The customer service process may look like fun, considering that the employees stay positive. Yet, this positive attitude is just a professional mask, which hides the real struggle when staff members deal with verbal abuse or the need to answer the same questions again and again or the necessity to calm down the customers. In fact, the majority of people are complaining and just a tiny per cent of them are happy.
As a result, even the most professional employees do not have steel nerves to bear this job without feeling a negative effect. The worst thing that can happen is that your staff may burn out at one point and will not deliver the same high level of service that has been keeping your business rocking.
Luckily, there are certain preventative measures to keep your staff inspired, motivated and caring, because even the most experienced managers in the world may give up under the non-stop pressure of challenges.
Frequent meetings and briefings
Just a couple of hours every 2-3 weeks during which the employees will be able to share their difficulties, current challenges and concerns will make the difference. As a result, they will learn how to cope with their frustrations, how to deal with difficult customers and solve their current issues. The best format for such a communication bridge is a one-on-one discussion instead of a group meeting.
Inspiration via success stories and positive results
One of the most effective strategies is to appreciate your team members in front of the others by announcing their achievements and accomplishments. Once your employees feel that their efforts are visible, appreciated and rewarded, they will try to keep doing a good job and achieve even more.
Incentives for keeping up high spirits
Once your support system is turned into a competitive game, allowing your team members to score points and achieve objectives, then the routine becomes a lot brighter. You can reward them with an incentive for reaching the main key performance indicators and for going an extra mile and you will be surprised by the chain effect that it brings along. For instance, you can reward your staff for a successful hunt for a new customer or closing a Freshdesk ticket in record-breaking time without losing quality of service.
Diversity of the projects
For human beings it’s normal to have certain breaks from a routine job from time to time in order to keep productivity as high as possible. However, you cannot afford yourself the luxury of giving away too many vacations. Yet, the solution can be found in diversifying the projects or areas of responsibility of your employees. Make them switch and work in different areas. This way you will achieve a perfect win-win situation, in which the employees are happy to do something different and at the same time they learn more about your business and can replace other staff members in urgent cases.
Another great advantage of this idea is that it gives your staff an opportunity to learn something that will help them advance in their career. For instance, learning how to code Freshdesk help center will be beneficial from this perspective.
Work and life balance
It’s really a very bad idea to force somebody to work over their limits and beyond their abilities because it’s the shortest way to get sick and tired literally. In fact, this will be a “contribution” to a burnout. If you can encourage your team to lead healthy and well-balanced lives, they will be 100% more effective, productive and motivated at what they do for your business. The minimum you can do is to ensure that all of them have enough annual vacations.