Customer service agents are the face of your company and can make or break your business. If your team is not motivated, it can affect the overall quality of the service you provide.

But how do you keep your team motivated and engaged? In this article, we will look at ten easy ways to motivate your customer service team.

1. Recognize Good Performance

As a customer service manager, you should always recognize good performance. People love to be appreciated for their hard work, and it’s essential to acknowledge and reward your team members when they do a great job. Praise and rewards can go a long way in making your team feel valued.

2. Provide Opportunities for Growth

People want to grow and develop in their career. As a manager, it’s your role to provide opportunities for growth and development. This could be through training, mentoring, or promotions within the company. When people see that there is room for growth, it provides them with a clear career path and a sense of purpose.

3. Encourage Team Bonding

Encouraging team bonding can help build morale and a sense of camaraderie. When you have a happy team that likes working together, it can result in more productive and positive work environment. Activities such as team building exercises or social events can make a difference.

4. Set Realistic Goals

Setting realistic goals can help your team focus and stay motivated. Everyone needs to have a clear understanding of what is expected of them. Once goals are achieved, it’s essential to recognize and acknowledge the achievement. This will make your team feel proud of their accomplishments and encourage them to do more.

5. Give Constructive Feedback

Giving feedback is an essential aspect of managing a team. But how you deliver it is just as important. Feedback should be constructive and delivered in a way that encourages improvement. People want to know what they’re doing well, but also what they need to improve upon.

6. Show Trust and Empower Your Team

If you want a motivated team, then empowerment is the key. Trust your team and give them the tools to succeed. Empowering your team gives them the freedom to take ownership of their work and can lead to more innovative solutions.

7. Have Open Communication

Open communication is critical in building trust and keeping your team engaged. Encourage your team to express their ideas and concerns. Listen to their feedback and take the time to respond thoughtfully. Communication should be a two-way street.

8. Celebrate Milestones

Celebrate your team members and the milestones that they achieve. Whether it’s a personal or professional accomplishment, recognize their hard work. This will make your team feel appreciated and valued.

9. Provide Adequate Resources

Provide your team with the resources they need to succeed. This could be CX tools, training, or additional staff. When your team has the resources they need to do their job, it makes their work more manageable and can lead to more job satisfaction.

10. Encourage a Healthy Work-Life Balance

Encouraging a healthy work-life balance is essential in keeping your team motivated and happy. People need a good work-life balance to prevent burnout and stress. Encourage time off, flexible working conditions, and support your team’s well-being.

By implementing these strategies, you can create a motivated and engaged customer service team that will ultimately result in better service and a stronger business.

Having happy customer service employees matters. It means you can have happier and more productive staff members in addition to delivering quality service to customers. In turn, that means you can retain more customer service employees and more repeat customers.

Ultimately, that will make your business more successful and profitable.

On the other hand, if your customer service employees are not happy in their roles, that could come across to customers. Unhappy customer service members of staff can create unhappy customers. And unhappy employees are likely to leave your company at some point.

To help your customer service employees be happier, take note of the following four helpful tips.

1.  Appreciate and Recognise Your Team

The more you actively appreciate your customer service team, the happier they will be in their roles.

Simple things like saying “thank you” and “well done” when employees are efficient in handling tasks and things like customer disputes will go a long way in making your employees feel happier.

You can also appreciate your team members and recognize their contributions by doing things like handing out free snacks on Fridays and giving gifts to employees on their birthdays or when they go above and beyond the call of duty.

Another great way of showing your appreciation is to recognize your high achievers by handing out awards. You can find a fine selection of awards on FineAwards.

Consider handing out awards in different categories, such as “Customer Service Employee of the Month” and “Happiest Customer Service Employee of the Month”. Handing out awards is also a great way of getting the whole team involved, as you can hold an award ceremony with nibbles and drinks.

2.  Have an Open-door Policy

Customer service employees are sure to become frustrated if they find it difficult to communicate effectively with managers. They need to know that they can go to a manager at any time to talk about any issues. They also need their manager to listen.

So, maintain an open-door policy so that your customer service employees have open lines of communication and feel valued at the workplace. They will then be much happier in their roles.

3.  Provide Flexible Working Options

Flexible working options may not be suitable for every business to adopt, but if you can enable your customer service employees to have more flexible working arrangements, you can create a happier team.

For instance, if you have customer service employees who solely take customer telephone calls, you could enable them to work at home, or you could enable your employees to select their own hours. Making it easy for staff members to switch shifts can also be beneficial and make your team happier.

4. Treat Your Team

Treating your team every now and then is a great way to reward them, appreciate them, and enhance team bonding. You could take your employees out to dinner, take in a theatre show, go paintballing, or play a round of golf, to name just a few suggestions.

When coming up with ideas for treating your employees, consider what things the team would like to do the most. Spending time together out of a work setting alone can help employees to bond and be happier, but when managers provide out-of-work treats, employees can become even happier.

When problems occur, support teams often bear the brunt of customer frustrations; and during times of upheaval, this only increases. As crucial advocates for your business, how do you create an environment where agents feel empowered to do their best work?

It’s not always easy being on the front line of customer service.

Even with the most satisfied customer base, mistakes can happen and issues arise. As a result, customer service agents need to be prepared for rough waters as well as smooth sailing and know how to navigate customer complaints with a ‘can do’ and positive attitude.

Productivity can plummet if the problems start to pile up though. Try putting yourself in an agent’s shoes, and imagine that complex issues and dissatisfied customers were awaiting you at every turn, each time you answered the phone or received an email. How would you feel?

You probably wouldn’t be all that keen to come into work every day. Luckily, the reverse can also be true. If the majority of an agent’s day is spent having efficient and productive conversations, where they can problem-solve for customers, then they will naturally experience higher levels of satisfaction and fulfillment, and pass this sense of positivity on to the next customer they speak to.

The undeniable link between happy agents and happy customers

To unpack this point, a recent Glassdoor Economic Research study found that, “Across all companies and years, customer and employee satisfaction are positively linked,” with the relationship between the two not only increasing motivation internally, but impacting commercial results positively as well.

