A recent Deloitte survey validated that 62% of companies recognize that the customer experience provided by contact centers is a key competitive differentiator. However, many brands still need to move from knowing this truth and embodying it.
Many organizations have taken the key first step of implementing post-interaction customer surveys. Those aiming to become customer experience leaders must move beyond on this approach. Instead of upper management reviews of company-wide survey results or NPS scores, you need dynamic, actionable insight into how your every member of front-line team is doing—right now.
Here are four proven best practices you can apply to boost front-line employee performance and deliver higher-quality customer experiences:
1. Measure whether your front-line team delivers brand-compliant customer experiences
Many brands have customer experience goals, but do not systematically measure if those goals are being met. For example, some companies expect contact teams to place a post-interaction follow up calls to ensure that the customer is satisfied with any service received. The only way to validate that this contact occurs—and to assess its quality—is to pair contact management and post-interaction survey tools.
2. Monitor and react to individual front-line employee performance
To be a true service leader, you need real-time insight into every contact by every front-line employee. Such an approach empowers you to measure, trend, and incentivize every employee’s compliance with your corporate customer experience mandates.
You must spot low-quality interactions when they occur—and take prompt actions. This approach empowers you to provide on-the-spot, automated coaching to employees who need it. Also, with real-time analysis, you can identify top performers and work to codify their experiential know-how into organization-wide best practices.
3. Make sure individual front-line employees are accountable for providing brand-affirming interactions
Once you can tie surveys to individual employees, you can clearly see if your front-line team members are upholding your brand experience standards. With the right set of structured and open-ended survey questions, your customers can tell you directly if their interactions reflect your brand promise and expression. Your managers can use genuine customer feedback to highlight areas needing enhancement and then analyze new interactions against performance improvement metrics.
4. Manage brand experience performance across your entire service footprint
The best-performing service organizations take a multi-layered approach to front-line analysis. You need capability to drill-down and roll-up brand experience analysis at multiple levels: office, regional, managerial, or even by sub-brand, product, or process. That way, you can discern areas of strength and weakness in any corner of your organization.
You can cross-pollinate successful practices from one team to another and create a stronger, internal “one company” sentiment across your entire service footprint. Ultimately, that sense of connectedness and knowledge-sharing can take root and manifest itself in customer interactions—cultivating the consistent brand-affirming experiences your customers expect and deserve.
Delivering consistent, brand-affirming experiences across disparate customer-facing teams is challenging—but not impossible. Strategic use of contact management and survey processes offers actionable insight to help you measure, monitor, and refine your front-line operations.
