Hiring and Managing Customer Service Staff

Motivating Customer Service Reps

Motivation is in short supply in many call centers. But as an owner or manager, it's your job to motivate your customer service reps. Here's how to do it.

It's not surprising that customer service departments are magnets for bad attitudes.

Customer service reps face a daily deluge of complaints, problems and verbal abuse from irate customers, making it difficult to maintain a positive and professional attitude.

Yet your company needs a positive and professional customer service department to maintain customer loyalty and build strong relationships with your customer base. So it's up to you to find ways to motivate your employees and create a high-energy work environment.

Motivating customer service reps isn't always easy. But it's necessary - and with a little effort from your customer service managers and leadership team, you can have your call center back in shape in no time. Here are just a few of the things you can do to motivate and inspire your customer service team.

• Set a high bar. Employees have a tendency to perform according to the level of expectations that are placed on them. Setting a high bar gives your team a goal to work toward and motivates them to perform at a higher level.
• Offer performance incentives. Incentives like bonuses and prizes can play a part in motivating your customer service department, but only if the incentives are tied to objective measurements that can be reasonably achieved with hard work and personal initiative.
• Recognize excellence. For many call center workers, recognition is the best reward the employer can offer. When you recognize customer service excellence, you communicate appreciation for a job well done and illustrate success to your entire team.
• Set a professional tone. If your company's customer service managers behave unprofessionally, don't be surprised when your customer service staff does the same. Be proactive about creating a customer service department that is just as professional as every other department in your business.
• Provide support. Customer service reps who feel supported by their supervisor and company leadership are motivated to go the extra mile, especially when they know that their superiors have their backs and are fully invested in their individual success.
• Create learning opportunities. Customer service training events motivate team members to constantly strive for improvement. Sometimes a training event motivates workers by assuring them that they are not alone in the daily challenges they face in the call center.

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