Rid Your Business of Customer Dissatisfaction Once and for All - Hint: Think a Virtual PBX

While technology such as a virtual PBX that boasts various capabilities needed by today’s companies are proving to be an integral part of running a successful operation, without a dedicated and skilled employee base in tow, a business simply can’t maintain a steady growth pattern.

Although selecting each member of your team extremely carefully before officially onboarding them is typically seen, what steps should be taken after the hiring process to ensure they continue to enhance their knowledge in regards to a brand and its associated products in addition to remaining fully committed to their job? This article will outline a couple of tips that will ensure your workforce begins and ends each and every day with a smile upon their face.

First, daily or weekly meetings involving an entire division is extremely important to the overall morale seen throughout a business. In spite of the fact that organizations may see a surge in activity during certain time periods, setting a specific time and day aside on a regular basis to talk about any situation an employee is encountering is a necessity. Even just a quick chat lasting a couple of minutes that updates everyone on a revamped product’s debut will do the job.

“Small business owners can get so busy that they don’t have time to recognize every day service breakdowns,” commented Customer Service Expert Elaine Allison, CSP. “Start a daily or weekly meeting with your team to discuss goals, best practices and how to effectively solve potentially problematic customer service situations.”

Next, ensure your workers that their efforts are not going unnoticed. Let’s be honest, everyone makes mistakes sometimes. What is most vital in these types of circumstances, though, is that a worker who is guilty of a wrong action is not overly chastised. Rather, turn the mistake into a learning experience and show them what should have been done as opposed to what was actually done. Also, never forget the immense pride simply telling a team member “great job” can cause. If an employee is going above and beyond expectations, reward them handsomely or risk them moving on to a different position with a totally separate organization.

Last but definitely not least, consider job shadowing. The act of partnering up an experienced staff member with a “newbie” can quickly show someone exactly what needs to be done in order to produce extremely high customer satisfaction levels. And best of all, managers can return to other important matters instead of completing training exercises for an extended period of time.

Allison added, “Instruct your top customer service employee to explain, in detail, how they deal with customers, how they handle various customer touch points and have them discuss potential breakdowns. Make sure the shadow partnership lasts long enough—weeks or months—for the underperforming employee to feel comfortable asking questions and work hard on an improvement plan with the person he or she is shadowing.”

As you can see, a best-of-breed technology suite is virtually useless without an employee base there to leverage it correctly in order to ramp up the overall customer experience. If someone doesn’t know they aren’t completing their job as expected, how can they ever change their behavior and measure up to certain criteria? The time is now to assist an employee base in doing what is expected.

Edited by Alisen Downey