What do you do if your customer service team needs a fresh perspective?

Customer service and feedback is often worshipped, but not thought through thoroughly. Begin by asking why? Understand how will the process work, what insights are we looking to gather, what kind of differentiation are we trying to establish.

1. start a contest to try to beat a KPI or incentivize the team. 2. send out a motivational video clip or a short article for the team to read 3. mix things up- have managers handle frontline interactions for a week, a day, even a few hours (many companies like McDonald's have their top leaders spend 1 day a year working the frontlines.

Asses there to establish whether they need mentorship training or innovative processes. Often managers rush for trainings before understanding underlying factors

Begin with the heartbeat of the company - its culture. Cultivate a team culture that thrives on energy and a sense of belonging to a greater purpose. instill this ethos in your team and witness the enchantment of collective magic unfold.

An example if seen in my experience is, at times we turn to stick to one way of doing things whereas exploring different strategies and trying different methods helps to make everyone's job easily and efficiently done

1) Take them to a fancy restaurant for lunch (3 course meal) and have a friendly discussion, pick their brains on fresh perspective. Sometimes the work environment is too tensed for inspiration 2) Plan a team building/bonding retreat with a lot of 'exciters' before the day. Best idea gets 3times their monthly take home etc. (fresh perspectives be flying left, right and center!) Basically, the Organisation has to win the loyalty of her customer (Internal or external) right?. In this case, it is about winning the loyalty of her 'Internal customer'. Get them so attached and loyal to the organisation that the can boldly say: "MY ORGANISATION CARES ABOUT ME". They will shun poachers, and run with the vision.

To infuse new energy into the customer service team, I would organise a customer experience day where team members role-play as customers to gain valuable insights firsthand and refresh their perspective.

Determining the perspective depends on the feedback received from customers, and work must always be sought in advance before reaching the pressure point, and the new perspective is always supported by previous experiences and experience.

Feedback in very essential in this regards, because it opens our minds to various ideas and views from different works of life that can be useful. Pick a nice setting, relaxing, with a little picnic, to help ease up the stress and make the employees feel comfortable sharing their thoughts.

Seek Feedback Reflect on what you hope to gain. Identify the right people to ask for feedback. Prepare the right questions. Take notes on your feedback. Graciously reflect and review. Be willing to accept information with a positive, open mind. Adopt a growth mindset. Be nonjudgemental.

Implement Cross-Training programs and encourage the team members to learn from each other by cross-training in different roles or departments. This makes the team to diversify themselves and learn the different processes across the organisation which can help you in the future when you get promoted or if there’s a requirement in that team then the knowledge might help in cracking the IJP and move to the role.

You might be asking yourself here - “but teach them what…?” There is an innate human desire for growth and progress, as individuals yearn to elevate themselves to new heights. There are always areas where your team can expand their knowledge and skills to become even better. You got this;)

Encourage your customer service team to collaborate with other departments, such as marketing, product, or operations. Enable knowledge-sharing sessions, joint projects, or shadowing opportunities to expose your team to different viewpoints and approaches. This can help your customer service team gain a broader understanding of the organization and its challenges.

Implement Training The implementation phase is where the training program comes to life. Program implementation should consider the timeline, employee engagement, learning KPI goals, and related resources (facilities, equipment, etc.). Participant progress should be monitored during training to ensure the program is effective.

If customer service team needs a fresh perspective, we can try introducing new training sessions, gathering feedback, and encouraging creative ideas from the team.

Implement a mentorship program for customer service teams to enhance skills and performance. 1. Define program objectives 2. Design program structure 3. Select mentors 4. Recruit mentees 5. Provide training 6. Establish communication channels 7. Encourage feedback 8. Monitor progress 9. Recognize and reward participation 10. Evaluate and iterate Follow these steps and enhance your team's skills and knowledge, leading to improved customer satisfaction and team performance.

Mentoring is an opportunity to showcase expertise and gain other team member’s perspectives. Rotation in between member pals will introduce new insights and refreshes the team with new approaches and perspectives on processes as well as can be a precedent on streamlining workflows for efficiency.

Mentorship Programs A mentorship program is a structured and organized initiative that facilitates the pairing of experienced individuals (mentors) with less experienced ones (mentees) to provide guidance, support, and knowledge transfer.

Sometime, sending one to work in the station of the seasoned personel, provides them with a little change of environment and may boost their desire to learn more from their mentor and look at things differently.

Stimulating creativity and innovation within the team, encouraging new ideas and approaches to address existing challenges and enhance the customer experience. Providing training and development opportunities for the team, including programs in communication skills, problem-solving, and time management, as well as in new technologies. Exploring and adopting new technologies and customer service tools that can improve efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction, such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, chatbots, or omnichannel customer service platforms.

Create an environment where your team feels empowered to try new ideas, test hypotheses, and experiment with different approaches to customer service. Encourage a culture of continuous improvement, where team members are rewarded for their willingness to take calculated risks and learn from both successes and failures. Provide the necessary resources, support, and psychological safety for your team to explore innovative solutions.

Innovate Processes The innovation process, which some people refer to as the creative process, is the transformation of an idea into valuable products or services. In business, creative processes may make a company's goods or services more desirable to consumers and help it maintain a competitive advantage.

We have to be in par with currnt trends and demands..we can be with obsolete information.. Theeeagain if we are not updated with trends and needs and if we are not agile to customer expectations, surely the sales hit it is within our reach to improvements and nothing to do with the product offering.. We should speak how this product or our service offering will resolve the pain points of the customer.. Today it's all about solution selling and product positioning.. It may vary from product or service to another but we should create some value propositions..

Implementing new technologies, like AI and automation to provide faster and more personalized service, utilizing data analytics to gain insights into customer preferences and behavior to create a more convenient and engaging customer experience.

We should show our appreciation to the customer service agent for their excellent performance. This can be done in the form of a structured bonus from the company or even a personal gift from us as a team leader. We should also give them a pep talk to boost their morale and enhance their performance. It's important to focus on their strengths so they can maintain their good performance.

Celebrating accomplishments can increase job satisfaction, loyalty, motivation, and overall job performance leading to a positive and productive work environment.

Actively solicit feedback from your customers, either through surveys, interviews, or user research. Analyze the customer data and insights to identify areas for improvement or opportunities to enhance the customer experience. Involve your team in the process of interpreting and acting on the customer feedback, encouraging them to challenge existing assumptions and approaches.

Have a team building fun day in order to relax yet learn and work together at the same time. It's refreshing and helps give a boost to morale which will improve the service they offer to clients/customers.

If my customer service team needs a fresh perspective, I'd encourage open communication, gather feedback from team members, and explore innovative solutions together to enhance customer satisfaction and performance.

I would set a date and time for each representative to randomly call in anonymously and see how their personal experience is. Such calls would be monitored, then used as part of training to improve the overall performance of the team.

Get your customer service team really involved in shaping the organization. Since they're the ones closest to customers' sentiments, they're probably the ones with the most valuable feedback and are able to provide insights as to how to fix things in the customer journey ultimately leading to a delightful experience. Leverage on their capacity to improve internal processes and not just the daily work of answering customer queries.