Customer Service Week at GCS
This is the week when we honor the work of our favorite super heroes. We know them by many names: professional problem solvers; queens of the queue; princes of patience; masters of making things right; bearers of the brand; champions of connection. As they answer even the most roundabout, complicated questions (or the same simple question asked 35 times each day) their legends travel far and wide, blanketing every channel.
They are The Customer Service Representatives…
At GCS, customer service representatives (CSR) are super heroes every day. The dictionary defines a super hero as an ordinary person with extraordinary abilities. We already know that a person who chooses to become a CSR is more than ordinary. Becoming a CSR is a choice – and we believe every CSR can become extraordinary. Super heroes are made, not born.
How do we make CSRs into super heroes? By supporting them with the recognition, education and coaching they need to avoid the kryptonite preventing superhuman feats of customer service. We’re not trying to be funny – customer service is one of the most challenging AND rewarding careers you can choose. Now, more than ever, continuous education and coaching is vital. Communications channels mature and change as customer service has become a vigilant 24-hour, seven-day process to battle the competitive forces and win more customers. CSRs are expected to be bigger, faster and stronger than ever.
Contact centers can be tension filled. Every day we ask our agents to battle customers’ frustrations, expectations and worries to prevent the next crisis. There’s a lot more to being a CSR than simply memorizing the answers to routine questions and knowing when to route a query to a supervisor. Having the genuine desire to help others is important, as are the ability and skills to stay cool under fire. Additionally, CSRs are called upon to attain strict KPIs, meet specific timetables, and grapple with a host of other, often conflicting, business metrics. If that’s not “leaping tall buildings in a single bound,” we don’t know what is.
As contact center experts, one of our most important missions is to hire, train, and nurture nice people so they can become super heroes. That’s right – nice people. It’s not enough for a CSR to understand your business objectives, they must also understand the revolutionary impact that simple kindness and courtesy has on every transaction. And it helps a lot if that person is nice to begin with. (We’re not saying you can’t transform Catwoman into warm and fuzzy Miss Kitty – that may be doable. It’s just faster and more fun our way.)
Greg, our CEO, has a great philosophy well worth sharing with you as we head into Customer Service Appreciation Week (CSAW). “The most important person in our organization is the person who talks to our clients’ customer,” he says – and that person is the CSR. Better yet, let Greg describe our organizational philosophy to you in our video, The Upside Down Organizational Chart.
Celebrating Our Super Heroes
Our super heroes deserve to be celebrated, and that’s what CSAW is all about. Congress made CSAW a national event in 1992, and businesses around the world have adopted it as well. CSAW is a reminder of how important customer service is to business and industry. Without service, we’d grind to a halt.
We’ve put together a fun way to show your appreciation for the team that connects your business and brand to your customers.
Our Customer Service Week Tool Kit packs a full five days of kudos and congrats into a delightful plan to make your CSRs feel supported and celebrated.
We’ll ship this physical tool kit to your center, complete with capes and goodies for 10 of your Super Heroes!
Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside:
- Fortune Cookie – We are Fortunate to have you!
- Smarties – To help you have all the answers you need!
- Tootsie Roll – To remind you of the important ROLE you play!
- Laffy Taffy – To remind you to maintain your sense of humor!
- Double Bubble – For the DOUBLE work you do!
- 100 Grand Bar – Because you are worth 100 GRAND!
- Life Savers – Because you’re a life saver!
- Rubber Bands – To keep you flexible!
- Paper Clip – To help you hold it all together!
- Heroes Survival Kit
- Super Hero Matching Game
- Dress As Your Super Hero Day
- … and more!
If that’s not enough to get you excited about Customer Service Appreciation Week, then it’s time for you to enter to win the complete course of Say THIS, Not That… Training, our online training program for great customer service. This new online soft skills training program provides a base line of skills and tactics that jumpstart the future super hero coaching process. It teaches important skills many call center managers want their agents to have, but find it challenging and time-consuming to provide with all the other job-specific training requirements.
Take a look at this real-life experience feedback from one of our many satisfied Say This customers:
“I enjoyed taking the GCS Mastering Soft Skills Training Course. I especially like the fact that the training is not too long in that you are looking at your watch and asking yourself, ‘When is this going to be OVER!?’ Along with the perfect time frame of the course, the actors themselves are right on point with some of the things that we, as Customer Service Representatives, deal with on a regular basis. Disgruntled customers, callers unsure of what they are needing or what department they need to be sent to are just some of the scenarios that are addressed in this course.”
Whether serving customers via phone, in writing or face to face, our training gives managers and coaches effective tools for bringing out the best in their employees – and delighting customers. Don’t wait -- enter to win the complete program!
There’s no better way to celebrate Customer Service Appreciation Week than by giving your budding Super Heroes opportunities to grow and move on an upward path through your organization. Say THIS, Not That isn’t just an ordinary training program, it’s a wonderful kick-start for any CSR that’s ready to sharpen and build their super hero skills into a rewarding career. And you can start the program for free, just by entering to win your copy of the program!