A team of customer support agents can help you improve your customer satisfaction and NPS. However, it can quickly get challenging when managing them.
How, then, do you go about it?
This blog post shares expert tips on effectively managing customer support agents.
We’ll also show you how to create a reward system for your employees and boost their performance.
After reading this article, you’ll know how to retain your best staff as you boost their morale and productivity.
Grab a seat. You’re about to learn something new.
What is contact centre agent management?
Contact centre agent management involves overseeing customer support agents’ performances in a contact centre.
It includes:
- Setting goals and expectations
- Providing training and coaching
- Allocating resources and tools
- Monitoring and evaluating performance
- Offering feedback and recognition
- Resolving issues and conflicts.
The process includes planning, organising, leading, and controlling to optimise agent performance.
Why is managing contact centre agents necessary?
Here are five reasons to invest in effectively managing your agents:
- They are the front-line representatives, directly engaging with customers.
- They influence customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention, and revenue.
- They need training, coaching, motivation, and feedback for professional growth.
- They confront challenges like workload, stress, burnout, and turnover.
- They navigate evolving technologies, high customer expectations, and business objectives.
Now that you know its importance, how can you manage your support team adeptly without overspending?
These best practices will guide you effectively.
5 expert ways to effectively manage customer support agents
We sourced online for how team management experts manage their teams. Then we brought it into the customer support space to help you convert your team into a smooth customer support engine.
Here they are:
- Hire and onboard top candidates
- Train and foster team development
- Cultivate a supportive environment
- Handle challenging situations
- Measure and improve performance
#1. Hire and onboard top candidates
We place this as the first for good reason. Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple) once said “The secret of my success is that we have gone to extraordinary lengths to hire the best people in the world.”
And Mary Shulzhenko also concurs with Steve Jobs. Here are five ways you can hire like Steve Jobs.
- Identify fitting talent: Seek candidates aligned with your culture and vision. Utilise diverse methods like job boards, referrals, or headhunters.
- Define essential skills: Specify vital job skills and how to measure them. Job descriptions and skill assessments clarify role expectations.
- Assess personality traits: Evaluate alignment between candidates’ traits and your values. Use personality tests or behavioural interviews.
- Conduct interviews: Verify skills and personality through different interview types, structured or unstructured, panel or group.
- Onboard effectively: Smoothly transition new hires into your organisation. Introduce culture, policies, and procedures, and provide necessary training and support.
If you hire and interview virtually, check our virtual interview tips for hiring.
#2. Train and foster team development
Organising training programs is an effective way to manage customer support. HubSpot highlights three things you’ll gain when you train and develop support teams:
- Retain repeat customers
- Reduce employee churn
- Create a successful customer-centric company.
That said, here are essential elements of practical training and development programs:
1. Provide initial training
As John Maxwell, #1 New York Times bestselling author, coach, and speaker, said:
“To impact your organisation, focus on leadership development. A strong organisation recruits and turns their best staff into growth leaders.”
So, equip your new hires with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Tailor your initial training to their specific needs.
2. Establish ongoing training programs
Learning is a continuous process that shouldn’t end after the initial onboarding.
“What’s worse than training your workers and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.” Take a moment to think about this statement by Zig Ziglar.
Ongoing training programs help employees update their skills, learn new ones and adapt to changing situations. It can take various forms, such as workshops, webinars, coaching, mentoring and peer learning.
It also helps employees stay motivated and consistent.
3. Assess performance
You want to ensure that trainees find the training useful. Donald Kirkpatrick‘s Four-Level Training Evaluation Model explains how important this is.
You must assess how they felt about the training by asking them questions and (or) observing them.
Ask them questions like:
- Was the training worth your time?
- How do you rate the success of the training?
- What were the best and worst parts of the training?
- How do you rate the venue and presentation style?
- Did the training session suit your learning styles?
- Were the training activities engaging?
- What are the three most important things that you learned from this training?
- How do you plan to use what you learned in your job?
- What kind of support do you need to apply what you learned?
- Decide how you want to measure trainees’ reactions.
Use employee satisfaction surveys or ask for verbal feedback. Also, watch their body language during feedback sessions.
Then, analyse the feedback they give you.
You’ll find out what topics you might have missed or need to cover more for future training programs.
4. Offer career growth opportunities
Are you scared they’ll leave once you train them to become their best?
