One of the things I love most and that gives me the most energy is talking to large groups of people about those things that we share a passion about. New hire orientations have always been a huge rush! The excitement and optimism that they possess is infectious and drives me to renewed passion and optimism for what I do. Another exhilarating event is coming together with the frontline customer reps.  They touch and feel the customer in all that they do. They know the pain points better than anyone and they are the ones with the powerful on the fly solutions that get the company out of a jam and keep the customers happy. There are some very meaningful groups sourcing of problems when this group is all together. Time with my peers, presenting to other workgroups and leadership on passion points of customer experience and employee engagement are all, also major drivers huge energy busts for me. 

Additionally, when I’m asked to speak as an industry expert or subject matter expert on these passion points I’m always humbled and energized to be with large groups of people trying to make a positive difference in customers lives. Recently, I was reminded of one such engagement with the company Qualtrics that was actually recorded as a webinar during their Qualtrics CX week some years back. I think the points covered there are still meaningful and provide powerful reminders that good customer service starts with empowered and engaged employees.

The invited topic was “Empowering your employees to follow-up in the right way” and I was grateful for the latitude that I was given to approach the topic fully in the way I saw fit. The seven points below are the ones I felt most strongly about and where I approached from. Hope these and be helpful to others and a look to truly have their employees be powerful ambassadors for their customers. If you choose to listen to the webinar, you’ll get my line of thinking on these 7 items from a few years ago. If you continue to read you’ll get my thinking on this items now. Two thought streams for the price of none, what a bargain!

1) Empower your employees to engage

It is not enough to tell your employees what to do and it certainly would be a failure to not give them any directions at all. Creating an environment where your employees feel empowered enough to meet their customer at the exact spot the customer needs them to be, be it an emotional, mental or physical spot, this the essence of true customer service representative. You’ll likely find that an unengaged employee, at the root, feels a lack of empowerment and as such points their energy toward their own objectives and not the customer’s needs. That is a very slippery slope down to “the customers are always getting in the way of what I need to get done to be successful”. Even one unempowered employee in your organization with this mentality is dangerous and putting you at risk.

2) Monitor and mine the macro

Become passion and excited about all the customer data you have and dig into collaboratively across teams. If you don’t yet have a rich amount of data, start where you and get excited to collect more. if you’re well established in your data enjoy all that you have and fight to keep the whole organization focused on the insights it provided. Discipline yourself if the data isn’t changing much from scorecard to next scorecard, and never stop finding the opportunities in whatever the data once analyzed is saying. Celebrate improving trends and humbly rally together to correct declining trends. 

3) Mind and care for the micro

It’s ok and responsible to zone in on that one complaint or one comment on social media or that one customer or employee you talked to on that really bad operational day from time-to-time. Sometimes these give power and context to the macro data and bring it to life. Sometimes these are the way we reground ourselves and get to humanize what we are doing again.

4) Treat everyone well by not treating them all the same

You must expect your employees to treat every customer well, with respect and concern. At the same time, they must feel empowered to, and know that you trust them to, find creative answers for customers, in similar situations, that meet those customers needs in different ways. It’s ok to kindly let the customer that just asked why the person in front of them got a complimentary drink that you’re excited to offer that to all your most loyal customers and you’d invite them to continue building loyalty with you so you can soon reward them in similar, personal ways that help them know how much you appreciate them. 

5) Live the mission at every level

What you say is the most important focus in the boardroom better be what is felt as the most important focus in the break room; and every inch in between. Any confusion or lack of consistency in this focus will be felt by employees, confuse customers and create opportunities for competitors.

6) Where possible, let guideline and principles rule

Consistent focus, empowered employees and understood and accepted principles of operation should allow for guidelines to rule; and trust and empowerment to increase. Strict policies often destroy the feeling of autonomy and empowerment

7) Let this be fun

Can you possibly feel like you are doing it right if it isn’t fun most of the time?!? Enjoy the journey, don’t take yourself too serious and don’t overreact to falling down. We all fall down. Pick yourself up and learn from the falling down and do it with a smile.

https://success.qualtrics.com/empowering-your-organization-to-follow-up-the-right-way-register.html