In order for your business to grow, you need the right teams to support it. By delivering high-quality customer service, you increase customer satisfaction, increasing profits. Developing and growing your customer service teams is like building the foundation for your overall business growth. Growing your teams is about more than hiring more people. It requires you to focus on fostering a culture of personal growth, collaboration, and success. These 15 strategies will help you grow your teams by investing in customer service.
1. Encourage Collaboration
The purpose of having your employees work in teams is to foster a great output through collaboration. By promoting collaboration, you encourage employees to work together. By collaborating, the output becomes higher quality and greater in volume. Employees can learn from each other to enhance their own skills, allowing them to improve their professional performance moving forward. However, there are some risks when encouraging collaboration. You risk one employee’s voice becoming louder than others. You risk employees not feeling heard. To prevent this, make time for each employee on the team to speak and be heard. Set clear expectations that all employees must adhere to. Encourage counter-opinions and ideas that could spark healthy debate. Allow the team members to make group decisions about work-related topics that will directly impact their workflow and output.
2. Offer Regular Feedback
Being receptive to feedback is a must for professional growth. As a leader, you should be receptive to the feedback you receive from your team. This is the only way you will be able to improve the team and its performance. Conversely, you want to cultivate a team that is receptive to feedback. Hold regular performance reviews where you give constructive feedback to team members. Work with them to find productive ways of addressing areas for improvement.
3. Develop Employee Skills
Hire employee who shows a drive to develop their professional skills and knowledge. You don’t have to hire an entire team of workers with decades of experience. This could work against you, as many are set in their ways and are comfortable in their workflow habits. Instead, consider hiring a mix of varying levels of experience and knowledge. The more experienced employees will provide the wisdom of experience to the team. The less experienced employees will give the team a fresh perspective and innovation. Having a team with varying levels of expertise also creates a more stable team. You don’t have to worry about everyone on the team reaching the same stage of their career at the same time.
Create a development plan for each team member. Talk with the employees about their plans for their time at the company and their overall career. Determine how this aligns with their plans. Create a plan that includes skills training and development. There should be an overall goal and purpose for the training. Try to avoid sending employees to random one-off conferences or classes. There should be a purpose to the training they receive.
4. Leverage a Mentoring Program
Establish a mentoring program for new employees. Have more experienced employees mentor newer employees. This can be a formal program where you review experience and skill sets and have employees formally matched with each other. It can also be a more casual program. Host a social event for employees with the purpose of finding a mentor. Then, let the employees choose a mentor or mentee that they are comfortable with. A mentoring relationship can be what the team members make of it. They can provide motivation, emotional support, professional advice, or life guidance.
5. Team Culture Definition
Define the team culture that you want your customer service teams to have. Remember that working with the general public can be energy-draining, making maintaining a positive team culture harder. You don’t want stress and frustration to bleed over into team communications. Focus on creating a positive and supportive team culture. A team culture should define the values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of those who are on the team. Culture is established from the top down, so have your company leadership behave in accordance with the cultural standards you hope to achieve.
6. Embrace Team Growth
Growth and change can be scary, even for business leaders. It can be especially scary for team members who feel insecure about their own roles. Lead by example and embrace team growth. Take notice of employees who exhibit a desire for growth by investing in their own professional development. Acknowledge employees by recognizing and rewarding their efforts. Maintain a promote-from-within policy that prioritizes employees already employed at the company getting promoted. Have regular check-ins with employees during the team growth process. Directly address criticisms and concerns. Remind team members of why they are an important and valued aspect of the team.
Encourage employees to share the skills and knowledge they learn with their team members. This fosters a culture of collaboration and highlights the importance of growth. Offer employees opportunities for personal growth by offering additional training seminars, paying for classes, or giving time off to attend industry educational events.
7. Hire New Skill Sets
Over time, you may find that your teams become increasingly homogenous. You find a type of professional that works well in a particular position, and you focus on hiring more people who fit the mold. While this is smart, it can also be limiting. Having an entire team with similar skill sets creates a void. Instead, focus on cultivating a team that has a broad range of backgrounds and experiences. That way, they bring something different to the table. This makes collaborating as a team easier, as they naturally gravitate towards different roles and responsibilities.