Here’s what Richard Branson, a renowned business magnate, says about that:
“Train [your agents] well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
Training and development programs should focus on the employees’ roles and potential.
Offer career growth opportunities. It helps employees develop their talents, expand their horizons and achieve their aspirations.
Give them promotions, transfers, rotations, special projects and educational support. Offering career growth opportunities also helps retain employees and reduce turnover.
Check out our resource on how to coach your team and some available training resources you can use.
#3. Cultivate a supportive environment
Creating a supportive environment is essential for any organisation to achieve its goals and retain its talent.
A supportive environment is one where employees feel valued, respected, and motivated to deliver their best.
These fundamental elements will help you create a supportive environment.
1. Foster open communication
Communication is the bedrock of any thriving relationship and is especially important in the workplace.
Open communication means employees can share their ideas, convictions, and concerns without fear of judgment or retaliation. It also means that leaders can communicate their vision, expectations, and feedback clearly and effectively.
As the famous author and speaker Stephen Covey said:
“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most important ingredient in effective communication.”
By fostering open communication, you can create a culture of trust, collaboration, and innovation.
2. Encourage feedback
Feedback is another crucial component of communication, and it can help employees grow and improve their performance.
As renowned psychologist Carol Dweck once said:
“Feedback is information. It shows you how close you are to your goal.”
This feedback can be positive and constructive and should be specific, timely, and relevant. It helps you create a culture of learning, development, and accountability.
It should, without saying, be delivered with respect and empathy. Only then will it be received with openness and gratitude.
3. Implement reward systems to motivate employees
As Zig Ziglar said, “You don’t get what you want; you get what you reward.”
Reward and recognition systems are a source of motivation for employees on their achievements. It fosters a culture of appreciation, motivation, and engagement.
Also, reward systems can be both extrinsic and intrinsic.
Extrinsic rewards are tangible rewards like bonuses, promotions, or recognition awards. Intrinsic rewards are intangible rewards like autonomy, mastery, or purpose. Whichever way, they shouldn’t deviate from your realities. So, align them with your organisational values and goals.
#4. Handle challenging situations
Handling challenging situations is a crucial skill if you want to effectively lead your team. Your role requires dealing with demanding customers and resolving conflicts among team members.
Here are two critical elements of handling challenging situations.
1. Manage difficult customers
Managing demanding customers is a daunting yet rewarding task.
Difficult customers challenge us to improve our communication, problem-solving, and customer service standards.
As Alison Mathiebe, a customer service expert, puts it:
“Challenging customers are valuable for our growth. They push us to explore new possibilities, to adapt to changing situations, and to unleash our creativity and innovation.”
Your call centre agents can turn negative interactions into positive outcomes. To do this, teach your employees to remain calm and professional.
Demanding customers may have different reasons for being unhappy or dissatisfied with your service. Some may have unrealistic expectations. Others may be frustrated by a problem. Some may just be having a bad day.
Whatever the case, your call centre agents must listen and empathise with them. They should find solutions that meet the customers’ needs and exceed their expectations.
2. Resolve conflicts among team members
Conflicts occur due to different personalities, opinions, values, or interests. To resolve them:
- Promote a culture of trust and respect among your team members
- Encourage open and honest communication
- Facilitate dialogue and collaboration
- Acknowledge different perspectives
- Focus on common goals and interests
- Seek win-win solutions that benefit everyone.
As Alison puts it:
“Without different perspectives (even those expressed strongly), we might miss opportunities. We’ll make decisions based on incomplete information or fail to question our assumptions.”
#5. Measure and improve performance
Like Bruce Hamilton, president of GBMP, says
“Continuous improvement is about disconnecting from the things that get in the way of your work. The challenges, the things that slow you down, that’s what continuous improvement is all about.”
If you want to grow your business in today’s world, regularly measure your team’s performance. Here’s how to do it.
1. Set targets and key performance indicators (KPIs)
Maintain a clear vision of what you must achieve and how to measure your progress. As Yogi Berra puts it:
“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up elsewhere”.
KPIs are quantifiable metrics that show how well you’re doing. For example, you can track your sales, revenue, customer retention, or satisfaction rates.
2. Conduct regular performance reviews
As John Doerr, a venture capitalist and author of Measure What Matters, says:
“Without a sense of purpose, aligning a team behind a goal is hard.”
