Unlocking the importance of employee empowerment in customer service

Customer support agents are particularly crucial to maintaining a company's profitability. Customer service teams serve as the major point of contact between businesses and their clients, so these interactions are crucial to upholding the company's good name and client relationships.

As service teams are the backbone of your customer service's success, employee empowerment is crucial to ensure that your team feels heard and supported. But what is employee empowerment fundamentally?

Employee empowerment is the process through which a business offers its staff the power and latitude to decide what to do and how to do it. The best method to maximize employees' performance and benefit the company is to give them more authority over their work. It is critical to comprehend what empowerment implies in a working setting, whether you are a manager, business owner, or employee.

Giving each member of a customer service team the freedom to use their judgment rather than constantly seeking the manager's approval is a critical component of empowerment. Additionally, team members are more likely to be productive, collaborate on ideas, and find solutions when they feel empowered. All of those are essential components for enhancing teamwork. 

Benefits of employee empowerment

Empowered workers exhibit better job performance, job satisfaction, and loyalty to the company. Employees and team leads who feel they have more autonomy and control over their work are more dedicated to achieving objectives and exhibiting initiative.

As a result, empowered leaders are much more effective at influencing employee creativity, citizenship behavior, being trusted by their employees, and impacting employee performance. Additionally, they are more likely to be confident and self-assured, which are necessary for providing excellent customer service.

The benefits of employee empowerment are: 

#1. Improved Customer Satisfaction 

When a customer calls with an issue, they want to spend a short time on hold or pass from agent to agent. Employees with sufficient authority can handle client issues on their own quickly.

Long wait times frustrate customers and waste their time. It also comes across as a laid-back attitude from the brand, which breaks a customer's loyalty and trust. The consumer will likely leave the interaction unsatisfied and transfer their business elsewhere if the representative repeatedly passes the customer along to other people or leaves them on hold.

Conversely, a knowledgeable and empowered customer care representative could make a frustrated client happy and eager to keep doing business with you. It enhances employee retention. Your employees are more likely to stick with your business if they feel empowered. 

#2. Employee accountability 

 Closely managing an employee's every move makes employees feel like they are not trusted to get the job done. It translates to fear and insecurity in the workplace. But if employees are trusted and autonomous to use their discretion, it allows them to perform well and also be accountable for their work and actions.

Even more, employees may feel out of control if their manager monitors their every move closely. They might not accept responsibility for the consequences of their choices. On the other hand, when you give people more autonomy over their work, they become more responsible. Employees with more control over their work care more about the results, increasing accountability.

In addition, employees with confidence and who feel secure under their bosses are more likely to perform better and make confident deals and thus enhance customer service.

#3. Faster Problem resolution and Decision Making 

Empowerment can boost an employee's productivity as it increases accountability. When employees are trusted to make decisions, it reduces the friction in seeking constant approvals for supervisors, etc. This leads to faster problem resolution and in effect, higher customer satisfaction.

Also, if employees have all the necessary knowledge and data that they need and access to at their fingertips, they don't need to constantly ask their colleagues or superior when they have any doubts. Knowledge management system can help with this as they provide a centralized source of information. 

#4. Improved procedures and processes 

Increasing productivity and efficiency is why employee empowerment is essential to corporate process development. When given greater authority, employees perform better at work because they feel more self-sufficient and capable of making judgments. 

Additionally, empowered workers are more likely to be excited about how their job advances the organization's objectives, increasing their productivity level. 

How to Empower Employees in Customer Service ​

In customer service, giving customer care agents a goal to strive for is the first step in empowering them. Each representative must thoroughly understand the mission's strategic vision for service.

Listed below are a few ways to empower your employees for better customer service. 

#1. Provide proper tools

Conducting business can be challenging for anyone unless they have the right resources and tools. One way to ensure top-grade service is to use help desk tools (such as ticketing systems, call center scripting tools, Customer Relationship Management, Knowledge Management System) to respond quickly to customer issues and act as a resource for their inquiries. Numerous customer services solutions, like Telephone and Computer technologies, help simplify service representatives' lives.

For instance, CRM helps keep track of crucial data about support requests and client contact information. Tools like knowledge management solutions provide a single source of truth for all data and information within the industry or customer data. 

#2. Encourage professional development and provide support

Offering employee training and development opportunities is one of the finest ways for organizations to empower their workforce. People are more likely to spot issues with existing procedures when they are knowledgeable about their line of work. Employees will be confident to bring about change if you provide them with the resources and tools they need to improve their work.

Offering formal training on new technology that your business might be using is a great place to start. Employees that are kept up to date with new tools will be more productive at work.

Additionally, offering training in soft skills like communication and time management is a productivity hack that will skyrocket your employees' efficiency. These skills are crucial because they affect how effectively individuals interact with one another and how well they manage their time during the workday.

#3. Provide positive and constructive feedback.  

Having a strong feedback mechanism for your agents/internal team is crucial for their improvement. This way, you can provide actionable feedback for them to work to boost their proficiency level. You can also reward or promote top performers and give extra training to those who need help. This will ensure high-quality work and greater job satisfaction.

However, it is not enough to give feedback and expect your employees to train themselves. Most companies are now opting for eLearning options like an LMS to train their employees regularly without hassles. 

Quizzes, tutorials, guides, and presentations help your team get up to speed with all the information they need to become confident and efficient problem solvers.

#4. Allowing autonomy  

Giving workers autonomy and decision-making authority is another means of empowering them. Allowing employees to choose how they want to work and how their workday should be organized is one of the most crucial ways this may be achieved.

More autonomy means more freedom to plan how to execute their work; this means more trust and confidence. Giving employees the ability to make decisions is crucial, but you should also offer them the freedom to decide how they want to do their work. When workers are confident that their employer will support their choices, they work better.

Wrapping up 

Making sure you're empowering your team members is crucial for their productivity and well-being. The development of a company is directly related to how empowered your employees feel at your organization. Instead of just telling people what to do, equip them with the knowledge and resources they need to be successful.

Employees will be more involved in their work and more likely to succeed when they feel empowered and supported. Increased productivity and efficiency improves the quality of customer service provided. In effect, your customers' interactions with your brand are enhanced for better customer satisfaction.