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Three Strategies Successful Service Organizations Must Do In 2021

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As customer service continues to be vitally important to running a business, there are several things customer support organizations must focus on to separate themselves from the competition.

Let me introduce you to Melissa Matross, SVP of product management at Salesforce, who shared three priorities that all service organizations must consider. These priorities aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They are “musts,” imperative to keeping your organization current with customers’ expectations. I’ve shared her main points, followed by my comments.

1.      Empower your Team with Continuous Learning: The concept of empowerment has been talked about for years. Now, more than ever, agents and other customer-facing employees must be empowered to make good decisions on behalf of the customer. Forcing employees to ask permission to do something that is obviously reasonable and benefits the customer is ridiculous, especially if permission to do so has been granted before. Teach employees what they can and cannot do. If you give permission for them to do it once, unless stated otherwise, that means it’s a “green light” for similar situations in the future. How can you ensure employees are properly equipped to make good decisions? Train them. Give them the skills needed to be effective in their jobs. According to Salesforce’s State of Service 2020 Report, 55% of customer service agents say they need better training in order to do their jobs well.

2.      Remove Anything that Causes Inefficiency: Customers want convenience. So do employees. Customers want to be able to connect to the company however they want to connect. Nothing new here. It could be by phone, email, text messaging, social media and more. And, when they do connect, it shouldn’t be a hassle. Eliminate long hold times, multiple transfers—anything that causes friction and inefficiency. From the outside, it looks easy. Internally, it can be more complicated. According to Salesforce research, half of service leaders say gathering and analyzing data is a pain point in their process. Collecting and making sense of data is a labor-intensive process that needs to be simplified. Finding an efficient way to get data is key to operational success. Knowing how many people to staff, how to route customers’ calls, which channels customers are using to connect, and other important pieces of information all come from having and understanding the data. Once you have the understanding, you can start to create a better workflow. Companies are investing in ways to best gather and understand data, new technology that creates more efficient processes, and more. Matross says, “In the year ahead, successful service organizations will be looking to eliminate manual process and stand-alone tools that hold them back from optimizing their operations.”

3.      Give Your Agents a Clear and Flexible Career Path: There is an inefficiency that is often overlooked: the cost, time and effort that comes with employee churn. As everyone seems to be focused on customer loyalty, the concept of employee loyalty is sometimes forgotten. Employees want to know there is a future in the company they work for. They want stability, while at the same time, the opportunity to grow. This growth can take the form of career advancement or simply an increase in skills and capabilities. To start with, customer service agents must have the tools they need to do their job. According to the Salesforce report, 77% of service agents say they have the tools and technology they need to do their jobs. This is where a good training program comes in. Two areas of opportunity include ongoing training on how to use new technology, and cross-functional training that fulfills the employee’s need for growth.

These three ideas all tie together. Employees want to learn. They want simple processes that don’t create friction, thereby making it easier for them to focus on taking care of their customers. They want to be fulfilled in their careers and have the opportunity to learn and grow. All of this means a better experience inside the organization that makes for a better experience on the outside for the customer.

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