You're managing a team of customer service agents. How do you ensure their email tone remains consistent?

To ensure consistent email tone among customer service agents, I implement a clear set of communication guidelines and a style guide that outlines preferred language, tone, and etiquette. Regular training sessions and role-playing exercises reinforce these standards. I also use a review system where supervisors monitor and provide feedback on email interactions. Encouraging open communication allows agents to discuss tone-related challenges and receive immediate guidance. This structured approach ensures that our team's email tone remains professional and aligned with our company's values.

Email templates are a fantastic way for a customer service representative to maintain consistency. They also give structure to the conversation, allowing the representative to adapt to it (as needed since we don't want them to sound robotic) in a way that empowers them to think about the end goals: a satisfied customer and a resolved issue. We also want to maintain a consistency of language, topics covered, and brand consistency.

I really enjoy going to places that have clear brand guidelines for tone and greetings. It's somewhat fulfilling to see their training and values shine through the work of their most customer-facing employees. Establishing tone guidelines prevents the organization from having a different level of customer service being delivered by every representative of the company. The tone guidelines need to come from senior leadership and should be exemplified throughout the organization, so it stays top of mind. Quarterly refresher training is also helpful for longstanding employees who may lose sight of the top priorities. There should also be some form of quality control to ensure that the tone guidelines are being followed.

I encourage leaders to have regular 1:1's and morning huddles with their teams to review recent issues, good and bad reviews, accomplishments, and lessons learned. Having a regular cadence and quarterly refresher training (this could also be virtual, depending on the organization) ensures that there is a clear and consistent internal standard and ongoing guidance as to how we can support our teams through servant leadership and our customers through consistency. The regular training should lean on philosophy, as long as the additional tools like templates and tone guidelines are in place. Lastly, regular training is a great way to invite the employees to share their struggles, which would lead to potential coaching opportunities.

One thing that we found helpful is reviewing emails regularly with our team during a team meeting. We all look at emails that have been sent in the previous months, share feedback live, discuss what we might’ve done differently, celebrate successes or creative language. It brings the team together to discuss how to improve our email communication, and allows for a lot of different voices to collaborate.