Customer service is the lifeblood of every organization. Keeping customers happy and satisfied with your service ensures their loyalty and increased revenue for your business. Nowadays, customers are aiming for a better experience when looking for businesses to buy products and services from. 73% of customers look at customer experience in making buying decisions, behind the price and product quality.
With two-thirds of companies now competing based on customer experience, you need to step up and take your customer service to the next level. It needs to be at par with established companies for your company to stay competitive. One step you can take to ensure consistent customer satisfaction is ensuring that your team will consistently hit their KPIs. This article will guide you on how to empower your customer service team so they can meet their KPIs on a consistent basis.
Reasons Your Customer Service Team Is Not Hitting KPIs
- They Could Be Outdated Already
- They’re Uninspiring
- There’s No Rhyme or Reason
Tips To Help Your Team Meet their KPIs
- Set Them Up For Success
- Create A Positive Work Environment
- Give Them A Reason
- Reward Progress
- Be There, No Matter What
- Consistently Review & Give Feedback
Reasons Your Customer Service Team Is Not Hitting KPIs
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help you track the progress of your team. Given the changing customer behavior, your team’s objective is no longer making a sale but ensuring that they consistently do so. Notably, only 34% of sales or customer service teams reach their quotas. As the manager, it is your job to find out why your customer service team is not meeting their KPIs. Here are some possible reasons:
1. They Could Be Outdated Already
When was the last time you created your KPIs? Many things could have changed in your business already as well as in the industry. What was applicable when you made your KPIs may no longer be applicable in the present time. Customer service is a dynamic sector and you may need to take a look at those KPIs again.
You need to analyze your metrics to extract business-relevant insights. Is it compatible with corporate or industry benchmarks? Are they collecting the right data? Keep in mind that your KPIs aid in decision-making and drive performance so you might need to update them from time to time.
2. They’re Uninspiring
More often than not, KPIs are not implemented properly and end up either being too ambitious or not ambitious at all. Such KPIs will not be able to motivate your team who have quotas to meet. As a result, your customer service team will feel unmotivated and uninspired.
Sit down with your team and work with them regarding their individual KPIs. Identify the business goals that your team is contributing to. Identify which goal is manageable and the ones that would be tough to achieve. Come up with a set of realistic goals. Do this and you will see that your team will be more eager to achieve their KPIs because they had a voice in creating their goals.
3. There’s no rhyme or reason
Sometimes businesses create KPIs just to measure performance without understanding why they exist in the first place. Failure to translate and implement KPIs boils down to not understanding the “why” of KPIs. You need to establish a strong purpose to help your team wrap their heads around the KPIs and help them identify the best strategies for meeting them.
Experts recommend creating Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) to help your team understand the reason behind KPIs and the importance of meeting them. KPIs are metrics you measure while OKRs provide the purpose and structure that otherwise would just be numbers.
How To Help Your Team Meet Their KPIs
Now that you know the possible reasons why your customer service team is not hitting their KPIs, it’s time to take some action and implement the necessary steps to help your team hit their KPIs on a consistent basis.
1. Set Them Up For Success
If your customer service team is using outdated databases or clunky tools, it would be hard for them to hit their target. By giving them the tools they need to be efficient with their jobs, they will be in a better position to meet their KPIs. Review what you are currently using and decide whether you need an audit of tools and technologies. Maybe it’s time for an upgrade.
A good starting point is your customer database. Make sure that you have all bases covered across all channels to ensure that they can engage with your company from those channels. 98% of Fortune 500 companies use data to improve their customer experience. And while 83% of organizations see data as integral to their business strategy, 69% say inaccurate data continue to undermine their efforts.
An outdated customer database will make it hard for your customer service team to connect with potential customers and effectively monitor their interactions. If you have inactive contacts or incorrect information, you can outsource data cleaning or data enrichment to a third party so it won’t eat up the time of your team.
