Last Updated on November 9, 2020

Customer service automations spewing robotic answers with no sincerity or commitment are now the norm, not the exception. You can almost smell their indifference through the phone. When you call with a problem, you’re made to feel like you’re inconveniencing them instead of the other way around.

“Why are you laughing?”

These people are answering your phones – right now.

Some people really do love to provide great service and enjoy answering customer calls, building relationships and finding solutions to problems is their idea of time well spent. Wherever they are in your call center, find them and keep them.

The silent majority, though, are the folks who are there to make a living. Beats digging ditches, right? They have no overtly bad intentions and no hidden agenda. It’s just that going the extra mile is not in their nature, unless something very valuable is at stake. They’ll do enough to get by and that’s it.

This silent majority also happens to be the backbone of your workforce. They’re the ‘B’ students who establish the middle ground. They’re the infantry holding down the front line. You need them and they need you.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to keep as many of these average joe’s performing at acceptable levels as possible. A few of them, with the right guidance, will ascend to the top of the ‘B’s’ – becoming ‘B plusses’ or ‘A minuses’ if you will. Identify them, invest in them and enjoy the rewards.

Some of these average joe’s will fall from ‘B-ville’ and find themselves wallowing in the muck of those with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. A decision must be made with them. Invest the time and resources needed to get them back to the middle of the pack or have the heart to heart talks you’ve been putting off for far too long.

Leading isn’t easy, but you knew that already.

Record, Review and Coach

There is one way you can make your job much easier. It’s like having eyes in the back of your head. You can’t do a live observation of every conversation and you wouldn’t want to anyway. However, you can record all of your incoming and outgoing customer service calls. A call logging solution let’s you do this easily.

Pick a customer service rep, access the call logger and pull out random samples of calls during the past week. Review each call against a pre-determined criteria, document your findings and pull the rep in for feedback. Feedback doesn’t have to be about technical elements of the call. You can discuss the human side of the customer interaction and set expectations for how the rep should be communicating, not just what they should be communicating.

Set a regular, periodic review time for the rep and stick with it. If feedback is given and performance doesn’t improve…well, you’re the boss and you know what to do. If the rep is abandoning their robotic tendencies, consider it a huge victory. Not many can make the jump.

Last Updated on November 9, 2020