How to support and empower your customer support team

Customer support teams are the unsung heroes of every business. They ensure customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention. While job-related training is important, it’s equally vital to provide continuous support and empower these teams to thrive.

In this article, we will explore effective strategies for supporting your customer support team, focusing on open communication, teamwork, motivation, training, and work-life balance.

Provide continuous support to your customer support team

According to Quality Assurance and Training Connection, turnover in the call center industry averages 30% to 45%. This high percentage can get even more shocking if we add up the cost of hiring a replacement if an employee leaves, which Employee Benefit News (EBN) estimates to be $15,000 on average. However, this turnover is evitable as long as your employees have the chance to grow, feel secure, and maintain a good work-life balance. In short, all it takes is for your customer support team to be continuously supported.

When team members feel supported, they’re more likely to remain engaged and committed to their roles. They experience higher job satisfaction, which reduces the likelihood of turnover. Retaining experienced customer support professionals is crucial as it reduces recruitment and training costs while maintaining consistency in customer service quality. Moreover, supported team members are more likely to perform at their best. They feel powerful enough to handle any customer inquiries and challenges effectively, leading to higher productivity and efficiency.

Let’s see the three key points to make sure that your customer support team is being supported:

1. Nurturing teamwork and collaboration

When you foster a culture of collaboration and recognition, you prevent toxic work environment traits. How to do that? By encouraging team members to share best practices, tips, and tricks to handle difficult customer situations.

But you can’t rely only on that. There are teamwork and collaboration techniques you can use to grow a high-performing customer support team:

• Cross-training: Encourage your customer support team members to cross-train and develop skills beyond their primary roles. This allows them to support and assist each other when necessary, fostering a sense of collaboration and teamwork. It also helps in handling fluctuations in workload or addressing specialized customer inquiries.
• Rotating responsibilities: Implement a rotation system where team members take turns handling different responsibilities or areas of expertise. This helps your customer support team in broadening their knowledge base and understanding of various customer support tasks. It also promotes empathy and a deeper appreciation for each other’s roles.
• Collaborative problem-solving: Inspire team members to collaborate when solving complex customer issues. Foster an environment where they can openly discuss challenges, share insights, and brainstorm solutions together. This collaborative problem-solving approach often leads to more innovative and effective resolutions.
• Performance recognition as a team: Recognize and reward team achievements collectively. Celebrate milestones, exceptional performance, and successful resolutions as a team. This reinforces the idea that customer support is a team effort and encourages collaboration and mutual support.
• Shared knowledge base: Establish a centralized knowledge base or documentation system where your customer support team members can contribute their insights, tips, and best practices. This shared repository becomes a valuable resource for the entire team and helps in delivering consistent and accurate support to customers.

2. Empowering, recognizing, and rewarding

Your customer support team is often going above and beyond for your customers’ needs. To ensure their ongoing success, it’s crucial to provide them with effective customer service training and trust their talents and expertise. Empowering, recognizing, and rewarding your customer support team members boosts job satisfaction and improves overall performance. Here’s how to achieve that:

Comprehensive training programs

• Provide initial and ongoing training to equip team members with product knowledge, customer service skills, and customer service best practices.
• Offer opportunities for professional development, such as workshops, webinars, and conferences, to enhance their skills and keep them updated with industry trends.
• Provide your team with training opportunities to enhance their professional growth, discover fresh career avenues, and acquire new skills through reskilling or upskilling.

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Autonomy and decision-making authority

• Delegate decision-making authority to team members based on their expertise and experience.
• Encourage them to take ownership of customer interactions and resolve issues independently.
• Establish guidelines and boundaries that will help prevent any conflicts due to overlapping responsibilities with colleagues or other teams, while promoting consistency and alignment with the company’s values and objectives.
• Encourage creativity and innovation by allowing team members to suggest and implement process improvements or new approaches to customer support.

Recognition and rewards

Recognizing and appreciating team members’ contributions and achievements can be done through public acknowledgment, rewards, or incentives. Here are some examples:

• Peer-to-peer recognition: Encourage peer-to-peer recognition, where team members recognize and appreciate each other’s efforts. This fosters a positive team dynamic and strengthens collaboration. You can try using Kudos, ePraise, or even a simple whiteboard at your offices where your team members will share their appreciation for each other.
• Make recognition a habit: Regularly celebrate your customer support team successes and milestones to boost morale and motivation. For instance, you can set an annual award for the top achiever or the most helpful colleague, or you can gather your customers’ feedback and use it to reward the team members who had the greatest impact on a systematic basis.

3. Promoting work-life balance and employee well-being

Anyone with the slightest experience in customer service can tell that it’s difficult to disengage from work the moment your shift is over. Customer support can be overwhelming and exhausting as it demands practicing multiple skills and using many sources of knowledge simultaneously and on the spot.

For that reason, promoting a healthy work-life balance and employee well-being in customer support teams is crucial as it helps your team to unwind, regain their vigor, and be able to continue with the same desire to thrive. Here are some techniques and examples to help you achieve that:

Provide resources on mindfulness and stress management

• Organize workshops or training sessions: Bring in experts or arrange internal workshops on stress management, mindfulness techniques, and resilience-building exercises for your customer support team.
• Share educational materials: Distribute resources like articles, podcasts, or books that focus on stress reduction, relaxation techniques, and overall mental well-being.

Offer flexible schedules and remote work options

• Flexible working hours: Allow employees to have flexible start and end times within certain parameters, enabling them to manage personal obligations and appointments.
• Remote work opportunities: Implement policies that allow employees to work remotely, at least partially, giving them more control over their work environment and reducing commuting stress.

Encourage and prioritize work-life balance

• Lead by example: Demonstrate a healthy work-life balance yourself, such as taking breaks, leaving on time, and avoiding overworking.
• Set clear expectations: Communicate the importance of work-life balance to your team and establish boundaries around working hours and availability.
• Avoid excessive overtime: Monitor and address excessive overtime or burnout. Encourage your team to take regular breaks and time off.

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Bonus: Empower customer support team managers

A supportive manager plays a pivotal role in empowering the customer support team. They provide guidance, feedback, and motivation to help team members achieve their goals. Remember, you need a leader for your team, not simply a manager. A person who can make your customer support team feel at ease to communicate their ideas, concerns, and suggestions through different channels such as Slack groups or anonymous surveys. Someone who will empower your support team to deliver high-quality customer service regularly, not because they were told to, but because they were inspired to.

It’s important to acknowledge that your customer support manager or team leader is also the advocate for your customer support team. They are the ones to communicate their needs for resources, tools, or process improvement within the company.

To truly support your customer support team, it is essential to recognize and prioritize the role of their manager. With leadership training, organizations can enhance the performance of their customer support teams.

Invest in training programs that focus on augmenting communication skills. This way, managers will be able to effectively articulate expectations, inspire their team, and promote collaboration. Coaching and mentoring techniques like regular one-on-one or team meetings for feedback, help managers guide their team members’ professional development, while training in emotional intelligence fosters a supportive and empathetic work environment.

Going beyond job-related training to reach success

Supporting your customer support team is about more than just job-related training. It’s about recognizing their unique needs and providing the support they require. Take the time to check in with your team and understand what kind of support they need. By doing so, you’ll foster a well-supported team that leads to satisfied customers and drives business growth.

Remember, investing in the well-being and work-life balance of your customer support team is an investment in the success of your business as a whole. Together, you can create an environment that inspires excellence and builds a positive brand image.