5 Steps To Improving Your Customer Service Reps

Seeing the great response to the last guest blogger, via email, I’m heading down that path again.

I met today’s guest blogger thru some thoughtful comments on a couple of my posts. His comments were at least as good as my post, if not better. I immediately emailed him and asked ( begged was more like it ) him to please grace us with a post of his own. He graciously obliged us and today I give you a great read from Tom Vander Well. Tom’s blog, QAQnA is part of the media produced by the c wenger group.

From Tom’s About page :

” Tom Vander Well has spent the last 12 years helping companies with their call center quality assessment (QA) and training efforts. Tom is partner and Vice-President of c wenger group, a consulting firm in Des Moines, Iowa that specializes in helping clients measure and improve customer service in their contact centers. “

I’m absolutely sure we can all learn something from Tom and I’m glad he shared his expertise with us here at Simplenomics. Here’s his post…….

In my role as quality coach, I’m often faced with a dilemma. On my handy-dandy Service Quality Assessment report, I have a whole laundry list of issues that this agent (or this team) needs to address. So where do I start ? How do I successfully motivate this agent to improve ?

The problem is that people will easily walk out of the training or coaching session with a “deer in the headlights” look if I give them the whole laundry list. Some will be motivated to try to improve, but once they’re back at their post the long list of skills will all blend together and, overwhelmed, they will soon be back to their old bad habits.

Simplify. It’s important to give people a manageable ” to-do” list when it comes to improvement. If I’m going to ask a Customer Service Representative (CSR) to work on some of her skills between now and our next coaching session, I’ll typically limit it to three items. Depending on the situation, I may give her just one skill that I want her to focus on until it becomes a habit.

Prioritize. Make a priority of those things that will have the greatest impact. Since our group typically does Customer Satisfaction Research, we know what is going to drive the customer’s satisfaction. For example, when the research shows that customers put a premium on product knowledge, I may put product training at the top of the list, asking the CSR to increase his knowledge on the features and benefits of certain products. If courtesy and friendliness is a big driver of customer satisfaction, then soft skills like using the customer’s name or using “please” when requesting the customers account number may be the priority for improvement.

Focus. Once you’ve set the priorities, stay “on message.” In fact, you need to be willing to put up with inconsistency in other areas, as long as the agent is showing improvement on the requested issues. If you only give a couple of priorities for improvement, then make sure you focus your subsequent coaching sessions or performance review on the improvement or lack of improvement in those areas. It’s unfair and discouraging to ignore the skills you’d previously mentioned and blind-side the CSR with some new issue.

Remind. If an agent has trouble remembering to use the customer’s name, I may make a little game of always greeting the CSR by name and using her name frequently in conversation. An Outlook reminder is helpful in prompting a quick e-mail or voice mail: ” Have you offered to help the customer with other needs today ? ” When a CSR continually forgets to thank the customer for holding, I may put a sticky-note on his phone next to the hold button that says ” Thank you for holding. ”

Reward. Positive reinforcement is simple, powerful and costs you little or nothing. Celebrate the CSR’s improvement. Verbalize your excitement and pride at the improvement they have made. Sometimes a small, tangible reward can add to the encouragement. Try a certificate of achievement, an e-mail of congratulations from a top executive, or even a candy bar.

Simplify, Prioritize, Focus, Remind, Reward. It’s always great to watch the excitement of CSR’s when they improve and know they’re doing a good job. It also has a positive effect on customer satisfaction and team morale. Sowing these simple seeds have consistently led to a harvest of CSR success and customer satisfaction !

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