As any savvy business owner can tell you, customer service is at the heart of any company -- and customer service agents are the lifeblood. A support team can handle anywhere from dozens to thousands of inquiries daily, doing their best to resolve issues, provide information, and otherwise keep customers happy.
Naturally, every business owner wants their support team to be as efficient as possible -- but on a daily basis, support staff often encounter small challenges that hinder their productivity. These small obstacles can stack up over time, making minor issues into major ones. But fortunately, there are some steps you can take to remove those little stumbling blocks and improve efficiency and customer service experience at the same time.
Customer Service Agents and Common Productivity Hurdles
First, let's talk a little bit about the most common hurdles facing customer support staff.
First is a lack of proper training. There are any number of reasons why your staff might not be trained as well as they could be, and not all of them are blame-worthy, but this can nonetheless leave agents unsure how to handle requests, costing valuable time while they search for answers.
Next, there's the issue of limited access to tools and information. If agents don't have ready access to crucial resources, they may struggle to provide accurate responses, or even worse, provide inaccurate ones -- a sure-fire recipe for customer dissatisfaction.
Finally, there's the issue of inconsistent schedules. When it comes to support, not all days are created equal -- a sudden fluctuation in customer demand can lead to overworked agents during peak hours, just as an unexpected downturn can lead to agents sitting idle. Both can be deadly to your overall efficiency.
How to Improve Efficiency
While these issues are common, they fortunately aren't terribly difficult to address. Here are some tried-and-true strategies for improving efficiency across the board.
Empower with Training
Training is one of the most powerful tools you have in your arsenal when it comes to improving efficiency. Ideally, your training should cover:
- Customer service techniques, including communication, empathy, and conflict resolution
- Product knowledge, including any changes, updates, or new services. The more comprehensive the training in this department, the better.
Training should also be continuing and ongoing, as neither customer expectations nor the business landscape are static.
Give Them the Right Tools
As for the issue of insufficient tools, that one's possibly the easiest fix of all: get your staff the right tools! It truly will make all the difference in their day-to-day productivity. Among the most crucial of software tools:
- Call center software, such as Zendesk, provides a unified interface for creating, altering, and resolving tickets.
- Scheduling software, such as Soon, to help managers easily create shifts and adjust schedules based on customer demand or emergent challenges.
- Customer relationship management (CRM) tools, to keep track of your customers and personalize your service, which will help with customer retention.
Leverage Your Assets
Once you build an array of tools, it's important to make the best use of what they provide, whether that's automated ticket routing, AI chatbots, integrated systems, or any number of other features. Automation in particular can help reduce workload on your agents and keep them focused on the more sophisticated tasks that need a human touch.
Build a Knowledge Base
One of the best tools you can have on hand for your support team is a knowledge base or resource library. A good knowledge base will put all the important information about a product or service at their fingertips, which ensures quick retrieval of information and lower response times.
Keep Communication Open
Feedback loops are an important part of continually improving your workflow. Encourage your agents to share feedback on problems or challenges, and make sure you keep them updated on changes to products or services. Good communication is vital to building trust and boosting morale (more on the importance of that in a moment).
Data-Driven Improvements
Many business software suites offer analytics and metrics to help you not only track issues like call abandonment and slow response time, but also to gain deeper insights into what is and isn't working in your support team. A data-driven improvement strategy can help you to identify training gaps where your agents could use more support, as well as optimize workflows and introduce automation where it can do the most good.
Foster a Positive Work Environment
While efficiency is important, it's also important to remember that customer service is famously high-stress, and it's important to create a positive workplace atmosphere in order to keep morale high. Demoralized, stressed-out agents can't do their best work, and your long-term productivity will suffer as a result. Make your agents feel valued, and they will provide more value to your company in return!
