams with strict hierarchies when it comes to communication. Especially when a pressing issue arises, the flow of resolution is longer where the employee would report to the supervisor, who would then report to the manager.
To avoid such a stretch in workflow, encourage open communication within your group. Doing so will allow your representatives to solve customer issues faster, especially if other members—whether on the same level or higher—may be more knowledgeable about specific concerns.
Make it Work with Teamwork
Being in a demanding field such as the call center industry is already tough, but managing a customer service team takes this challenge up another notch. Apart from providing excellent service for your customers, it’s also well within your scope of responsibilities to look after your members’ welfare as a manager.
A straightforward process, a fair distribution of workload, and a fun out-of-work engagement activity can make all the difference in improving the overall working conditions of your team. Remember, fostering a positive dynamic between everyone can translate to greater work performance for your customers.
If you need to partner with a call center outsourcing service that has great teamwork and even better work performance, check out Select VoiceCom. Our team is one of the best in the Philippines, composed of highly trained agents ready to provide quality support for your business and clients’ needs. Learn more about our best-in-class customer service when you contact us today!