Motivate Employees to Deliver a High-Quality Customer Experience

What goes into a favorable customer experience? This may include the satisfactory use of a product or service, the level of support provided in a particular situation, and/or other factors. 

But what’s probably most important is the quality of interactions between your employees and your customers. 

If it appears these customers are less-than-uniformly happy with your services, the first place to look at is how well your employees are up to the task of serving them. Here are suggestions for improving employee motivation in this vital business operation:

Empower employees to make key decisions.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to customer satisfaction is when front-line and support employees lack authority to handle routine (and, infrequently, complex) inquiries and complaints. All too often, company policies mandate that employees seek approval for actions before attending to a specific complaint or issue. This results in needless delay and further frustration on the customer’s part.

As we have noted in the past, “A far better approach involves bypassing the internal approval logjam and allowing customer representatives to make key customer-focused decisions on the spot.”

Specific training in customer service is another key aspect of employee empowerment. Continuous learning “equips [employees] with the skills necessary to improve customer interactions,” notes CMS Wire. When training is aligned with the company’s customer-centric strategies, “companies can ensure that employees are better equipped to meet evolving customer needs.”

Improve culture and internal communications.

Motivating employees to achieve higher degrees of customer service is only possible in a company culture that values information and transparency. 

Make sure to keep front-line workers and others informed “about what’s happening throughout the company by introducing them to people and initiatives in other departments,” notes Freshworks. “Cross-functional teaming can be a great tactic for encouraging this type of broad company knowledge.”

Pay close attention to hiring and onboarding.

Starting with new hires, a focus on customer service skills can pay off in big ways. The best approach is to “hire people who are interested in helping others and who enjoy solving problems,” notes Insperity. Job descriptions and interview questions can be tailored to identify the most promising candidates in customer service.

Furthermore, keep the focus on customer service throughout the new hire’s onboarding process. As Insperity notes, “the best way to solve a customer’s complaint is simply knowing who and what to ask when a problem comes up.” This is the kind of precision orientation that helps rookie employees refine their skills in customer service and satisfaction.

Leverage the power of social media.

Since so many people “live and breathe” on social media these days, it makes good business sense to leverage that power on behalf of customer satisfaction. Assuming your company has a thriving presence on Facebook, X, Instagram, and elsewhere, keep a close eye on customer comments appearing on those platforms. They are a good indicator of just how well your customer satisfaction efforts are going.

In the past we have recommended that at least one customer service representative’s time and energy should be primarily dedicated to monitoring business-related social media activity. This employee’s skills “should include being able to engage respectfully with users who leave comments, so it’s clear your business values active interaction with the customer base.”

Want to learn more about customer needs and preferences? Check out “How AI can Help You Understand Your Customers Better than Ever.”