Be it from turnover or from growth, hiring and training online customer service staff are ongoing processes. It makes sense to monitor and adjust your hiring and training practices regularly. Start by measuring the performance of your current methods.
When you measure the performance of your customer service staff, what you are measuring is the quality of the company's hiring and training procedures. The first key to improving your customer service is to examine how your written philosophies, policies, and procedures translate into the Internet environment.
How's Your Staff?
To see how your staff implements your customer service policies, use a combination of monitoring techniques, such as computer tracking software or random recordings, and customer follow-up surveys. Since your most important metric is customer satisfaction, survey your customers frequently. But also survey your staff about problems and potential solutions. Is the training period sufficient? Is it comprehensive? With this information in hand, you can get the big picture of your customer service department.
The benefits of making adjustments to hiring and training methods are self-explanatory: It can only benefit your business to have efficient and loyal employees. By streamlining your hiring and training procedures, you can make employee orientation efficient and worthwhile. If new staff members understand what is expected of them, they are likely to serve you better. However, if turnover is high or employee moral low, make adjustments.
Try Exit Interviews
Adjustments begin at finding out why employees are dissatisfied. For example, if your turnover rate is high, try doing exit interviews with customer service representatives to learn why people leave.
If you find your training methods are poorly organized or that management policies are not being followed, you may need to bring in outside management or consultation for a fresh look. Be flexible and be open to new methods for training.