8. Appoint the Right People
When you have the right people in place, you can achieve more. This starts with your top-level leadership and every position throughout the company. The right people in leadership positions will be able to see the company’s big picture. They can bring multiple teams together under a unit goal for the company’s growth and success. The right people in management positions can focus on the day-to-day leadership of their team. They have strong interpersonal and organizational skills. They understand what it takes to succeed on their team and cultivate a culture of growth. The right people on your teams are skilled, knowledgeable, and motivated. They don’t necessarily have to have experience but show a drive for professional growth. If you have the wrong people in any of these positions, then work to replace them with the right people. This does not mean taking drastic measures of mass layoffs, as this can cause more harm than good. It could simply mean moving people from one position to another within the company.
9. Trust Your Team
You can’t do everything yourself, so it is vital that you trust your team. Teach your team what they need to know to do their job successfully. Then, take a step back and let them do their job. Monitor performance by periodically checking in with performance evaluations. Communicate your performance expectations and hold employees accountable for meeting them. By building your trust in your team, your team will begin to trust you. Stay consistent with your communication, goals, and standards. Your team will then feel more confident with their role within the team and the team’s role within the company. This confidence will lead to them being more productive and reducing turnover.
10. Define the Team’s Purpose
Today’s workers want to feel like they have a purpose and are valued by their company. Having a purpose is the reason for your team’s existence. What would be the point of working or having a team without it? Define the purpose of each team by creating a single statement that is short and powerful. It should be something easy to remember and require little to no explanation. A purpose could be short or long-term, depending on what it is. You may need to review it annually to update it with the changing goals of your company. The team’s purpose should be used as the guiding compass for decision-making and goal-setting.
11. Set clear goals
People perform better when they know what’s expected of them. They are also more likely to be motivated when they have something to work for. A common goal can also unite a team as they work together to achieve it. With a clear goal, you can also measure performance and success. When setting team-based goals, consider the skill set of the individuals on the team. Define how each team member will contribute to that goal with their role on the team. Define the goal with quantifiable expectations that can be measured through metrics. Communicate with your team on a regular basis to monitor progress.
12. Encourage open communication
Open communication is a must for a strong foundation of teamwork. Encourage your employees to communicate openly and honestly, and you can do this by encouraging collaboration. As a leader, you can create an expectation of communication by leading by example. Encourage your team members to communicate with you. Be receptive to their concerns, thoughts, and ideas. Try not to interrupt or be distracted, and give employees your full attention. Respond promptly and thoughtfully. Doing this shows you value your employees and what they have to say.
13. Empower team members
Create a culture of trust by empowering team members. Encourage them to make informed decisions on their own. Support the decisions they make. Start by educating your teams, so they have the information they need to make smart decisions. Give clear guidelines about what you expect team members to do in certain situations. Expect that there will be mistakes made. This is a normal part of the learning process. Mistakes are a small price to pay for the potential benefits that can come from employee empowerment. Employees can take risks and try new things when they feel confident to make their own decisions. This can lead to innovations, development, and growth.
While it is important to empower employees, it is also important to hold them accountable. That way, employees take thoughtful or calculated risks. Team members are more likely to consider the consequences when they must face the repercussions of their decisions and actions.
14. Change in Team Dynamics
Pay attention to your team dynamics. You could have a team full of high-quality employees, but if they don’t work well together, you can’t grow. Consider team dynamics and personalities when placing employees. You may have to reorganize your teams to place people on different teams. That way, people can shine by getting the chance to showcase their best skills and assets. When reviewing team dynamics, consider these elements:
- Communication styles
- Decision-making processing
- Conflict resolution style
- Group cohesion
- Interpersonal roles and responsibilities
15. Celebrate Successes
When individuals succeed, their team and the entire business succeed. Encourage your customer service team to strive for success. Celebrate team members’ small and big achievements. Remember that everyone is at a different place in their professional journey, so celebrating success can look different for each of your employees. Try setting individual and team goals that encourage your customer service team to work towards.
To recognize goals met or other successes, plan for celebrations. While being recognized in a meeting is nice, this positive feeling is fleeting. Instead, you could host a team meal or get-together. How you celebrate will depend on your company and team culture. For some, it could be a celebration breakfast with fresh coffee and brunch-style food. For others, it could be a catered lunch. Then, for others, it could be an after-work cocktail hour or dinner. If get-togethers are not feasible, then consider individual recognitions. You could give a personalized card with a gift card for the employee to go out to dinner.
Grow Your Team
If you want your business to grow and succeed, you need to ensure that your teams and the individuals on them succeed. You can celebrate success, encourage growth, foster positive morale, and hire the right people. You create a strong foundation by building your business from the ground up. When you have a tight-knit team of knowledgeable employees, your clients will benefit from the high-quality service they receive.
Contact our staffing team and grow your customer service team.
