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.