A reason for this is because happy customers are far more likely to recommend your product or service to their networks. And with referrals being “the most credible form of advertising,”—83% of consumers say they act on the advice of their friends and family—a happy customer can be an invaluable acquisition tool. For some reason, many brands haven’t grasped this concept yet, though.

When it comes to the role satisfied customers play in profit-building, one could argue that it all starts with the individual agent. Especially given the growing role online transactions play in our shopping habits these days. It’s then very possible that the only human-to-human interaction a customer might have with a brand is when they reach out to customer service. In these instances, the agent becomes the ‘face’ of the brand and has the power to shape a customer’s entire perception of the company.

Additionally, according to Harvard Business Review: “There is a strong statistical link between employee well-being reported on Glassdoor and customer satisfaction among a large sample of some of the largest companies today. A happier workforce is clearly associated with companies’ ability to deliver better customer satisfaction—particularly in industries with the closest contact between workers and customers, including retail, tourism, restaurants, health care, and financial services.”

In fact, keeping your sales team happy can boost sales by up to 37%. What’s more, employee satisfaction adds value to your organisation—landing a place on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies To Work For list can grow stock prices by 14%.

Indeed, there’s little doubt that happy agents do make happy customers, and together this contributes to a healthier bottom line. But how do you foster happiness at work? How can businesses ensure customer service teams are ‘happy’?

Give agents the right tools they need to do the job without unnecessary stress

Your customers are omnichannel—they research, browse, and buy on a variety of platforms—which means your customer service agents need to be omnichannel too.

Investing in omnichannel customer service software is one way to give agents the tools they need to be where the customer is, when the customer needs them. Whether that’s replying to a Facebook message, following up on an email, speaking on the phone or sending a quick text via WhatsApp.

Not only does this quite clearly improve the speed and seamlessness of the customer experience, but it also helps mix up the agents’ working day. Sitting on the other end of a continuously ringing telephone—or worse, waiting quietly for a call to come through—can be monotonous and demotivating for the best of us.

Combat this by keeping your agents active and engaged with a full offering of communication channels at their disposal.

However, this only works if all of your channels are synched up and working together too. You need to have the software in place to better integrate sales and CRM data with customer service history, enhancing both the customer and agent experience.

78% of customers get frustrated if they have to repeat themselves to service agents — and who can blame them?

Service agents know a lot about customer experience, empower them to enable change

It’s almost unavoidable that customer service agents will have to bear the brunt of customer frustrations. However, witnessing consumer pain-points first-hand puts agents in a unique (and powerful) position to improve the customer service experience.

Your customer service agents are the ones out there, day after day, responding to positive and negative consumer input alike. It’s their job to resolve issues as quickly as possible, and, crucially, represent your business in the most positive light.

For agents to be the best advocates for your product or service, they need to feel capable and ready to act on what they see quickly and autonomously. This may be as simple as being able to deal with a customer complaint without having to bring their team manager in. Or it may be as radical as becoming a ‘citizen developer’ — making use of low code software development to proactively prototype and build better customer service solutions.

A citizen developer refers to any employee who can develop a business-led solution using a no-code or low-code platform developed by IT experts themselves. Citizen developers drag and drop code snippets into place without programming knowledge, digitizing processes, and streamlining workflows. Therefore, a citizen developer spends more time thinking of strategic business solutions and performing critical tasks.

When customer service agents become citizen developers, they don’t have to submit tickets to the IT department because they can manage IT problems on their own. They can quickly access data and create solutions to benefit their customers. Therefore, they feel empowered, demonstrating confidence in performing their roles and duties.

Within the organisation, leaders should also strive to create a culture of autonomy and trust by reaching out to customer agents for valuable insights. By doing so, you can learn a great deal about the real customer service experience, and increase employee motivation at the same time.

Using intrinsic rewards and recognition to organically motivate agents

Hard work deserves reward. But reward and recognition is about much more than a cash bonus for meeting a service target.

While there will always be a place for extrinsic rewards like this, customer service managers should look to more intrinsic ways of rewarding and motivating their agents too.

Customer service agents must feel valued by providing them with a comfortable, safe, and less stressful work environment to boost employee satisfaction and happiness. For instance, customer service agents can work more comfortably when they sit on ergonomic chairs and use problem-free computers. In addition, managers must also ensure agents take breaks and lunches on time and have access to health and wellness programs and facilities.

Increased responsibility, as well as personal development within the role, will help keep agents happy and motivated at work. Intrinsic reward comes from within—from the feeling of a job well done combined with a greater sense of purpose—so leaders should always ensure that agents know how important their job really is.

Leaders can accomplish this goal through regular coaching and training. It’s crucial to assess the customer agents’ metrics and feedback about their job roles. Because they’re frontliners speaking with different types of customers, they may also experience burnout. Coaching and training sessions serve as a break time or refresher to keep them on track.

Additionally, agents are a wealth of knowledge for any business as they are on the front lines and closest to the customers. Some of the best suggestions for improvements to products, processes and more come from happy, motivated agents.

To put it bluntly: your business doesn’t just need a great customer service team, it relies upon it.

So, make sure agents feel seen, heard and valued — broadcast their achievements, recognise hard work, respond to the changes they’d like to see, and give them the tools they need to delight customers across multiple channels every single day.

When employees are empowered, they have the authority to make decisions—to bend and break the rules—on the spot to take care of a customer.

Most executives and managers, however, are afraid to empower their employees. They don’t trust employees—and they don’t trust customers. They think employees will “give away the store,” and they think customers will take advantage of employees who are empowered.

Most employees are also afraid of empowerment. They think that, if they make an empowered decision that will satisfy the customer, they will be reprimanded or worse, lose their jobs. They prefer the safety of operating under the company’s rules, policies, and procedures.

