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Ten Tips to Keep Your Team Positive
Your sales and customer service team are the primary customer contact for every business. What does their attitude say about your company? If some of your team are not communicating the message you want, here are 10 questions to ask yourself to ensure they stay positive, focused on message and deliver an exceptional customer service experience.
1. Are you clear on your values and expectations? This is foundational to ensure that a consistent message is communicated across the organization. Without clarity from the top, teams are unclear of expectations and rarely surpass them.
2. Are your priorities constantly changing? If you aren't consistent with priorities and aligning them with activities that customer's value, you are leaving room for confusion. Eliminating confusion will keep your team focused.
3. Are you and your managers leading by example and consistently reinforcing desired behaviours? Teams model behaviours and if you do not demonstrate what is expected, how can you expect your team to behave otherwise.
4. Are you providing enough information? Providing a centralized location for information on all existing clients, products and services will give your team the confidence to answer any question without having to rely on others for information.
5. Are you providing training for skills that your team may be lacking? If you have hired the right person based on their character and attitude, but they are making mistakes, make sure they have the necessary training to ensure they know how to do it right.
6. Are you providing too much direction? If you try to tell your teams how to do everything step by step, you are really limiting them on providing quality customer service. If you free them up to do what they know is necessary -- based on agreed expectations -- you are providing the freedom to make your customers happy.
7. Do you have enough team members? If you have a team who is spread so thin they can't provide quality service over the quantity of customers served, consider hiring more team members. By hiring more team members, you will enable your team to make more sales.
8. Do you motivate your team? You are sure to win more customers, if you reward your team for delivering a great customer service. Look for ways to provide positive reinforcement on a daily basis in addition to providing performance bonuses, gift cards, or something for your team to earn.
9. Do you provide too much information during training sessions? If you supply too much at once, they will take longer to master those new skills. Consider breaking training into smaller sessions to allow time to master a few skills at a time. Teams who feel successful will be successful.
10. Does the entire organization understand the critical role they each play in delivering an exceptional customer service experience? Too many organizations do not place the same importance on internal customers -- and resultant, the customer facing teams do not get the support they need to deliver to external customers.
Ask yourself these 10 questions to identify areas for improvement. Then pick one and focus on it -- attacking too many initiatives at once will lead to frustration.
Once your team has mastered one goal, move on to another. Working together for a shared goal and seeing ongoing improvements will keep the team focused, motivated and positive.
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More on running and developing a team
Recruiting Your Team: How to Make "The Ask"
How to Give Employee Feedback That Builds Respect
The Disengaged Employee - An Invisible Disaster
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