Your customer service teams play a vital role in your company’s financial success. After all, they attend to the needs and inquiries of your customers. As such, the quality of their work can affect consumer satisfaction and brand loyalty. It can have a lasting impact on the reputation and profitability of your organisation. Hence, your teams should spearhead by leaders knowledgeable in their fields and equip with the skills needed to take your business to the next level.
On that note, the first step in creating great customer service leaders is to provide them with the resources they need to succeed. These include regular training or coaching opportunities that can teach them new skills and help them improve existing ones. It is why it’s a good idea to invest in a trusted customer service training course.
There are skills, qualities, and experiences that successful customer service leaders possess, instilled during training programs or other means, depending on your company’s available resources. To learn more, below are five ways to help your customer service leaders excel in their jobs:
Give Them Hands-on Experience with Customers
Even if leaders are mainly in charge of guiding their team members, they should still spend some time on the front lines occasionally. In other words, they should have the opportunity to serve the customers themselves. It will keep them updated on changing needs and mindsets of buyers, preventing them from harbouring outdated and misconceived notions that could affect the quality of their customer service strategies.
Additionally, by immersing themselves in these interactions, leaders can gain a direct understanding of the customer representative experience. As a result, they can develop a leadership style that best addresses the needs of their team members.
Hone Their Communication Skills
Knowing how to communicate effectively is a crucial and necessary skill for customer service leaders, as they often speak with customers, team members, and other departments daily. Hence, you must provide your leaders with training that will help them strengthen their conversational intelligence.
According to research, top-performing customer service leaders possess the ability to communicate clearly and empathetically. Empathy is essential in communication, as it allows leaders to pick up on subtle conversational cues and put themselves in the shoes of others. It helps them establish authentic connections with their customers and team members. For example, when customers file complaints, an empathetic leader can validate their concerns and make them feel heard.
Provide Them with the Right Digital Tools
Advancements in technology are quickly raising consumer expectations, which means that your leaders must be ready to rise to the challenge. Given this, leaders and their teams should be provided with digital tools to enhance their interactions with customers.
The best leaders know how to maximise the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT) technologies to provide customers with responsive and efficient services. For example, rather than being a direct replacement for human interaction, your leaders can investigate investing in AI software that can process a customer’s words and supply employees with the most appropriate responses based on predictive analytics.
Ensure That They Have a Written Mission and Policies in Place
To guide their teams effectively, leaders should have metrics for quality customer service. Encourage them to gather insights from other departments—like sales, IT, and marketing—and their interactions with customers. Ask your leaders to write a clear mission statement summarising core practices and values based on their collected data. Then, ask them to share the document with their teams. Leaders should also provide team members with written policies that contain responses or protocols to different customer scenarios.
Unified criteria for quality work will help teams provide consistently good services to all your customers. Research shows that 73 per cent of consumers are willing to switch brands due to inconsistent service.
Teach Them How to Cultivate an Empowering Workplace Culture
Research shows that the quality of customer service can rise by 5 per cent, and profits can rise by 2 per cent for every 10 per cent increase in employee engagement. Therefore, your customer service leaders must know how to keep their teams engaged and productive. The best way to do this is by cultivating a healthy workplace culture.
Keeping this in mind, leaders should give team members the freedom to solve problems, providing they meet expectations. It empowers them to make decisions and trains them to think critically and creatively. Leaders should still be ready to offer support and constructive feedback to their teams.
Other ways of fostering morale and employee development include hosting team-building events and showing appreciation for each member’s efforts. Indeed, leaders should remember that satisfied employees make satisfied customers.
The best way to get your customer service leaders to excel is to focus on developing the skills and qualities they need to stay ahead of the competition. Some essential ones include conversational intelligence, leadership, initiative, and technological competence. By following the tips mentioned above, you will develop leaders that can guide their teams in creating a customer experience unlike any other.
Check Priority Management Australia’s leadership courses.