Every customer has different needs and expectations when they experience problems with products or service, so flexibility in how your employees make satisfy them is critical. Of course, you can’t let employees run wild and give away huge amounts of money in order to satisfy your customers. Set a monetary limit, maybe a ceiling of $50. The Ritz-Carlton, by the way, has a limit of $2,000, but that’s because it’s a luxury hotel chain with hotels at exotic locations throughout the world.

Marketing Money

You’re probably thinking, “If I empower my employees, it’s going to cost me money—money I don’t want to spend.” Look at that money as marketing money. If you spent a little money to retain current customers, you won’t have to spend as much to attract new customers to replace those you lose.

Let me give you an example of how one company lost me—and my money—as a customer. Eighteen months ago, I purchased an orchid plant for my wife from Trader Joe’s. It quickly died, and I went to return it. The employee I spoke with told me there was nothing he could do about it. I then spoke to the manager who told me he could not give me a refund because I didn’t have a receipt, I had not purchased the plant there, and they don’t sell orchids. I put the dead plant on the counter, said some nasty words, and told him I would never be back. So, for the $20 the manager wouldn’t refund me, he has lost my business forever.

The supermarket industry is the most customer-service industry in the United States. If I buy tomatoes and they go bad within a few days, 99 percent of supermarkets will gladly give me a refund—most of them without requiring a receipt. They wouldn’t think twice about denying me a refund and losing me as a customer for something that will cost them less than $10.

The Lifetime Value of your Customers

You can’t look at the short-term impact of poor customer service; you must look at the lifetime value of your customers. For example, supermarket customers spend, on average, $7,169.58 a year. The lifetime value of that customer is $437,344.46. Are you willing—as, apparently, Trader Joe’s was with me—to lose that money because you won’t reimburse a customer $20? The answer should be clear.

Amazon understands the importance of empowered employees. Returns are quick and easy, and the company maintains records of each customer’s purchases so there is no need to produce a receipt. It’s so easy to do business with Amazon that its 2021 sales increased 22 percent—a whopping $83.7 billion—over the previous year.

It’s impossible to be a customer service leader without having empowered employees.

When your employees make empowered decisions, support them, recognize them and—celebrate them. Doing so will send a message to other employees that you support them in their efforts to ensure that your customers are happy. The result will be an increase in your customer base, which translates to an increase in sales.

About the Author

John Tschohl is a customer service strategist and is the founder and president of the Service Quality Institute. John has been described by USA Today, Time, and Entrepreneur as a ‘customer service guru’ and has written several highly acclaimed customer service books.

Personal and organisational growth go hand in hand.  Ross Daniels at Calabrio shares his top tips for an effective wellbeing programme to build a happy and productive team.

In this workforce wellbeing management series, we’re bringing a magnifying glass to the current state of the contact centre, the rising stress levels in contact centres, and the action plan required to address them. In our last article, I outlined technology guides to enable heightened wellbeing across the contact centre and de-stress employees in the face of increasing complexity. I summarised the benefits of Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) solutions and their power to de-stress agents, supervisors and senior managers.  In this third and final part of the series, I’ll delve a little deeper and explore the more subtle elements of wellbeing as a means to promote personal and organisational growth. The two are closely interconnected: the success of one depends on the success of the other.

Top executive challenges

Of course, stress is nothing new, but agents today are far more vocal in raising concerns about it.  This poses some tough challenges for contact centre supervisors as well as for senior managers responsible for customer experience. Top of the list for managers are:

• Recruitment and retention – how do you keep your existing staff happy while attracting new talent with the right skills to best serve your customers?

• Employee onboarding – once hired, the pressure is on to motivate workers—whether remote or in office–while arming them with the competitive knowledge they need to thrive in their jobs.

• Performance coaching – ‘out of sight’ should definitely not mean ‘out of mind’.  With the rise of hybrid working, regular performance coaching and mentoring are now more important than ever before.

7 essential elements of an effective wellbeing strategy

So what can supervisors and senior managers do to build a happy and productive team?  Here are a few ideas to getting started:

1. Make agents feel valued – when agents feel valued, their work is infinitely more meaningful and less stressful.  Agent pay actually ranks third when it comes to the top reasons for leaving after ‘being unhappy in job’ (36%) and ‘limited growth opportunities’ (26%).[i] Personalised training that encourages individual strengths while addressing areas for improvement and clear career paths are the way to make agents feel more valued.

2. Keep pushing flexibility further – after higher pay, which is at the top of agents’ wish list, they next want flexibility (at 34%)[ii] Give agents the autonomy to control their own working day through agent-driven scheduling processes and real-time flexibility to accommodate the unexpected.  Take away the burden of managing schedule changes, shift swaps or overtime and time-off requests by introducing the latest mobile self-service chatbots for agents.  It’s like giving them a powerful time management tool in the palm of their hand.

3. Invest in agent-empowering technologies – based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.  Our own research tells us that agents welcome innovative AI tech as a means to free them from tedious tasks (40%) and focus on more fulfilling and higher-value service that only experienced human agents can provide (30%).[iii] Personalised dashboards are an added bonus for remote-working teams, enabling agents to track their own performance, stay focused, and remain motivated.

4. Strengthen emotional connectedness – asking agents how they feel and what they are doing to de-stress might sound obvious but with so many other distractions away from the traditional office environment, very few supervisors actually do it.  Encourage supervisors to build regular one-to-one sessions into their schedule to increase your agents’ sense of belonging–then maximise analytics to close the wellbeing loop.  The latest VoE (voice of the employee) analytics capture and analyse how frontline staff are feeling in order to identify agents who are struggling, while desktop analytics uncover clunky IT systems that are slowing them down.

5. Aim for easier – as agents deal with more complex customer issues, navigating their way around new technology is essential. And it starts with good training.  Do your agents know what technology they have to make their lives easier and do they know how to use it?  Take a closer look at your systems.  Aim to give agents a consolidated view of customer information all on one screen, then embed VoC (voice of the customer) analytics to support more meaningful, empathetic interactions. 

6. Focus on performance coaching – make mentoring and personal development a priority and take a personalised approach by providing plenty of upskilling opportunities to boost agent confidence and enhance their sense of wellbeing.

