How to Make Every Week Customer Service Week

Customer Service Week is a great time to celebrate the great work your agents do throughout the year while refocusing everyone on our customers.

Yet it doesn't have to be a one-and-done event. Starting this October 1, you can kick-off a new weekly habit in your contact center that will turn every week into a customer service week.

Best of all, this takes minimal time, effort, and resources! Here's how contact centers everywhere are already doing it.

Embrace the Weekly Cadence

Many contact center leaders already hold a regular meeting with agents.

These meetings are typically designed to share important updates, recognize outstanding achievements, and discuss any recurring problems. Customer service makes an excellent topic for these meetings!

The challenge is deciding how often to hold them.

Daily meetings can be difficult because it's hard to find topics important enough to disrupt operations each day. On the other hand, a monthly meeting allows too much time to pass before discussing important issues.

Weekly seems to be the Goldilocks timing.

A weekly format can set the tone for the workweek ahead. Many contact centers pick a weekly theme, giving agents a week's worth of shifts to focus on a specific aspect of their work.

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Focus on Continuous Improvement

Weekly customer service meetings can be highly motivational when they help agents continuously improve service.

Here are a few topics to choose from.

1.    Discuss quality assurance or customer feedback trends.

2.    Work together to solve a problem.

3.    Share a customer service tip or reminder.

The best weekly meetings are collaborative and give agents an opportunity to share their perspective.

For example, let's say you notice a quality assurance trend where agents are routinely providing incorrect information. You can enlist your agents in solving the issue. You'll often receive a lot of creative ideas, and your team will be more likely to take ownership of any solution they create.

Another idea is to pick one specific skill area for agents to focus on.

For example, imagine you want to work on de-escalating angry customers. You might share a tip on using "partnering language" that helps agents communicate they are committed to helping the customer achieve a positive outcome. Agents can practice using the technique over the following week, and you can discuss the results at the next weekly meeting.

It's easy to find tips-here's a free collection of weekly tips you can draw from.

Build a Habit Without Getting Stale

Contact center leaders rightly worry about initiatives growing stale. The feeling is agents will eventually tune out the message.

Keeping the weekly format fresh is actually quite easy if you follow a few principles.

First, use each meeting to focus on a current challenge or problem. This way, the topic is always extremely relevant and immediately useful.

Second, make the meeting a discussion, not a presentation. It's an opportunity for agents to share ideas and best practices with each other or ask the team for advice on a tricky situation.

Finally, use the weekly meeting to recognize and celebrate achievements. You don't need an elaborate rewards program or big prizes. A simple thank you or a round of applause for a job well done is often enough to make agents feel good about what they've accomplished.

Employees tend to understand something's importance based on how often their leader talks about it. Your agents will know service is important if you can use a regular meeting to turn every week into Customer Service Week!