Coaching a Remote Customer Service Team

Coaching a customer service team is a difficult task. In addition, many businesses are adopting a remote work model which adds complexity in managing customer care. As many businesses decide to move their customer service staff remote, managers are discovering that leading a remote customer care team is completely different than an onsite team.

To help bridge the gap between onsite and remote customer service teams, this article identifies methods managers can implement to effectively coach their remote customer service staff.

Why train your remote customer service team?

In a traditional office setting, it is easy to quickly ask a coworker or a manager for advice on how to resolve an issue while a client is on hold. By setting up a remote customer service team, the face-to-face interaction is no longer available and it is incumbent upon the agent to quickly resolve the issue. It is in the best interest of the company to provide all of the necessary training to properly equip the remote customer service agent.

Training employees, regardless of which department or role they serve, communicates a positive interest from the business to the employee. By training a member of customer service, the business provides the employee with the knowledge to deliver the information to the client and generate a positive experience for both the customer and the agent. The company is also demonstrating that it is willing to provide an investment into their staff to help them grow. This generates an atmosphere of advancement opportunities and a positive outlook for the employee which reduces turn over.

Establish clear KPIs and monitor them regularly

By setting up Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) early, it defines easily measurable goals for customer service agents to focus on and pursue. It is important to establish clear KPIs for both professional and performance goals. Professional goals allow the employee to understand that they have opportunity for growth and keeps them motivated.

What are some KPIs to monitor?

• Customer Satisfaction Rate – is a common KPI for businesses. The Customer Satisfaction Rate is the average score a customer service representative receives from all client responses. The score is captured after each interaction between the customer and the representative. Measurement may come in the form of numbers, stars, thumbs up, etc.
• Resolutions vs Interactions Rate – is the measurement between all client communication, or interactions, over a period of time vs how many interactions completed with a resolution. By encouraging higher resolutions from the agent, it improves overall customer satisfaction.

Set expectations early and often

From the beginning, it is important for managers to set clear expectations from customer service employees working remotely. Ensure the customer service agent understands what KPIs the company will be monitoring to avoid a misunderstanding in the future. Managers should also include professional goals to encourage growth.

Invest in remote monitoring software

It is important for managers with remote customer care agents to monitor the team activities without becoming obtrusive. There are employee call recording software programs that can run silently without interfering in a customer service agent’s process.

• Call Recording – Enables managers to listen to the calls between the client and customer service representative working remotely. This provides the manager with an opportunity to review the call with the customer service agent, provide coaching and improve performance.
• Screen Capture – Offers a computer screen recorder program to record the activity on the customer service agent’s computer. Recordings may be still images or video files capturing the activity on the computer screen. Managers can setup triggers to launch the program such as speaker or microphone activity and combine both screen activity and call recording into a single file. Screen capture programs are designed to run silently in the background of the customer service agent’s computer.

Schedule weekly team and one-on-one meetings

Regular communication between customer service agents and their manager is vital to the team’s success.

• Team meetings – Regular team meetings provides a manager the opportunity to discuss the team’s shared purposed and encourage building relationships among their staff. Building relationships between customer service agents and their counter parts encourages collaboration, team work and promotes a positive work environment.
• One-on-One meetings – Weekly One-on-One meetings are highly important for both the customer service agent and the manager. It provides an environment for the manager to review the progress the customer service agent has made in their long-term professional goals and provides an opportunity for the manager to clear any roadblocks hindering the agent’s job. The One-on-One meetings also provides an opportunity for the manager to review the KPIs, listen and review calls together and provide solutions to the agent on how to improve their performance. At the end of the One-on-One, the manager should summarize all points discussed, review both long term and performance goals and re-establish expectations for the next meeting.

Provide resources to facilitate success

Customer service agents are on the front lines working directly with clients. The conversation between agents and clients may be friendly and turn stressful, or start out stressful. To help customer service agents, businesses should provide the right resources to de-escalate tense situations.

• Train for communication – Good customer service is determined by how quickly a customer service representative resolves a problem and fulfills requests for a business’ clients. To be successful at this task, the customer service agent needs to understand and how to interact with the client. Managers should focus on teaching customer service skills such as positive language, active listening, clear communication, persuasive speech, patience, empathy and project confidence.
• Develop a resolution library – As mentioned earlier, in a remote customer service environment, customer service agents can no longer quickly ask coworkers or managers face-to-face for advice on how to resolve an issue while a client is on hold. Developing a frequent issue library is another method to provide customer service representatives with resources. The library can be used as a reference when customer service agents are struggling to resolve an issue and there is no other agent or manager available to provide quick answers.

Coaching for the future

As managers learn to pivot from coaching their customer service staff in person to remote, they will discover that there are a whole new set of challenges. Providing their staff with the right tools, developing relationships and encouraging growth will produce a positive and more productive team. This will provide a positive experience for all clients that engage with the company.