Invest in automated performance coaching solutions and make them an intrinsic part of your staff engagement programme, helping to identify skills gaps, individual areas of struggle, successes and opportunities for personal development.

7. Be a connected enterprise – by developing joined-up technology, processes, information and thinking to help staff excel in their roles.  Create a connected culture to collectively impact positive customer outcomes that drive opportunities for organisational growth.

Grab your copy of Calabrio’s brand new digital guide “Workforce Wellbeing Recovery Kit: Practical Strategies & Resources to Turn Workforce Wellbeing into Your Competitive Advantage.”  It’s a practical guide that reinforces the take-aways of this current series of articles while providing additional tips to future-proof your wellbeing strategy.

About the Author

Ross Daniels is Chief Marketing Officer at Calabrio

Calabrio is the customer experience intelligence company that empowers organisations to enrich human interactions. The scalability of our cloud platform allows for quick deployment of remote work models—and it gives our customers precise control over both operating costs and customer satisfaction levels. Our AI-driven analytics tools make it easy for contact centres to uncover customer sentiment and share compelling insights with other parts of the organisation. Customers choose Calabrio because we understand their needs and provide a best-in-class experience, from implementation to ongoing support. Find more at calabrio.com/ and follow @Calabrio on Twitter.

Employee turnover is one of the most wasteful yearly occurrences in any business. And in today’s world, it has become an increasingly recurring part of daily life.

An article by Forbes even called 2021 a “Turnover Tsunami” and given the data emerging from Vieser citing 1 in 4 Americans will quit their job by the end of 2021, it’s easy to see why. Data from the US Bureau of Labor agrees with this, claiming over 4 million people quit their jobs in April 2021 alone.

To an extent, employee turnover is perfectly natural. Employees come and go, things change, and sometime’s the fit just isn’t right. Still, the loss of employees is incredibly costly for a business. Time and money are required to train replacements that initially can’t provide the same output as experienced employees.

A LinkedIn article by Josh Bersin from Deloitte says that the cost of this can be anything from tens of thousands of dollars to almost double the employee’s annual salary. The Work Institute claims that the cost of employee turnover is more than 30% of the employee’s salary. Something the Employee Benefit News agrees with, citing 33% of a worker’s annual salary.

Either way, this is a worrying statistic. As the United States goes through what is being called the Great Resignation ( The Achievers Employee Engagement and Retention Report claims over 52% of workers sought new jobs in 2021 alone), employee turnover is well worth reducing.

7 Easy Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover

Employee turnover is not just an irritation for employers, it can and does add up to a waste financially. Given the frequency of Millenials and Gen Z changing jobs, it is becoming an increasing priority.

To help your company retain its increasingly valuable employees, read on for 7 Ways to Reduce Employee Turnover.

1. Hire Smart

Choosing the right people for the job is probably the most important aspect of reducing employee turnover. If you choose to employ people who don’t fit your company culture or dynamics, not only will they be unhappy and likely to leave, but you’ll have wasted your time and theirs trying to fit a round peg into a square hole.

Data-driven recruitment helps you hire the best people for precisely that reason. Taking a holistic and analytic approach to hiring, it can cut down on hiring costs, up experiences with prospective employees, and overall improve the quality pool from which you hire. It can also help your recruiters cut down or at least better direct HR when they make hiring decisions “from the gut”.

While experience and qualifications are important, they’re not the only things that matter. There’s a lot to be said for focusing on soft skills and hiring smart, versatile people with innate talent that can fit into various roles in your business.

Employees who have the same values and goals as your company are crucial. Not only do they immediately fit in, feel attached to, and want the best for the company but they actively contribute to good and healthy work culture.

2. Reward and Recognize

Recognition and rewarding hard work are two of an employer’s largest tools when it comes to reducing employee turnover.

Recognizing employee efforts frequently ranks as a crucial component of what matters to employees.

Undervalued employees can quickly become bitter and unhappy whenever they feel their work has gone unnoticed. A survey by Globoforce and SHRM reported that 90% of employees reported feeling more satisfied with their work when rewarded with peer-to-peer recognition.

Rewarding employees can take many forms whether this is financial in terms of bonuses or outings, additional time off, gifts, or some sort of personal incentive based on something unique you know that employee will appreciate.

One of the more unique ways to reward your employees is donation matching. This is a type of donation where a business matches employee donations to nonprofits and charities. This is a great way to reward an employee while rewarding great causes in the community – especially if you offer to double or triple that employee’s contribution!

3. Promote work-life balance

Balancing the work-life boundary is becoming an increasingly important factor for employees.

Traditionally, work can be an all-encompassing facet of life. Whether that’s a result of grind culture due to low wages, poor management, incessant emails, and the insistence that one be available nearly 24/7 should issue at work arise. The desire to succeed or not be seen as a bad employee can often exacerbate these issues.

The idea that you should live to work rather than work to live is proving to be a quickly antiquated notion. Millennials and Gen Z, more than ever, are choosing to prioritize their work-life balance and will often leave a job rather than compromise on their leisure time. Research from Hubspot corroborates.

If your employees feel they are living to work, rather than working to live, there’s a major possibility you’ll experience employee turnover.

4. Offer a comprehensive competitive benefits package

It should go without saying that employers that offer competitive salaries lead to happier employees. That in turn reduces employee turnover as happy employees stay.

One component that cannot be ignored is having equally competitive benefits packages. And that’s not just avocado toast or ping pong tables.

Between the 2008 Recession and COVID 19, Millennials and Gen Z employees are increasingly financially aware and are looking to find companies that can offer them robust benefits.

A study by the Lincoln Financial Group backs this up. According to that study, 57% of Millenials say that they’ve stayed at a job they didn’t like because of the benefits package. 93% of Gen Z say that being offered a great benefits package would make them stay longer at their first full-time job.

Here are a few things for employers to focus on when creating their benefits packages:

• Health Insurance
• 401K Pans with accompanying benefits
• Paid Time Off
• Dental Insurance
• Financial Counseling
• Tuition Support

5. Show your respect

“Respect is a two-way street.”

