There’s no denying that happy staff give the best customer service.
If your customer service staff are happy and engaged people they will give better service than customer service staff who aren’t. With this in mind, it’s worth doing what you can to make sure your staff are happy and engaged. Then they’ll present the best possible face for your business as well as create customers who are brand advocates.
Happy Staff Don’t Dread The Phone Ringing
There’s nothing worse than working in a company where every call is an angry client ringing to abuse whoever answers the phone. Similarly, when internal processes get clients to the screaming stage by being obstructionist or preventing customer service staff from being able to act. You’ll end up with both angry customers and unhappy staff.
The solution?
- Only hire customer service staff that you can trust to make good decisions (i.e.: don’t hire for cost, hire for attitude)
- Train customer service staff well
- Make sure you have guidelines in place that allow customer service staff to act with a certain amount of discretion
- Give customer service staff a voice when it comes to setting policy
- Treat the customers well so they’re more likely to be looking for a solution not a fight should they have a problem with your products or services
Happy Staff Want To Make Others Happy
It’s no secret that happy people want to make other people happy too. It stands to reason that if your customer service staff are happy people, they’ll be wanting to make sure that your customers get the best possible experience when they’re dealing with your business. Even when they’re not actively trying to make someone happier, happiness can be contagious.
How?
- Make it easy for customer service staff to do their jobs
- Foster an attitude of support and inclusiveness throughout the company
- Use customer feedback forms and informal feedback to reward staff who provide exceptional service
- Gamify and incentivise your customer service with rewards and recognition based on quality customer interactions
Happy Staff Have A Win/Win Mindset
When there is a conflict between a customer and the company, it’s important that the customer service staff dealing with the client have a win/win mindset. While it’s important that a customer service staff member is acting on behalf of the business and therefore doesn’t want to give away the farm, you certainly don’t want customer service staff trying to “beat” the client (physically or metaphorically). Ideally your customer service staff want to take whatever action is necessary to find a solution that sends the customer away happy without damaging the business in any way.
To foster a win/win attitude:
- Give customer service staff the authority to make a decision within certain well documented parameters
- Give customer service staff easy access to people who can make higher level decisions on the spot
- When mistakes happen (and they will) treat it as a learning experience not a disciplinary issue
- Make customer service a company wide priority, not just a departmental priority
If your customer service staff are happy, they’ll work harder to keep your customers happy. You’ll probably also find that any changes you make to foster better customer service will trickle on to other departments. Then you’ll have a happy and engaged staff. Who are all doing their best. Which makes interactions with your company a pleasant and fun experience for your customers, suppliers and fellow staff members.