2. Create A Positive Work Environment
A positive work environment can greatly impact your customer service team hitting their KPIs. It can lead to job satisfaction which can lead to better job performance. A recent study revealed that job satisfaction is accountable for 36.7% of job performance. As the manager, you can help your team get close to meeting their KPIs by making it part of your goals.
Unfortunately, job satisfaction is not the norm for most organizations as only 17.6% of businesses rate their job satisfaction as “outstanding” and 47% rate it as good. While there is no silver bullet in achieving job satisfaction, there are a few things you can do to help your team members get there like make them understand personal as well as shared goals.
Ensuring that your team members are happy with their roles can go a long way in ensuring that they will hit their KPIs consistently as possible. They need a clear grasp of what you expect from them. If they don’t understand their core goals and lack knowledge of what their jobs entail, meeting their KPIs will feel like a daunting task.
3. Give Them A Reason
Sometimes customer service teams have the wrong notion that KPIs have been created “on a whim” with little or no logic at all. They only see them as mere numbers that they need to meet. For them to do that, they need to make phone calls to bump up their figures at month’s end. On your end, you should discuss with them the logic behind KPIs.
Your team needs to realize that KPIs are not just numbers they need to hit. It will provide them with the right information at their fingertips to solve problems or tackle opportunities. KPIs will help your organization make the necessary adjustments and stay on track. It provides helpful insight into future results. KPIs provide a good indicator for keeping current projects on track. Finally, it will help provide an analysis of patterns in your numbers.
Finally, it is important to make it clear to your team that hitting their KPIs consistently will help support their own success– promotions, higher commissions, or year-end bonuses. KPIs allow such advancements to be monitored and measured. It allows their progress to be measured effectively.
4. Reward Progress
KPIs are not just a journey but a destination as well. Offering them rewards and incentives when they hit goals is a good way to keep their heads up through thick and thin. Rewarding their progress will not only foster a culture of appreciation but also loyalty. It will also help your reps instill an optimistic attitude along the way.
When it comes to incentives, you need to determine how each team member will want to be recognized. You could offer them financial incentives like commissions or bonuses but it is not the only option. A simple plaque or certificate is also an effective way of recognizing outstanding performance. A simple expression of thanks can make employees become 50% more productive.
Recognizing team performance will not only make their working environment fun but will also make them more productive. In addition, it will help foster a stronger sense of community between team members helping each other meet or even exceed their KPIs.
5. Be There, No Matter What
Even the most seasoned customer service agent may need help from time to time. Instead of sending them off to the floor on their own right away, a little support along the way will help keep them motivated. Giving team members who are not doing well a little nudge can make a difference in achieving their targets.
Conduct regular one-on-ones or team meetings to follow up on how things are going. You can meet with them twice a week or monthly but a weekly check-in would also be best. The idea is not to make the team members feel overwhelmed with achieving their KPI. Giving them targets without providing support may cause them to feel demotivated.
Work with your team members so you can focus on how to achieve their KPI. Determine what areas they need to improve and what actions they can take to achieve the improvement. After explaining to them the “why,” the next thing to do is to focus on the how.
6. Consistently Review & Give Feedback
Providing regular feedback is essential in ensuring that your customer service team is on the right track. It will provide both you and the team members to raise concerns or potential issues regarding their KPIs. Feedback sessions and reviews are something that should not be conducted every quarter. If possible, it should be done weekly or monthly and should include additional support.
Giving regular feedback can have a huge impact on your agent’s productivity as it would lead to employees being three times more engaged in their work. They will be more aligned to the company goals and will know exactly what they need to work on to meet their goals. Engaged team members would contribute to taking your customer service to a whole new level.
Agent reviews provide a win-win situation for both your team and the organization. During the meeting, you can acknowledge the agent’s achievements and identify the gaps and setbacks that keep them from hitting their targets. The performance review gives you an opportunity to suggest training and development plans as needed.
Making your customer service team hit their KPIs may be daunting but not impossible. You can look forward to a more engaged and productive customer service team by showing your support and guiding them.
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