We’ve all heard it before. What’s often forgotten is that one of those lanes comes from the direction of management. Shouting, screaming and unrealistic demands can create a corrosive atmosphere and one that’s almost impossible to recover from.

Mutual respect is just good management. Employees will work harder for managers for who they feel respect and obligation toward. That inherent sense of trust, mutual collaboration, commitment, and a good work atmosphere is crucial in any work environment.

A few basic points to remember that might help both parties with this includes:

• Treat people the way you’d want to be treated
• Remain calm and keep it professional
• Learn the difference between constructive and corrosive criticism
• Keep an open mind and attitude toward other’s ideas
• Make employees feel valued, heard, and seen.
• Communicate, communicate and communicate.

In addition to the above, providing a clean working environment for your employees by having a reputable cleaning company clean your offices regularly is also highly recommended. It will not only help improve your employee’s well-being but can also result in improved overall productivity.

Ultimately this will lead to increased rates of retention for employees.

6. Offer flexible work schedules

With remote work coming to the forefront of society since COVID 19 became a global pandemic, it’s safe to say remote work is here to stay.

While it may have been initially seen as a temporary measure, more and more companies are offering hybrid work options as well as fully remote jobs. Adobe, Amazon, Facebook, and Hubspot are just a few of the world’s top companies looking at going either fully remote or increasingly hybrid. In fact, according to Future Workforce Report, 32 million Americans will be working remotely by 2025.

That’s no surprise given the benefits attached to remote work. Increased productivity, schedule flexibility, reduced costs of commute and the near erasure of unnecessary meetings are all almost immediate benefits of remote work.

Glassdoors Economic Research Report confirms that job seekers in today’s economy are increasingly interested in remote jobs. According to their research, searches for remote positions increased by 360% from June 2019 to June 2021.

Employers need to not only take into account these trends but figure out the best way to go about recruiting and structuring their remote teams to fully benefit from this.

7. Develop a robust Onboarding process

The onboarding process in a company is an often overlooked part of what goes into not only settling in new employees but making sure that these employees settle in well.

Good onboarding can make an employee feel welcome, informed, and aware of the workplace culture and values and make them feel at ease in their new environment. This translates into loyalty which then leads to lower rates of employee turnover. A recent report found that 69% of employees are more likely to stay with their company for at least 3 years if they’ve had a great onboarding process.

Onboarding is a company’s first opportunity to make a good impression. If it seems like the culture of the company isn’t quite right, employees will quickly start seeking new opportunities.

Bad onboarding looks something like dropping a new employee in the office with no clue and leaving them to find their way around. Good onboarding, on the other hand, involves mentor pairing, introductions, explanation of tools as well as regular checking in and providing support.

As obvious as it sounds, bad onboarding is a mistake a lot of managers make that could have you having to find new hires sooner rather than later.

Final Thoughts

With Millenials and Gen Z increasingly choosing to prioritize their health and happiness over pay or job security, employees are experiencing increased employee turnover. As the US and indeed the world, experience the “Great Resignation” keeping the employees you have is crucial to a successful business.

Between the loss of productivity as new hires acquire skills your old employees already had, the waste of time training these replacements, and the actual cost of recruiting, interviewing, and hiring new employees, employee turnover can have a greater impact on your business than you expected.

While it may sound like doom and gloom, the truth is quite the opposite. Reducing employee turnover is a lot simpler than it seems. Oftentimes, all it takes is a few conscious and purposeful tweaks to your company policy. Whether it’s increasing your flexibility with employees working from home, offering comprehensive benefits packages or even just being more respectful towards your employees.

These qualities will reduce your employee turnover as well as make you a good “People Company” which will allow you to not just become more productive but more successful. The truth is that the more you value your employees and show them that, the more likely they’ll want to remain and grow with your company.

And that’s just good business.

Today’s customer has countless options when making a purchase. This means prioritizing customer experience is one of the most effective ways to stand out in the crowd.

As a business owner and employer, it is essential to understand that the quality of your customer care can only be as good as your team and how happy they feel.

In other words, a motivated team will help you deliver great customer experiences, and the opposite is true.

This article highlights the connection between employee satisfaction and how it can impact customer experiences.

Employee’s Experiences Have a Direct Impact On Customer Experiences

Almost everyone experiences a bad day once in a while. On such days, not many show their best side. Instead, most people tend to be grumpy and would rather be left on their own.

The same happens when a job experience feels like an eternal bad day. If an employee doesn’t love their job because they do not feel appreciated, their bad experiences will be seen in how they perceive your company or treat your customers.

Today’s employee does not hesitate to leave a job, or an employer they feel does not put their interests first. But there is good news.

Employees can now check out employer reviews before applying for a job on employer review websites such as jobsage.com, helping them identify the best employers based on reviews left by current or past employees.

An employer can also benefit from this site by checking out their ratings to help them improve employee experiences to attract and retain the right talent.

How to Inspire Your Employees for Better Customer Service

1. Self-Development

Every employee dreams of making progress in their career. But to make progress, they need to learn new skills. Allowing your employees to better themselves by training them communicates that you care, significantly promoting Loyalty.

This sense of Loyalty results in better customer experiences because your employees will be as eager to please your customers as you are.

2. Find Out What Motivates Them

Many employers assume they know what their employees need. Others think that good enumeration is all it takes to make employees happy. While good enumeration may be a great way of employee motivation, it is important to hear their opinion on what they think is important.

One way of knowing what they need is through conducting surveys through questionnaires. Alternatively, you can engage them in an open conversation where every team member can voice their opinion, which must be taken seriously.

Establishing what your employees feel and what they think is important to them as it communicates that you have their interests at heart.

If a team feels that you have their interests at heart and you are proactive at ensuring their interests receive the attention they deserve, the same will reflect in their interaction with the customers.

