Making Your Support Center Great Resignation-Proof

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Whether you call it the “Great Resignation,” the “Big Quit,” or as some have even said, the “Great Renegotiation,” this moment of massive upheaval has been a flashpoint for workers who have felt undervalued and stuck in unfulfilling positions for too long.

Customer service has notoriously high turnover rates. As more reps consider greener pastures, companies and customer experience team leaders will have to invest more time and resources to make their workplace resignation-proof.

At a baseline level, keeping and supporting employees prevents costly hiring and onboarding of recruits, not to mention service delays. But at a more fundamental level, creating better work environments for your support heroes will empower them to work smarter and support your customers better while ultimately growing into leadership roles within your organization.

Instead of raising morale with cold brew on tap or in-office ping pong tables, focus more on making the work itself more rewarding and engaging. For your support heroes to feel truly valued in the workplace and maintain their employment, here are some essential strategies to implement.

Make Customer Service Engaging

Your support heroes should be aware of the valuable role they play in the company, from answering a shopper’s question in record speed to helping a customer score a discount. To give reps more positive reinforcement for a job well done, many workplaces are “gamifying” their customer service teams to give additional pay, prizes, or other rewards to high performers.

One Gladly customer took this concept particularly to heart during the holiday season, when it can be particularly difficult to hire additional help. This fashion brand used the multi-week shopping period to give out daily prizes to top service hero performers. During a time when customer experience can reach a breaking point, this brand spun it into a morale booster.

Team leaders should only use this gamification strategy as positive reinforcement rather than punitive. Displaying performance stats among peers for anything other than praise can create conflict among your heroes. Your team members should be celebrated and uplifted.

Provide Easy-to-use Systems

If your support heroes can’t do their job with the provided tools, their frustration will bubble over in the form of slower response times, fewer pleasant interactions with customers, and at times more reps leaving their positions altogether. Be sure to equip them with the right software to serve customers to the best of their ability.

Comprehensive, streamlined customer experience platforms like Gladly are a gateway to enabling your heroes’ success. Easy-to-use software lets them tackle numerous customer challenges on the fly, upsell to customers to increase revenue, and bolster existing relationships for greater long-term value. Enabling your agents to assist becomes a chain reaction that leads to happy customers and a positive brand image.

Your interface of choice should be as easy to master as possible, so reps can focus on providing service, not playing around with a clunky, poorly explained customer experience program that feels ineffective. With frequent changes in hiring, implementing the easiest onboarding process possible is particularly important to maintaining consistency in service.

Pave the Way for Your Heroes’ Success

Setting your employees up for success starts with onboarding but remains a continuous process throughout their employment. Reps provide an enormous first line of support on your brand’s behalf and should feel that there is a potential to grow within the company.

Long-lasting companies provide leadership opportunities and training for their teams and hire from within to build up those individuals who reflect their brand’s values. By offering your customer experience staff the ability to develop within your company, you’ll see them display a greater sense of ownership within their work and lower turnover.

No company is proud of high turnover rates in any department, but customer experience teams are especially known to have difficulty with employee retention. In a time of even greater turnover, some simple but crucial strategies for managing your team can create an employee-first philosophy that will keep your bottom line low and your corporate culture at an all-time high.

About Gladly

Gladly is a customer service platform for digitally-focused B2C companies who want to maximize the lifetime value of their customers. Unlike the legacy approach to customer service software, which is designed around a ticket or case to enable workflows, Gladly enables radically personal customer service centered around people to sustain customer loyalty and drive more revenue.

The world’s most innovative consumer companies like Godiva, JOANN, and TUMI use Gladly to create lasting customer relationships, not one-off experiences. 

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