5 Ways To Build Service Worker Confidence

Created in partnership with RingCentral

There are about a million variables that make up a customer service interaction. Even a three-minute call contains enough psychological complexity for months of study. Even so, having worked with hundreds of service workers, there is one factor that continues to rise to the top…confidence.

Customers are smart. They generally know within the first 15 seconds of a service interaction how things are going to go. Customers are looking for two things right away…???

· ? Is this person capable of helping me?

· ? Is this person motivated to help me?

Both the ability and the desire must be present. We’ve all had a situation where someone clearly had the knowledge and skill required to assist but not the “care” factor. Just another ticket to delete as quickly as possible versus a human to help. Or alternatively, the person who clearly wants to do the right thing but is held back either by their own knowledge level or hurdles erected by the organization.

Confidence is the X factor a service worker can establish right away to set the customer at ease. Yes, they can help. Yes, they want to help. The confidence of the agent becomes confidence for the customer towards the brand. How, then, do we improve the confidence of our service workers? Here are five ways to do just that:

1) Supportive Peers

More than probably anything else, the confidence of a service worker will be dictated by their relationship with their peers. Many leaders over-use motivation techniques that are rooted in competition. Things like positioning people in order of service metrics such as volume, offering personal incentives for hitting an SLA target, or using social engineering to shame low performers. These may seem like the right way to ‘light a fire” under someone, but I’ve seen them backfire so often. It puts service workers on an island and destroys confidence. Instead, consider how you can motivate the type of behaviors where peers are lifting one another up. When the team truly has your back, you feel like you can do anything with their support. Use serotonin, not dopamine!

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2) Freedom to “Be the Brand”

I’ve seen so many service workers get stuffed into a tiny box due to the overbearing QA process. At some point along the way, the idea of being perfect becomes more important than being helpful. Don’t turn your QA scorecard into an idol above your actual customers. Select talent that naturally represents your brand personality and cultivate it even more through great training. Let them use their amazing skills, personalities, and creativity to create a unique and exciting interaction. This freedom to be themselves can change everything.

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3) Management that Motivates

As leaders, we play a tremendous role in the presence (or lack) of service worker confidence. Teams I’ve led in the past know that I have their back. I’m going to support them and advocate for them. They know they never need to stand for any form of abusive behavior, even from a customer. However, I hold them to a very high standard. I want more than just “ticket takers.” The best teams are those made up of servant challengers. It takes a courageous manager to foster this type of environment, but the resulting experience will be legendary.

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4) Communal Knowledge

As I’ve said so many times before, knowledge is the lifeblood of customer service. When a service worker is equipped with high-quality knowledge that is easily accessible, confidence is going to go through the roof. They have the combined wisdom of the entire team at their fingertips. Sadly, so often, we put up major barriers to knowledge curation. The very people who benefit most from the information are not allowed to change it. The knowledge hub quickly becomes outdated and buried under layers of the approval process. It’s almost funny to me how many service people I’ve worked with who have their own “magic document.” Agents across the org feel like they must maintain their own private knowledge base. This is a major wasted opportunity and a big-time confidence buster. I love the Knowledge Centered Service tagline of “helpful not perfect” when it comes to information management. Let your service workers be curators for one another.

5) The Right Digital Ecosystem

I’ll never forget Leslie O’Flahavan and Jenny Dempsey speaking at an ICMI conference and introducing me to the #FreeToHelp movement. They went deep to understand the factors working against agents who have a strong desire to serve well. In my own research, I’ve found one of the largest factors that hold service workers back from being their best is a broken toolset. It’s hard to be an effective guide for the customer if you can’t see where they’ve been and where they are trying to go. In the UCaaS world, RingCentral has a great reputation for developing agent confidence. Its AI contact center, RingCX, combines all the necessary pieces for smarter customer experiences, making difficult customer interactions easier.

I hope these five tips to build service workers’ confidence have been helpful. Don’t hesitate to reach out if I can brainstorm something with you. I’ve recently been blown away by how remarkable customer service workers really are. When we pave the way to make them successful, we are paving the way for the future of our organizations!

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About The Author

Nate Brown loves two things very much...customer experience and community. Fortunately, these concepts go hand-in-hand! As a community builder, Nate co-founded CX Accelerator in 2018. Quickly growing to well over four thousand members, this vibrant collection of CX leaders is helping one another to maximize their career and accomplish remarkable things in service to others.

As a Customer Experience executive and consultant, Nate has led service teams, anchored the CX function inside of a startup, and helped to foster exceptional employee-customer connections in dozens of organizations. He's worked in a variety of industries, including gaming, SaaS, gig-services, retail, healthcare, music business and many more.

Shortly after authoringThe Ultimate CX Primer, Brown was dubbed the “CX Influencer of the Year” by CloudCherry, and a top global CX thought leader by ICMI, Exceeders, Netomi, and MartechVibe to name a few. Nate was voted "most impactful influencer in the CX landscape for 2023" by Kustomer. He has been widely recognized for a unique ability to infuse energy and excitement into the work of CX for employees at all levels of the organization. When not "CX'ing, Brown is a competitive disc golfer, certified pickleball instructor, husband to a super cool wife, and dad of two incredible daughters.