3. Share the Customer’s Love

Receiving love from your customers as the CEO or business owner can give you a great sense of pride. Sometimes you may be tempted to hog in all the glory. You may even win awards and recognition for your accomplishments. However, you must never forget that you did not do it alone.

Taking all the credit can result in your team feeling left out, which can have dire consequences on their perception of your organization or your leadership skills.

The right thing to do is acknowledge them by voicing your appreciation for the work done and what the customers think about their service.

This approach evokes a sense of accomplishment in your employees, which effectively encourages even better performance, ultimately boosting your brand’s customer experiences.

4. A Positive Environment Equals Positive Experiences

Your team can only exude what their work environment offers. Therefore, it is important to cultivate a positive work environment and company culture.

Creating a positive work environment involves listening and acting on every employee’s concern.

For example, if an employee complains of abuse or mistreatment from a co-worker, do not make the mistake of brushing it off or telling them to get over it. Instead, act and resolve any contention among your team, even if it means getting rid of the toxic person.

Toxicity doesn’t only come from co-workers. Some customers may be harmful too. If there is a case of an unreasonable customer, never put them ahead of your employees.

Protecting your employees and showing that you care about them creates a positive working environment that drives positive customer experiences.

The Great Resignation has seen dramatic employee turnover rates across many industries. John Tschohl shares some important steps you can take to retain your current employees and attract new ones during these  challenging times.

By the end of 2021, the labor shortage had reached epic proportions, with an estimated 10.7 million unfilled jobs. Everywhere I went, businesses displayed signs saying they were hiring. Restaurants and other businesses reduced their hours of operations because they didn’t have enough employees to take care of their customers.

Considering this situation, I want to share with you some steps you can take to retain your current employees and attract new ones.

1.Train them. Give your employees what they need to do their jobs. There is nothing more frustrating than tackling a project when you don’t have what’s necessary to successfully complete it. When you train your employees on customer service, you are showing them you value them by investing the time and money to ensure they will be successful. That training must be consistent and continuous in order to make an impact.

2. Listen to them. When employees feel they have no input into what they do and how they are required to do it, they become discouraged. Ask them for feedback and be open and honest in responding to their concerns. Ask what you can do to make their jobs easier and, as a result, make them more enjoyable. Ask what their goals are within the company—and what you can do to help them achieve those goals.

3. Respect them. We’ve all, at one time in our lives, had bosses who lost their tempers, berated employees in front of others, or disrespected employees in other ways. If you must have a conversation with an employee who is not doing well, do it behind closed doors and do it respectfully. Employees need to feel loved, valued, and appreciated every day.

4. Praise them. When you praise an employee, do it publicly; it will serve as a motivator for other employees. Be specific and sincere. Do it in a timely manner and do it often. If you wait six months, that praise loses its thunder. Be sincere and specific.

5. Recognize them. We all like to be recognized for doing a job well. Unfortunately, many employees are recognized only when they make mistakes. Try to catch employees who are doing a good job and thank them for it. My friend, Steve, is an accountant and recently left his job after just 45 days. Why? During his performance review he received only negative comments—even though he had performed well enough to uncover embezzlement in the company.

6. Motivate them. Money can definitely be a motivator—but it’s usually short lived. You can pay your employees extremely well, but if you don’t motivate them they will underperform and, eventually, they will leave you.

7. Coach them. Become a coach, a nurturer. Just as athletic coaches must bring team members together to perform at their highest levels, you must bring your employees together and get them to work as a team to achieve the goals you have set for them.

8. Be flexible. When the pandemic hit in 2020, many companies had to allow customer service employees to work from their homes. Those employees proved that they could be just as—if not more—productive as they would have been in the office. Now you might be faced with employees who are having difficulty finding daycare or are facing other issues and would like to work at least part time from their homes. You would do well to make accommodations to help them deal with those issues.

9. Conduct exit interviews with employees who leave your company. Why? Because they will give you insight about what went wrong. While most employees will tell you they are leaving because they can make more money somewhere else, most are leaving for other reasons. When they share those reasons with you, you will have the opportunity to evaluate them and determine how you and others in supervisory positions can adjust your own attitudes and behaviors and help you retain employees.

About the Author

John Tschohl is a customer service strategist and is the founder and president of the Service Quality Institute. John has been described by USA Today, Time, and Entrepreneur as a ‘customer service guru’ and has written several highly acclaimed customer service books.

Lezli Harrell, Vice President at COPC Inc., takes an in-depth look at how leaders can improve employee engagement to drive a better customer experience and achieve greater customer loyalty.

You know the old adage, “happy employees = happy customers.” It’s been around a long time but it’s being put into practice more today than ever. Leading this effort is the increased role that customer experience (CX) plays as a key differentiator, particularly with increasing competition and customer expectations. So, it makes sense that focusing on the heartbeat of the organization – the employees – is more important than ever to keeping customers happy and contributing to the success of the organization.

That is where employee engagement comes into the picture. Service journey mapping, channel strategies, self-service initiatives, and digital transformation are all important to developing and delivering a more pleasant and effortless customer experience. But the importance of the human element cannot be relegated to a mission statement or poster on the wall.

Organizations must recognize the impact that employee engagement has on the customer experience, and therefore on overall success. Employee engagement initiatives must be woven into broader CX strategies, linking the two together to truly achieve desired results.

This article will establish the foundation for:

• What employee engagement is and what it is not
• Why employee engagement is important to the customer experience
• How leaders can improve employee engagement to drive a better customer experience

What employee engagement is and what it is not

To focus on employee engagement, it is important to understand what it is while also considering what it is NOT. Simply put, engagement does not equal satisfaction.

What does this mean exactly? For example, an agent may be perfectly satisfied with their schedule, level of pay, their manager and the work they do. They show up to work, do their job, follow processes and when asked to fill out an employee satisfaction survey, they say they are “satisfied.” They go through the motions meeting minimum requirements because the work meets their basic needs; however, they do not go above and beyond and if they had a ‘better’ offer, they would not hesitate to consider it.

