Essential tips for empowering your customer support team
What is employee empowerment?
When you grant enough authority and freedom to your customer support team to make immediate decisions in favor of the customers, you’re actually making them feel empowered. It can help them get their work done faster instead of waiting for permission on every step.
Empowered employees go the extra mile to make customers happy. Businesses adopting an employee empowerment strategy can ensure better customer engagement and satisfaction. Therefore, higher customer satisfaction will directly impact customer retention and brand credibility.
Here are some essential tips for empowering your customer support team:
Your success depends upon your employee’s success. That said, when your support team is equipped with decision-making authority, the right technology, system, and freedom, they tend to make the best of every opportunity to delight the customers by exceeding their expectations.
Let us discuss how you would empower your support team for better outcomes.
1. Encourage employee independence:
If you frequently hover around your employees’ desks and look over their shoulders, then stand back! You’re giving your employees some anxiety issues. You have to give your agents the independence to hit hurdles, fall, stand again and deliver the best they have. This will help them gain valuable knowledge that’ll help them in the long run.
Here’s an excellent example of fostering employee independence. Encourage employee freedom by sending them to manage an important meeting with customers or grant them ownership of a project.
2. Define employee engagement plan:
According to studies, “44% of businesses think improved employee engagement would lead to retaining them better.”
Winning at the workplace first is the key to winning in the marketplace.
The employee engagement plan involves taking care of several aspects, such as how well the customer service reps are engaged or involved in the work process and see if they feel emotionally connected to the organization. This emotional convergence directly impacts the customer and employee relationship and leads to improving customer experience.
Some of the best ways to encourage employee engagement include:
- Developing a pleasant work environment.
- Encouraging an independent work environment.
- Strengthening employee value
3. Empower the customer support team with the right tools:
Not having access to the necessary tools can make it hard for your customer support reps to deliver efficient service. In order to make their lives easier and work faster, you need to provide them with the right tools.
Here are some customer service tools that can fulfill customer communication objectives.
- Email helpdesk – Email is one of the oldest and most used tools by all companies to reach out to their customers—for example, Zendesk.
- Live chat – Live chat software provides instant assistance to visitors and customers across the website, mobile and messaging apps to deliver superior customer service. For example, REVE Chat.
- Phone support – The phone is the most preferred and quickest way to connect with your customers—for example, Aircall.
4. Provide proper training:
Keeping your customer service representatives up-to-date on all of your product and service developments will be vital as they continue to evolve. While your customer service team is not required to be as informed about your products and services as your sales and marketing teams, however, they should receive enough training to assist clients appropriately and resolve typical and atypical issues without always requiring assistance.
5. Support your customer support team:
It’s crucial to pay close attention to your customer support team in order to support them. When discussing problems with them, don’t interrupt them or plan your reply before they even finish talking. To ensure you’re on the same page, paraphrase their message in your own words and ask yourself if you understand the issue correctly. You must also express gratitude. When they do a fantastic job, let them know.
Thank-you emails or even a handwritten note after an employee handles a complex issue particularly well might go a long way. If you don’t already have an employee appreciation program in place, you may want to consider starting one. It’s important to recognize employees for their efforts.
Final Thoughts
When your organization prioritizes excellent customer care, empowering your customer service teams to boost client satisfaction with every interaction becomes simpler. An employee who has ownership of his job, access to the right customer care tools, and crucial information will automatically feel motivated to provide great client service as a result.