Business strategies are certainly evolving, but the core element of achieving customer satisfaction will never change - providing exceptional customer service. According to Microsoft, "54% of consumers say they expect more from customer service than ever before."
The secret to providing superior support is to empower customer service teams and employees. So, to enhance customer service success, you need to focus on two P. They are
People - People are the customer support team that interacts and engages with customers on behalf of your company.
Processes: Processes refer to the understanding of work within your company and are an ongoing mechanism.
Customer service varies from industry to industry. Approaches change regarding this, but what remains the same is not to miss an opportunity to please your customers. Satisfied customers choose to retain your business and have a higher Life Cycle Value (LTV).
You can read more about how other brands are delivering exceptional customer service.
What is Customer Service Empowerment?
Customer service empowerment can empower your support representatives to make real-time decisions that benefit your customers. It is critical for organizations to enable agents to go the extra mile to deliver an outstanding customer experience.
Organizations that adopt an employee empowerment strategy can better engage customers and increase their satisfaction. Higher satisfaction impacts customer retention and brand reputation.
Why is employee empowerment the backbone of customer service?
Empowering employees means giving them the power, the right technology, the systems, and the freedom to work harder to keep customers happy. Empowering customer service teams requires thorough training of employees to identify and seize opportunities to improve support quality.
The main benefits of empowering employees are as follows.
Employees have complete freedom and knowledge to handle customer inquiries independently. They have the ownership to keep the customer happy.
As a team, they can perform together. As a result, exceptional customer service is provided, and brand reputation is enhanced.
Employee feedback is directly aligned with the company's goals. The company's mission is linked to employees' opinions so that they are valued.
Giving employees ownership of their work will not only increase motivation but also improve service quality, team productivity, and quick decision-making.
10 Key Ways to Empower Your Customer Service Staff to Deliver Quality Service
Team management requires a clear understanding that your success depends on the success of your people. When your team is empowered to make independent decisions, they will make the most of every opportunity to delight customers by exceeding their expectations.
Let's discuss 10 practical ways to get better results from your customer service employees.
1. Define Employee Engagement Programs
To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace." Doug Conant
Organizations encouraging a clear employee engagement program will undoubtedly deliver superior customer service. According to CBI News, "44 percent of companies believe that improving employee engagement will better retain them."
Employee engagement programs include employee engagement and participation in the work process not because they are paid but because of their emotional connection to the organization.
Research on employee engagement has concluded that the emotional convergence between customers and employees can improve the customer experience.
Here are some ways to encourage employee engagement.
Create a pleasant work environment: You can create a work environment where employees feel comfortable and happy. It fosters loyalty and encourages them to work efficiently, which translates into providing effective customer service.
Reinforce employee value: Make your employees an integral part of your team and your company, giving them a sense of entitlement. Making their presence count can make a huge difference and a significant contribution to the success of your company.
Allow independent work: After creating a comfortable work atmosphere and enhancing the value of your employees, you also need to allow them to work independently to perform well.
Avoid micromanagement: Micromanagement has the negative connotation of limiting freedom and affecting the work atmosphere. Don't control your employees. Let them enjoy their work.
2. Define internal processes
"Almost all quality improvements come from streamlining design, manufacturing, layout, processes and procedures." Tom Peters
Having well-defined processes helps to effectively structure your resources and hold your team or individual agents accountable. It also provides real value to your customers in using your solutions. To do this, updates should be disseminated among sales, support, and marketing teams.
Let's say you anticipate that your customers may not know much about your product. Therefore, you can work with your team to prepare informative tutorials or how-to videos that can be shared on your website or sent via email.
3. How can defining internal processes help empower your customer service team?
Escalate issues to the right team: A problem doesn't always have to be support related. It could be a shipping or billing issue, and escalating it to the right team can help provide a faster resolution.
Typical response time: You need to define the response time to resolve the issue or answer the query. For example, set a minimum response time of 15 minutes to a maximum of 2 days, depending on the subject.
Resolve complaints: It should be clearly defined between teams that complaints must be closed "within X days," no matter what.
Collect customer feedback: Ask your customers to provide feedback on their experience after the service has been delivered.
Pro Tip: Many organizations use internal communication tools to enhance customer service capabilities.
Provide customer support teams with the right tools
One way to empower customer service employees is to use the right tools to deliver better service. Deploying the right customer service tools can encourage better customer interactions with your brand.