Conversely, an actively engaged employee is clearly committed to their work and the organization and consistently goes the extra mile to exceed performance expectations. Contrary to the “satisfied” agent in the above scenario, an engaged agent is enthusiastic about their work, believes in the organization, is an active participant in the team’s success, proactively seeks ways to improve their own performance and collaborates with their manager and teammates on how to serve customers better. Most importantly, they are brand ambassadors for their company. This enthusiasm is evident to customers on the other end.

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Which agent would stand out to you? Which agent would you rather interact with if you had your choice? And which one would give you confidence that you are doing business with a brand that cares about their customers? The answers should be clear.

In summary, an engaged employee is always satisfied, but a disengaged employee can also be satisfied. This can produce two vastly different results, for both the customer and the business.

So, what exactly is employee engagement for purposes of this discussion? The definition in this Forbes article from several years ago still applies and should serve as the foundation for the rest of this discussion:

How do you know if your employees are engaged?

It makes sense that organizations strive to create an environment that fosters this level of commitment and passion. The challenge becomes understanding if employees are in fact engaged. Employee surveys can provide a quantified measure of employee engagement. Intangible characteristics provide an even better measure of engagement. We share six questions to ask yourself to gauge the level of engagement among your workforce:

The common thread throughout these questions goes back to the original definition, which is assessing if employees have an emotional and passionate commitment to achieving high performance and delivering excellent service. If you find the answer to some or all of these questions is no, then you know you have an opportunity to improve employee engagement.

Why is employee engagement important to the customer experience?

Most leaders would agree that employee engagement is important to the customer experience and therefore the organization’s overall success. The statistics below highlight the importance of making employee engagement a priority as part of the broader CX strategy:

• Companies with highly engaged employees outperform their competitors by 147%
• Seventy-nine percent of employees at companies with above- average customer experience are highly engaged, compared to 49% of employees at companies with average or below-average customer experience scores
• Companies with an employee engagement program experience 233% greater customer loyalty
• Companies with robust employee engagement programs are seven times more likely to link employee performance with good customer experiences
• 3X more likely to feel extremely empowered to resolve customer issues

Additionally, employee retention is higher and absenteeism is lower with an engaged workforce. In fact, engaged employees are 8.5X more likely to stay than leaves within a year, and they have 81% lower absenteeism. Obviously, this has a positive impact on the bottom line from a cost perspective, but also contributes to a better and more consistent customer experience.

The numbers speak for themselves, proving the strong link between high employee engagement and customer experience. The passion, enthusiasm and commitment to excellence demonstrated by engaged employees will be infectious to customers and produce the competitive differentiator so critical to the organization’s long-term success.

With these drivers as the backdrop, what can you do to build a culture and strategy that truly weaves employment engagement into the fabric of your organization and the broader CX strategy?

Peter Drucker made this quote famous and it is certainly true in this context – “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Organizations often believe they have the right strategy with the best of intentions, but their culture does not support it. It is “easy” to say that customer and employee experience are important, and it may even be part of a mission statement. But if culture and actions do not align with the strategy, more harm than good is done.

High-performing organizations spend time creating company values, linking employee engagement and customer experience behaviors together. These values and behaviors then become woven into every aspect of the organization.

Trader Joe’s is an excellent example of an organization that has built their brand around employee engagement, creating a loyal following with a distinct and consistent customer experience, regardless of location. They defined seven key values that govern employee and company behaviors – in short, they translate values into specific behaviors they expect of their leaders and employees. How do you do this?

Below are eight ways to ensure your culture, strategy and behaviors link employee engagement to customer experience:

1. Communicate values and expected behaviors – Ensure employees understand key values and the behaviors that support those values. As discussed earlier, engaged employees feel connected to the organization’s success and have a clear understanding of how and why their work matters. Clearly explain the value of their work, how it fits into the bigger picture and why what they do is important. To reinforce this, consistently provide specific examples of how their performance contributes to the company’s success so they continue to feel connected.

2. Create employee engagement opportunities – Day-to-day engagement, in the form of active team participation and the proactive pursuit of improvement opportunities, is the goal and must be driven by all levels of leadership. Other means for employee engagement are also important, such as structured focus groups, team events, networking groups, special interest opportunities, company-sponsored charity opportunities, lunch-and-learns, “meet your VP” and team collaboration are all ways to encourage engagement and foster inclusion.

3. Develop a robust and closed-loop employee feedback system – This goes beyond a simple measurement of employee satisfaction, seeking ideas and input from employees that support the company’s mission. Yes, measuring employee satisfaction and acting on the feedback is critical; however, just as important is actively seeking employee ideas and feedback, communicating results, implementing action plans and communicating specific actions taken and the results.

4. Tie performance reviews and recognition programs to company values – If employee engagement and customer experience are linked as part of the company’s values, incorporate them into all aspects of performance management and recognition. Seek 360-feedback from peers and other leaders focused on how the employee demonstrates company values and is an engaged member of the company. Create special award programs which recognize employees who demonstrate specific company values, going above and beyond to be engaged both internally and with customers. The bottom line is to expand these programs beyond performance. There should of course be a performance component, but to build a culture of engagement, these activities and characteristics must also be equally measured and recognized.

5. Communicate transparently and frequently – To foster an environment of trust, organizations must communicate clearly, frequently and consistently. Engaged employees want to feel part of something. They want to know the strategies so they can contribute. They want to know of any challenges the company faces so they can be part of the solution. Trust can erode quickly and be hard to recover; ineffective communication is one of the biggest drivers of lack of trust. A communication strategy must be developed from the top down to include company “town halls,” department strategy and performance updates and team meetings that ensure alignment and understanding.

6. Provide growth and development opportunities – This goes beyond standard new hire training, coaching or upskilling. All of those are important to an employee’s feeling of accomplishment, but engaged and loyal employees want to have real opportunities to grow and develop. They want to feel as if the company is invested in them and their future. This requires a structured development program governed by Human Resources, trained to all leaders and implemented at all levels. Starting with coaching, all leaders must be hired and trained to be effective coaches. This is different from providing “feedback” and focuses on helping employees be the best they can be. Structured training is of course a fundamental component of development, but managers should be empowered to seek other opportunities to help employees develop skills in areas of interest. For example, structured mentor programs, external webinars, bringing in an outside (or internal) expert or providing ability to shadow in other departments.

