Meditation at Work released a study in 2017 about stress among customer service employees. It turned out that as many as 25% of all employees in a customer service department experience stress multiple times a week. 12% of the respondents even reported feeling constant pressure.
This stress has even led 35% of respondents to consider quitting their job in the next 12 months.
During their research, Meditation at Work uncovered the main sources of stress:
1) excessive workload (36%)
2) personal factors in the workplace (31%)
3) poor work-life balance (20%)
The study also painfully highlighted that quite a few customer service employees – the colleagues who are the first point of contact with your customer – feel abandoned by their employer. More than 50% of those surveyed stated that their organisation does not do enough to reduce the workload. By understanding how and why employees feel stressed, you as a manager are better equipped to alleviate these stressors.
High expectations and the focus on customer experience
Organisations and customers closely scrutinise the tone of voice of the customer service employee, complex questions that need to be handled within a certain time, and many more (online) channels for customer contact. These are all developments that have raised our expectations of customer service employees over the past five years. The volume of customer contact moments has also grown explosively – by an average of 38% in the last 18 months!
The customer experience is becoming increasingly important for companies, and everything and everyone must be available 24/7. This pressure is placed on the frontline: the customer service employee. The volume of phone calls is perceived as the most challenging aspect of the job (38%).
What can you do as an employer?
As an organisation, you want to keep your customer satisfied (everything must be fast and tailored) – but you also don't want to drive your employees away. Therefore, consider the following to reduce the workload:
Forecast: How is your forecast? Do you work with a system of dynamic availability? Do you employ part-timers who can fill unexpected gaps in the schedule if someone is sick? Students who can be called in on a flexible basis next to their studies, or work from home?
Breakdown of the customer journey: Divide your customer contact into complex customer questions and simple ones. For example, create an FAQ and refer from the FAQ to the chat. Complex questions thus end up with your full-time customer service employees who experience less pressure because the simple matters are handled by part-time employees or a chat BOT.
Communication: Provide the full-time group of customer service employees with a tool through which they can easily communicate with each other (Slack, or a dedicated online forum) and build their own library on complex questions.
Training: 14% of respondents indicated that a lack of training was the reason why many customer issues cannot be resolved immediately. The study also revealed a great need for communication training (dealing with customers' emotions also causes a lot of stress).
Tools and technology: 60% of customer service employees indicate that their company lacks the right tools to provide customers with the correct answers to complex questions: who the customer is, what was promised, how previous contact moments went. More insight into the customer journey = less stress! Moreover, with the right tools, you gain more insight into the quality of contact moments and where, for example, more training is required.
There are various ways to reduce the workload of your employees. And remember: a relaxed and satisfied customer service employee is usually also a satisfied customer. Want to know more about our tools and training to make your employees' work easier? Take a look here.