Here are some customer service tools that can achieve your customer communication goals
Email help desk: Email is one of the oldest and most commonly used tools for all companies to reach out to customers. Recommended tool - Zendesk
Live Chat: Live chat software provides instant help to visitors and customers via website, mobile, and messaging to provide superior customer service. Recommended Tools - BC-linked
Phone Support: Phone is the preferred and fastest way to connect with your customers. Recommended tool - Aircall
Customer Feedback: Collecting customer feedback helps to understand what customers think of your products and services and improves brand image. Recommended Tools - Qualtrics
The above tools not only enhance customer support but also increase team productivity.
4. Measure the performance of your employees
Effective employees are the lifeblood of every business. But how do you measure the performance level of your employees? Every company should continuously monitor and evaluate its employees. Here are some KPIs to measure employee efficiency and performance.
First Response Time: FCR is when a customer attempts a chat to when a support representative responds.
Chat Surveys: Chat surveys can quickly measure employee performance and identify problems. A positive response indicates that your employees are performing at or above expectations.
Average Resolution Time: It is average time it takes for a customer support agent to resolve a problem or answer a query after a conversation has started.
A total number of resolved conversations: These are the conversations that the support supervisor successfully decided from the assigned content.
From the above metrics, you can get a comprehensive view of employee performance and ensure you have your finger on the pulse. Evaluating employee performance should be ongoing and cover all areas of their work ethic and personal achievement.
Here are some best practices to follow.
Focus on employees' efforts and give them praise. It encourages them to be more productive.
Weather the storm and earn the trust of your employees.
Celebrate important moments as a team, not by yourself.
Give employees enough room to grow.
The above tips will help empower your customer service team and foster employee loyalty.
5. Give your team ownership
One of the best things you can do is empower them to go the extra mile and keep your customers happy with a budget that meets your expectations for the result. After all, they will have the rights and authority you have given them. You can empower your customer support team to make autonomous decisions.
6. Engage with your customers in real-time
Equipping your support team with real-time engagement tools is an excellent employee empowerment strategy. Visual engagement tools such as video and voice chat and co-browsing can create an emotional connection between customers and provide a better experience for them.
Allow your sales and support teams to collaborate with your customers in real-time and provide a face-to-face experience with co-browsing software. You can assist your customers via video chat to reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction
7. Train your customer support team regularly
Refined product understanding, training, and emotional intelligence are essential components of customer service. Providing your team with better customer service training skills will undoubtedly help improve customer interactions and thus provide a great customer experience.
You can conduct company-wide training sessions and make them an ongoing process for all departments. Training programs must be mandatory and involve participation from top management to employees.
There are specific reasons to cover this. They are as follows
Adequate product knowledge
Time management skills
Employee communication skills
Patience and perseverance in the workplace
Interpersonal skills
8. Have seniors mentor new customer support employees
Mentoring by an older person in the workplace is an excellent way for teams to seamlessly onboard new employees.
However, mentoring should not be limited to new employee onboarding. While a strong mentoring program provides better support for new hires, it also creates a culture of openness. It encourages other teams and employees to contribute their ideas for the company's betterment.
Mentoring by senior people in the workplace also encourages setting new goals. 93% of employees surveyed said that goal setting is essential to their performance, but for some professionals, these discussions with their managers never happen.
Key benefits of mentoring in the workplace
Increased knowledge transfer
Better job satisfaction
Motivation for professional development and accountability
Increased employee retention
Companies that welcome mentoring for older adults benefit from the best training because it encompasses experience and loyalty.
9. Focus on soft communication skills
Soft communication skills are essential and part of the company culture. Soft skills can make the daily support experience one that customers will keep for a long time and will help increase loyalty and satisfaction.
Communicating politely with supervisors, co-workers, and team members can help set you up for a better foundation for success. Sometimes, communication with customers includes challenging and complex conversations. Provide your support team with the soft skills that will help deliver effective solutions
Pleasing customers with humble conversations can build customer confidence in your company.
Here are some key skills to empower your customer service staff.
Make sure your customers remember you positively - Avoid responding to customer concerns passively and ensure your team has a comprehensive understanding of all products and services, including applications and trends.
Involve your customers in the solution process: Involve your customers personally in the solution process to give them a sense of being valued and taken seriously.
Try not to make your customers uncomfortable - customers should feel optimistic about finding solutions to similar problems in the future and lend a hand when they need support.
10. Give your employees plenty of time
A new workplace is sure to bring new things that employees will need to get used to. You can usually give them enough time to learn about new products, services, and work culture.
In general, this time includes
A detailed understanding of all products or services
Enough time to experiment and get to know the product better
Manage to improve their personal affairs
Understand the workflow
Giving time to your employees allows them to perform effectively, thus contributing to the growth and productivity of your company. You may not always be able to please your employees with other benefits, but the benefits of giving time will undoubtedly produce better results.