7. Implement adequate tools – Tools play a critical role in an employee’s success. Of course, a great tool cannot fix a poor process, but nothing is more frustrating to employees who want to do an excellent job but are hindered by ineffective tools. Tools that support customers such as knowledge bases, CRMs and even AI-powered solutions to assist agents are obviously important. Collaboration, coaching, and support tools are also critical especially in the current environment which consists of large work-from- home workforces. Simply put, employees need tools to support customers and to remain connected to peers and management.

8. Prioritize employee wellbeing – All of the above contribute to an employee’s wellbeing. At the end of the day, employees want to feel secure, supported, and confident to perform to the best of their abilities. Contact center employees have experienced significant changes since the start of the pandemic so it is no surprise that many are feeling stressed. Feelings of isolation have also mounted due to the pandemic and ongoing work-from-home (WFH) staffing models. Organizations should consistently evaluate internal and external support resources available to employees and encourage the use of them. For example, increasing available resources related to mental health, financial advice, and fitness/wellness programs all play a vital role. Some organizations are even going as far as paying additional incentives for vacations (however, if vacation is not taken, employees are ineligible to receive that benefit.) Additionally, work-life balance has become a priority for many employees. Organizations need to recognize this and truly embody it. This means establishing “ground rules” for after-hours meetings, emails, and the like. This is all to promote overall wellbeing, both mentally and physically.

Conclusion

The time is now to embrace the importance of employee engagement and to ensure it is woven into the fabric of organizational culture. The facts are clear – more engaged employees mean higher customer satisfaction and increased profitability. Organizations that take the next step to link engagement and customer experience together will achieve the ultimate goals of transforming their customers’ experience, standing out among competitors and creating positive environments for employees.

About the Author

Lezli Harrell is a Vice President with COPC Inc., an innovative global leader that provides consulting, training, research, and certification for operations that support the customer experience (CX). For over 20 years, she has worked with brands all over the world to improve CX operations, optimize processes and performance, and implement best practices that drive bottom line results.

Many factors contribute to a company’s success. For a company to be successful and profitable, it needs to sell great products, offer amazing customer service, and have loyal customers. But above all else, a successful business needs to have a team of highly engaged employees.

Unfortunately, engagement at a lot of businesses is at an all-time low across all industries, with only 36% of employees engaged in the workplace. If you have a low engagement at your place of work as well, that needs to change right away if you’re hoping for long-term success.

Training and personal development for employees

Most employees put a lot of focus on professional development. While that is significant, if you want your employees to feel like they’re appreciated, you also need to encourage personal development. To do that, you should get to know all team members on a personal level.

Find out what they like to do outside of work, what are their hobbies and interests, and what they’re passionate about. Once you know that, you will be able to deduce which areas of business each employee is best suited for based on those interests and aspirations.

This type of personal connection will also help you identify the types of training programs that would fit their interests and help them acquire new skills that will bring them greater professional satisfaction.

One of the best ways you can get to know your employees better is to organize a lunch and learn program and Hoppier explains this concept in great detail. During a lunch and learn, an employer takes their entire team to a paid lunch where they can discuss professional and personal topics and work on team building and bonding.

Use the right tools

In this digital age, employers who don’t use all the available tools and software to help their employees aren’t only hindering their engagement but they’re also stifling productivity. There are a plethora of tools that can make workers more productive and successful and make their overall jobs much easier.

If you’re not already using tools, research the types of software you believe would make your employee’s day-to-day activities easier. Make sure to talk to the employees as well to help them understand how these tools work and see if there are any programs they want to see incorporated.

Additionally, make sure to use a tool that will be useful for people from all departments, no matter what kind of responsibilities they have. One such tool is multi user WhatsApp, which allows multiple teams to manage WhatsApp Business together from one platform. This way, you can help multiple customers at the same time and even collaborate with colleagues on incoming conversations.

Create a non-toxic workspace

Do your team members constantly feel like they’re walking on eggshells? Or that if they make even one tiny mistake they’re going to get seriously reprimanded? If the answer is yes, then you have a very toxic workspace and are making your employees function in an unhealthy environment.

One of the most popular management techniques is belittling and punishing employees that make mistakes or slip-ups, but this is a very bad approach. It makes workers think that no matter how much they try, management will never be happy and satisfied with the results.

Another example of a toxic workspace is one where employees aren’t being recognized for their hard work. If you don’t show appreciation, they won’t have any motivation or drive to excel at their job.

A lack of recognition leads to disengagement, so make sure to always celebrate hard work. As much as 58% of employees who left a job due to culture claim managers are the main reason they left, so a toxic workspace with bad culture is contributing to employee turnover.

It’s a manager’s job to encourage employees and show them how to fix their mistakes, to always recognize and even reward hard work, as well as use the phrases good managers say regularly. If you create a work environment where everyone feels safe and appreciated, engagement will skyrocket.

Encourage employee creativity

Repetitive routines are incredibly boring, but they’re also a part of many jobs. If you ask your employees to strictly follow a rigid routine for every task they perform, they won’t feel very engaged. Keep in mind that the final product is the only thing that matters, not how people reach that final product.

So there’s no harm in allowing team members to be as creative as they want in their approach to usually mundane tasks. When you encourage this type of individual creativity, employees will feel motivated to find new and fun ways to perform tasks and get all of their work done in record time.

Allowing creative freedom in the workplace allows for professional development since you’re pushing your employees to think outside the box and find creative solutions to every problem that arises.

Final thoughts

An engaged employee is a happy employee. If you do your best to keep your team members highly engaged and satisfied with their jobs, you can be sure that you will have low employee turnover and high profits. And if you apply the strategies you just read about, you won’t have any issues keeping engagement at an all-time high.