Performance reviews are a great way to get feedback from your team, managers, and stakeholders. They can help agents identify areas for improvement, celebrate achievements, and set new goals.
2. Utilise customer satisfaction surveys
As the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, says:
“The most important single thing is to focus obsessively on the customer.”
So, you need to know what your customers think about your products or services. Customer satisfaction surveys are a simple and effective way to collect customer feedback.
They can help you recognise their needs, preferences, expectations, and pain points. They can also help you measure your customer loyalty and advocacy.
3. Implement changes based on feedback
You’re not exempt from receiving feedback from others. As Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, puts it:
“We all need people who will give us feedback. That’s how we improve.”
Then, you must act on your feedback and make changes to improve your team’s performance.
Changes can be small or big, depending on the situation and the feedback. They could mean improving your products or services, enhancing customer service, streamlining processes, or innovating new solutions.
Common mistakes when managing your support agents and how to avoid them
Managing a team of support agents can be challenging. Get it wrong, and you’ll always be face-to-face with angry customers.
Here are some common mistakes that managers make and how to avoid them:
- Lack of training and feedback: Support agents need the appropriate skills and knowledge to handle customer requests effectively and efficiently. To avoid this mistake, invest in quality training programs. Set clear expectations and goals and conduct frequent reviews and coaching sessions.
- Not empowering your agents to make decisions: Support agents often face situations that require quick decision-making. With poor decision-making skills, they’ll lack authority or confidence to resolve issues. So, provide agents with guidelines and best practices. This will help improve your first call resolution rate.
- Not fostering a positive and collaborative culture: Support agents work best when they feel valued, respected, and supported by their peers and managers. To avoid this mistake, create a positive and collaborative culture in your team and encourage communication and feedback.
What’s next?
You need an effective communication tool to help your agents provide the best customer experience.
A tool that can help you streamline your workflows, optimise your processes, and enhance your customer experience. TelebuHub is that tool.
TelebuHub is a powerful and easy-to-use call centre software that allows you to connect with your team, share your screen, chat, and more.
Whether you need to host a webinar, training, or brainstorming session, TelebuHub has you covered.
Sign up for a free trial today and transform your remote work experience. Or contact our team of experts no matter your location.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
How do you manage customer service agents?
Managing customer service agents is not easy, but it can be rewarding if you do it right. You must set rewards and recognition that motivate your employees. Set clear expectations, provide regular feedback, and offer training and development opportunities. You must also monitor their performance, handle issues or conflicts, and ensure they have the tools and resources to do their job well.
What does a customer support agent do?
A customer support agent helps customers with their questions, problems, or complaints. They can work on different phones, email, chat, or social media channels. Their main goal is to provide a positive and satisfying customer experience by resolving issues, answering queries, providing information, or giving advice. They must also follow company policies and procedures, document their interactions, and escalate complex cases appropriately.
What is the customer service management process?
The customer service management process is a company’s set of activities to deliver high-quality customer service. It involves planning, organising, directing, controlling, and evaluating customer service operations. It also includes designing and implementing customer service strategies, standards, and systems that align with the company’s goals and values.
What is an example of customer service management?
An example of customer service management is how a hotel handles guests’ requests and complaints. The hotel may have a customer service manager who oversees the front desk staff, concierge, housekeeping, and maintenance teams. The manager may also coordinate with other departments, such as sales, marketing, or finance, to ensure a smooth and consistent guest experience. The manager may also use customer feedback surveys, online reviews, or social media to measure and improve the quality of service.
What skills should a customer support agent have?
A customer support agent should have communication, problem-solving, customer service, technical, and teamwork skills.
What are the qualities of a good call centre agent?
- Technical skill: They can use various software and tools to find and evaluate information quickly and accurately.
- Channel experience: They have phone support experience and know how to deal with customers and situations over the phone.
- Aptitude with data: They can understand and use data to measure and improve performance.
- Bilingualism: They can speak many languages and communicate better with customers from different regions or countries.
- Tenacity: They are willing and able to handle new and unexpected problems effectively and quickly.
- Flexibility: They can quickly adapt to changing customer needs and expectations and learn new skills and knowledge.
- Communication skills: They can listen, speak, write, and use appropriate tone and language for different customers and situations.
- Process-oriented: They can follow and document the established processes and procedures for handling different calls.