The secret to providing superior support is to empower customer service teams and employees. So, to enhance customer service success, you need to focus on two P. They are
People - People are the customer support team that interacts and engages with customers on behalf of your company.
Processes: Processes refer to the understanding of work within your company and are an ongoing mechanism.
Customer service varies from industry to industry. Approaches change regarding this, but what remains the same is not to miss an opportunity to please your customers. Satisfied customers choose to retain your business and have a higher Life Cycle Value (LTV).
You can read more about how other brands are delivering exceptional customer service.
Use customer support software which contains an efficient knowledge base, ticketing system Minimal cost to enhance customer experience.| BClinked
Rapid deployment, simple enough but effective customer support system
What is Customer Service Empowerment?
Customer service empowerment can empower your support representatives to make real-time decisions that benefit your customers. It is critical for organizations to enable agents to go the extra mile to deliver an outstanding customer experience.
Organizations that adopt an employee empowerment strategy can better engage customers and increase their satisfaction. Higher satisfaction impacts customer retention and brand reputation.
Why is employee empowerment the backbone of customer service?
Empowering employees means giving them the power, the right technology, the systems, and the freedom to work harder to keep customers happy. Empowering customer service teams requires thorough training of employees to identify and seize opportunities to improve support quality.
The main benefits of empowering employees are as follows.
Employees have complete freedom and knowledge to handle customer inquiries independently. They have the ownership to keep the customer happy.
As a team, they can perform together. As a result, exceptional customer service is provided, and brand reputation is enhanced.
Employee feedback is directly aligned with the company's goals. The company's mission is linked to employees' opinions so that they are valued.
Giving employees ownership of their work will not only increase motivation but also improve service quality, team productivity, and quick decision-making.
10 Key Ways to Empower Your Customer Service Staff to Deliver Quality Service
Team management requires a clear understanding that your success depends on the success of your people. When your team is empowered to make independent decisions, they will make the most of every opportunity to delight customers by exceeding their expectations.
Let's discuss 10 practical ways to get better results from your customer service employees.
1. Define Employee Engagement Programs
To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace." Doug Conant
Organizations encouraging a clear employee engagement program will undoubtedly deliver superior customer service. According to CBI News, "44 percent of companies believe that improving employee engagement will better retain them."
Employee engagement programs include employee engagement and participation in the work process not because they are paid but because of their emotional connection to the organization.
Research on employee engagement has concluded that the emotional convergence between customers and employees can improve the customer experience.
Here are some ways to encourage employee engagement.
Create a pleasant work environment: You can create a work environment where employees feel comfortable and happy. It fosters loyalty and encourages them to work efficiently, which translates into providing effective customer service.
Reinforce employee value: Make your employees an integral part of your team and your company, giving them a sense of entitlement. Making their presence count can make a huge difference and a significant contribution to the success of your company.
Allow independent work: After creating a comfortable work atmosphere and enhancing the value of your employees, you also need to allow them to work independently to perform well.
Avoid micromanagement: Micromanagement has the negative connotation of limiting freedom and affecting the work atmosphere. Don't control your employees. Let them enjoy their work.
2. Define internal processes
"Almost all quality improvements come from streamlining design, manufacturing, layout, processes and procedures." Tom Peters
Having well-defined processes helps to effectively structure your resources and hold your team or individual agents accountable. It also provides real value to your customers in using your solutions. To do this, updates should be disseminated among sales, support, and marketing teams.
Let's say you anticipate that your customers may not know much about your product. Therefore, you can work with your team to prepare informative tutorials or how-to videos that can be shared on your website or sent via email.
3. How can defining internal processes help empower your customer service team?
Escalate issues to the right team: A problem doesn't always have to be support related. It could be a shipping or billing issue, and escalating it to the right team can help provide a faster resolution.
Typical response time: You need to define the response time to resolve the issue or answer the query. For example, set a minimum response time of 15 minutes to a maximum of 2 days, depending on the subject.
Resolve complaints: It should be clearly defined between teams that complaints must be closed "within X days," no matter what.
Collect customer feedback: Ask your customers to provide feedback on their experience after the service has been delivered.
Pro Tip: Many organizations use internal communication tools to enhance customer service capabilities.
Provide customer support teams with the right tools
One way to empower customer service employees is to use the right tools to deliver better service. Deploying the right customer service tools can encourage better customer interactions with your brand.
Here are some customer service tools that can achieve your customer communication goals
Email help desk: Email is one of the oldest and most commonly used tools for all companies to reach out to customers. Recommended tool - Zendesk
Live Chat: Live chat software provides instant help to visitors and customers via website, mobile, and messaging to provide superior customer service. Recommended Tools - BC-linked
Phone Support: Phone is the preferred and fastest way to connect with your customers. Recommended tool - Aircall
Customer Feedback: Collecting customer feedback helps to understand what customers think of your products and services and improves brand image. Recommended Tools - Qualtrics
The above tools not only enhance customer support but also increase team productivity.
