4 Ways To Guide Your Support Team To Be More Productive

In the customer service world, the higher your productivity, the happier your customers will be. Don’t believe us? Here are some interesting statistics that explain why higher productivity and a happy customer base are directly proportional:

• According to a survey by NewVoice, “Around 32% of customers switch companies because they are fed up with speaking to multiple agents.” In short, disjointed communication and working in silos can lead to unhappy customers.
• Data by RightNow suggests: “73% of consumers say friendly customer service reps can make them fall in love with a brand.” Translation? A productive customer representative – who has the time to offer quality solutions – can drive customer loyalty and trust. 
• Furthermore, research by Deloitte predicts that “62% of customer service organizations view customer experience as a competitive differentiator.” The gist? Seamless customer experience can help build a loyal and satisfied user base while establishing a team that’s forever motivated to do more. 

Now that we have a basic understanding of how team/employee productivity and customer happiness are inter-related, let’s look at how companies can give rise to customer service that’s truly helpful, insightful, timely, and reliable. 

Proven Ways to make your Team Proactive & Productive

1. Use Customer-Centric Tools to your Business Advantage

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Truth be told, technology is perhaps the biggest boon for an, already over-worked customer service team. Not only does using the right tools help share the workload but it also empowers the team to be more productive. Here are some tools that can help boost your team’s productivity and streamline operations as seamlessly as possible:

“63 percent of customers return to websites with live chat software.” –

eMarketer Report

#1 – Live chat: One of the biggest drivers in offering a friction-free customer experience is to resolve issues/queries on the spot. This is exactly what a conversational tool, such as live chat empowers teams to achieve. Granted that it is just one part of the customer service experience, it is an integral one.

Take a look, for example, at Acquire’s live chat feature which is proactive in approach and to-the-point in execution:

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In a nutshell, here are the top advantages of using the live chat feature:

• Offers instant and real-time support to customers by answering generic and pressing queries they may have:
• Allows the team to connect with customers in a personalized, conversational manner:

• Helps you offer relevant and insightful information to the customer instead of chatting blindly, which can lead to unhappy customer experience.

• Empowers customers to self-serve, saving time for human agents to cater to more complex problems.

• Helps drive an in-person customer support experience as the live chat widget can be integrated with a video call at the click of a button. This saves precious time in addressing complicated queries.

• Allows you to target a specific segment of users based on various factors such as visitor location, visitor page URL, device type, visitor behavior, etc. and drive sales.

• Helps you view all your customer interactions in one view and respond from a unified dashboard. Take, for instance, Acquire’s dashboard that allows you to visualize your customer’s journey and communicate with them armed with the right context and information at hand:

#2 – Co-browsing: While live chat deals with quantitative aspects of providing world-class customer service, the co-browsing feature focuses on driving quality:

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It’s not news that first-time customers may get stuck while navigating your website. According to Econsultancy, “83 percent of customers admit that they need assistance during their online buying journeys.” 

In such a time, offering them a “visual guide” – complete with highlighters and marker tools – can save the day (and frankly, your resource’ precious time). It literally points customers in the right direction. In this section, we’ll break down how the co-browsing feature can augment your team’s productivity and become their (co)best friend:

• By offering visual cues, this feature allows you to view and interact with your customers’ browsers when they get stuck.
• Allows you to troubleshoot collaboratively by making use of two-way browser-based interaction. With Acquire’s co-browsing tool, agents only point, click, and annotate their customer’s screen with their permission – on the website as well as mobile apps.

• Customers choose what they wish to show to the agent by way of a controlled, secure environment. 

• Helps you to engage with customers in different co-browse modes (silent, by phone, etc.) and leverage multi-tab support.

Key takeaway: Co-browsing is a screen-sharing software that essentially puts the customer in the center of a company’s operations and aspirations. Using user-friendly features such as co-browsing can prove to be the difference between “good” customer service and a “great” one. 

2. Make your Team Accountable, Make Team Members Responsible

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Much like you teach a naughty student to become disciplined by making them the class monitor, you can turn your team agents productive by making them accountable and encouraging them to make decisions on their own. 

One of the best ways to make them accountable and steer priorities is by setting clear deadlines, pre-defining SLAs, and making the work process transparent. Everyone learns from each other, and no one gives into procrastination.

This, as you can imagine, ultimately leads to higher productivity.

3.  Focus on Team-Building Engagements

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“Companies with highly-engaged employees had a near 52% gap in performance improvement in operating income.”

– Tower Perrin’s Survey

A demotivated team is hardly the benchmark for productivity. In order to boost agent productivity, the employees need to feel valued, appreciated, active, and passionate about their jobs. There are multiple ways to motivate your employees, such as:

• Engaging in team-building activities such as ice-breaker sessions, coffee breaks, team lunches, off-site day picnics, etc.
• Encouraging team participation when it comes to listening to and incorporating feedback from employees to understand what’s working for them and what’s not.
• Driving effective and honest communication to ward off confusion, gaps in expectations, among other things.
• Getting to know your team’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can put individual skill-set to better use. Plus, this also enables a “feedback-driven” culture where performance reviews are constructive and results-oriented.
• Appreciating team as well as individual contributions and offering incentives (think: free vouchers, paid vacation, extra time off, etc.) to keep the team inspired.

4. Foster a Culture of Mindfulness and Work-Life Balance

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“Employers who are committed to providing environments that support work-life balance for their employees can save on costs, experience fewer cases of absenteeism, and enjoy a more loyal and productive workforce.”

Chris Chancey, CEO of Amplio Recruiting

One sure way to improve employee productivity is by promoting a work style containing a healthy balance between work and breaks. This leads to greater productivity.

In case, you wish for your team to go the extra mile, encourage them to unplug and take short breaks, whenever possible. Furthermore, it pays to note that embracing a healthy work-life balance does not result in employee burnout, crippling work stress and inevitable fatigue.

Closing Thoughts

Achieving employee productivity is not rocket science; it is an evolving process, though. That said, with the right mix of technological tools, work cultural processes, and a collaborative mindset, you can fuel productivity and performance, organically, and sustainably.

Feeling inspired yet?