4 Effective Tips for Customer Service Managers

Few departments in a large company are as difficult to manage as customer service. Customer service jobs come with high turnover rates, lots of stress, and numerous challenges that must be battled through and overcome in order to develop a positive brand image. With that being said, it takes a special manager to head up an organization’s customer service division.

Give These 4 Tips a Try

As a customer service manager, there are a number of things you can do to strengthen your department, lower employee turnover, and enhance your brand’s reputation as a customer-centric organization. Check out these tips and see if you can implement some of them into your existing approach.

1. Understand Your Employees

There’s a common misconception when it comes to customer service. You’ll often hear companies say that the customer is the most important person. This simply isn’t true. In healthy organizations, employees come first. As a result of putting employees first, you can then feel confident that your customers are being treated well.

With that being said, it’s imperative that you understand who your employees are, what makes them tick, and how certain organizational factors impact their ability to effectively communicate and function with customers.

Because customer service jobs are typically seen as entry-level positions, the majority of applicants are millennials. Does that ring true for your team? If so, you should take time to learn as much as possible about this demographic. By getting a better grasp of who they are, you can improve your management skills.

2. Continually Reevaluate Tools and Resources

Customer service departments are unique. It’s rare that two days are ever the same. Yet, somehow customer service managers are okay with using the same tools and resources. If you want to improve your management skills, you must continually reevaluate the technologies and strategies you’re using.

Don’t be afraid of adding a project management solution alongside your CRM platform. Maybe you need an online chat support feature in addition to your 1-800 number. What about a social listening tool to become more proactive and less reactive? Never stop considering how different technologies can be applied to your department.

3. Constantly Communicate with Other Departments

Poor customer service can frequently be linked to a disconnect between the customer service department and other departments – including manufacturing and sales. Customer service managers and employees need to know what issues exist with core products and services ahead of time. Discovering that a problem exists for the first time while on the phone with a customer is not ideal.

If you want your employees to be prepared, make sure there’s no delay between your department and the other departments that directly interact with the products and services being sold. This open communication will lead to more preparedness.

4. Man the Phones at Least Once Per Week

While you have a lot on your plate, you can’t step too far away from the front lines. If you spend 100 percent of your time overseeing your employees, you’ll lose touch with your customers. It’s a solid practice to spend at least one hour per week directly interacting with customers.

This one hour ensures you understand your customers. It also shows your employees that you aren’t afraid of getting down on their level and dealing with customers, too. It’s a win-win situation, yet very few customer service managers follow this rule of thumb.

Modern Customer Service Management

There’s nothing easy about working customer service. This is especially true if you’re tasked with overseeing and managing an entire customer service department. By using the aforementioned tips, you can begin to transform your department and help your organization strengthen its reputation. Which ones will your team find helpful?