4. Measure the performance of your employees
Effective employees are the lifeblood of every business. But how do you measure the performance level of your employees? Every company should continuously monitor and evaluate its employees. Here are some KPIs to measure employee efficiency and performance.
First Response Time: FCR is when a customer attempts a chat to when a support representative responds.
Chat Surveys: Chat surveys can quickly measure employee performance and identify problems. A positive response indicates that your employees are performing at or above expectations.
Average Resolution Time: It is average time it takes for a customer support agent to resolve a problem or answer a query after a conversation has started.
A total number of resolved conversations: These are the conversations that the support supervisor successfully decided from the assigned content.
From the above metrics, you can get a comprehensive view of employee performance and ensure you have your finger on the pulse. Evaluating employee performance should be ongoing and cover all areas of their work ethic and personal achievement.
Here are some best practices to follow.
Focus on employees' efforts and give them praise. It encourages them to be more productive.
Weather the storm and earn the trust of your employees.
Celebrate important moments as a team, not by yourself.
Give employees enough room to grow.
The above tips will help empower your customer service team and foster employee loyalty.
5. Give your team ownership
One of the best things you can do is empower them to go the extra mile and keep your customers happy with a budget that meets your expectations for the result. After all, they will have the rights and authority you have given them. You can empower your customer support team to make autonomous decisions.
6. Engage with your customers in real-time
Equipping your support team with real-time engagement tools is an excellent employee empowerment strategy. Visual engagement tools such as video and voice chat and co-browsing can create an emotional connection between customers and provide a better experience for them.
Allow your sales and support teams to collaborate with your customers in real-time and provide a face-to-face experience with co-browsing software. You can assist your customers via video chat to reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction
7. Train your customer support team regularly
Refined product understanding, training, and emotional intelligence are essential components of customer service. Providing your team with better customer service training skills will undoubtedly help improve customer interactions and thus provide a great customer experience.
You can conduct company-wide training sessions and make them an ongoing process for all departments. Training programs must be mandatory and involve participation from top management to employees.
There are specific reasons to cover this. They are as follows
Adequate product knowledge
Time management skills
Employee communication skills
Patience and perseverance in the workplace
Interpersonal skills
8. Have seniors mentor new customer support employees
Mentoring by an older person in the workplace is an excellent way for teams to seamlessly onboard new employees.
However, mentoring should not be limited to new employee onboarding. While a strong mentoring program provides better support for new hires, it also creates a culture of openness. It encourages other teams and employees to contribute their ideas for the company's betterment.
Mentoring by senior people in the workplace also encourages setting new goals. 93% of employees surveyed said that goal setting is essential to their performance, but for some professionals, these discussions with their managers never happen.
Key benefits of mentoring in the workplace
Increased knowledge transfer
Better job satisfaction
Motivation for professional development and accountability
Increased employee retention
Companies that welcome mentoring for older adults benefit from the best training because it encompasses experience and loyalty.
9. Focus on soft communication skills
Soft communication skills are essential and part of the company culture. Soft skills can make the daily support experience one that customers will keep for a long time and will help increase loyalty and satisfaction.
Communicating politely with supervisors, co-workers, and team members can help set you up for a better foundation for success. Sometimes, communication with customers includes challenging and complex conversations. Provide your support team with the soft skills that will help deliver effective solutions
Pleasing customers with humble conversations can build customer confidence in your company.
Here are some key skills to empower your customer service staff.
Make sure your customers remember you positively - Avoid responding to customer concerns passively and ensure your team has a comprehensive understanding of all products and services, including applications and trends.
Involve your customers in the solution process: Involve your customers personally in the solution process to give them a sense of being valued and taken seriously.
Try not to make your customers uncomfortable - customers should feel optimistic about finding solutions to similar problems in the future and lend a hand when they need support.
10. Give your employees plenty of time
A new workplace is sure to bring new things that employees will need to get used to. You can usually give them enough time to learn about new products, services, and work culture.
In general, this time includes
A detailed understanding of all products or services
Enough time to experiment and get to know the product better
Manage to improve their personal affairs
Understand the workflow
Giving time to your employees allows them to perform effectively, thus contributing to the growth and productivity of your company. You may not always be able to please your employees with other benefits, but the benefits of giving time will undoubtedly produce better results.
Use customer support software which contains an efficient knowledge base, ticketing system Minimal cost to enhance customer experience.| BClinked
Rapid deployment, simple enough but effective customer support system