1 thing you must do before customer service staff return
Businesses across Australia are slowly and safely opening their doors and welcoming back their customers and of course, their staff. It’s a return to face to face (and in the same space) service and although it’s not like it was before COVID19 arrived, it is a step in the right direction.
The return to work is a huge relief. Not just for the business and the economy, it’s a relief for the frontline customer service staff who have been worried about the future of their jobs.
Customer Service Professionals who spend a large amount of their day providing face to face service to customers, love what they do because it involves helping people and they really enjoy doing their helping face to face, in person and in real time. They love spending time getting to know the needs, the desires, the pains and problems of customers because customers with problems are like high quality fuel for Customer Service Professionals; they run better when they can solve problems and they feel amazing because their customers thank them and refer all of their friends and family to them.
During isolation, your team may have been communicating with customers via phone-calls or Zoom, which is certainly better than nothing but, it’s not the same experience for customers or for customer service staff. Phone and virtual interactions can leave customer service staff feeling like their super powers of face to face service are being wasted and customers too can miss the face to face experience that also makes them feel good. All of this can lead customer service staff to feel a range of negative emotions ie: anxiety, lowered sense of job satisfaction and even boredom. They have been missing the energy, the drive and the positivity they get from face to face interactions.
The impact of isolated Customer Service Professionals can be a loss of positive energy and a need for a refresher of face to face communication skills.
To combat the negative feelings and as soon as you welcome your customer service team back to the workplace, dedicate some time for a Check In. Use the Check In as research - not problem solving. The goal of the Check In is to gain as much information as you can before you start offering solutions. The best way to conduct a Check In is through using open questions. You can choose to do the Check In with the team all together or as individuals, or you may like to do both. You know your team and you know what will work best.
Open questions start with Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. They are called Open Questions because they open up a conversation. Open questions encourage reflection and as they cannot be answered with a ‘yes or no’, you should be able to gain lots of information. Here’s a few examples:
Who were you sharing your workspace or home with during isolation?
What did you enjoy about isolation?
What was tough or difficult during isolation?
Where did you get your motivation from during isolation?
Why do you think you liked/disliked isolation?
How are you feeling about returning to work?
How could I/we help you so you return to your former positive and service focused best?
Remember, the Check In is to gather information, not to provide solutions on the spot. This will allow you to collate the insights so you can then consider what your team need and what can you do to help them transition with ease. Once you have completed a staff Check In and collated the findings, schedule an Update. The Update is to confirm with the team what the business will be doing to help them transfer from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ world of work.
Remember to also consider the impact of the ‘new’ way of work on the customers. During the Update, ask your team what they think the customers liked or disliked about the business during isolation. Customer service staff who are asked for their input on customer service likes and dislikes are more likley to come to you with ideas and solutions which may help you/your business emerge from isolation possibly better than before lockdown.
True Customer Service Professionals will have ideas of how things could be better for them and the customers - you may be surprised with just how much they have to share.
If you would like some help keeping a focus of service excellence all year then you need to get into The Service Excellence Zone or call us, and we will design and deliver a group training session that will refresh your teams’ service skills and recognise and reward them for their dedication to customer service excellence, no matter where they are working from.
By Cate Schreck - Author of The A-Z of Service Excellence