On a daily basis, customer service agents are confronted with challenging scenarios. Customer service burnout can occur without the proper support and business culture. Fortunately, managers can take a few simple steps to avoid burnout and retain top talent.

This article will discuss some strategies that managers can use to keep customer service employees motivated and satisfied at work. Also, we will look at some of the most common difficulties they confront.

How To Prevent Customer Service Burnout

1. Rotate’ Schedules Each Day So That No One Is on the Phone All-Day

The obligation to conduct productive, engaging phone conversations all day is one of the more exhausting aspects of customer service. However, phone conversations necessitate attentive listening, strong communication, and emotional intelligence, all of which deplete the energy of a support rep and lead to burnout.

Think about how you can encourage reps to vary the channels they use throughout the day. If you offer different types of customer service (such as chat, email, or phone) – this can help reduce burnout from back-to-back phone calls.

2. Create a Welcoming and Enjoyable Work Environment

Creating a welcoming, positive work environment can aid in stress reduction and make coming to work more enjoyable. So, let’s discuss some ideas for making your workplace more enticing to employees.

The first step is to allow employees to personalize their workspaces and make the office feel more welcoming. You should also give employees the option of a regular desk or a standup/adjustable desk.

In addition, ensure that agents have all of the equipment and tools they require to execute their tasks. Consider displaying a leaderboard in your lobby or breakroom that recognizes the month’s top performers as an added incentive.

3. Promote Your Company’s Culture

Contextualize your company’s services as part of a larger mission to meet your customers’ needs.

Agents who feel they’re genuinely performing a service for customers (as opposed to a transactional relationship with their employer) sustain higher performance for longer.

Whether that’s encouraging healthier lifestyles, making complex tasks more manageable, or adding humor to their day. Intangible motivators like these elevate the everyday office to a higher level.

4. Provide the Appropriate Software to Agents

Companies that are serious about boosting their customer experience strategy should invest in a helpdesk system with rave reviews for ticket management, reporting, and user experience.

Ticket management boosts departmental productivity. It provides insight for department optimization by promoting the times of day when the most tickets are generated, which languages are frequently used, etc.

Furthermore, the user experience ensures that your agents will use it. After working with customers all day, a solution that augments their productivity goes a long way toward reducing the impacts of tiredness.

5. Ensure Supervisors Are Available to Help With Difficult Situations

Supervisors have a critical role in reducing stress among customer service representatives. Ensure that agents have constant access to a supervisor who can intervene if a customer’s behavior becomes abusive or improper.

It is sometimes beneficial to remove an agent from a problematic situation and delegate responsibility to someone else to minimize the impact. It’s also critical to ensure that individual contributors and their managers have access to specialized training to deal with difficult situations gracefully.

6. Encourage Breaks

Quality takes precedence over quantity. Monotony suffocates your agents’ motivation, focus, and productivity. Customer service departments often have fewer hours of operation which often prompts the employer to reduce break time.

This strategy does nothing but makes your reps grow tired of constant, unbroken work.

Allowing agents to be more flexible and encouraging them to take breaks boosts their engagement and results in better ticket resolution. Alternatively, simply show them photographs of adorable animals. Do both if possible.

Technology exists to help us do our jobs more efficiently, and if your reps can take more breaks because of them and still do a great job, by all means, allow them to do so. Implementing small changes in the office, management policies, and technology solutions significantly reduces customer service burnout. In a nutshell, be kind and work smarter.

7. Set Appropriate Benchmarks

Some occupations require movement for anything to change. Managers are, metaphorically speaking, the armored guardians of policies and norms that appear to be set in stone.

Employees may not have a voice or believe they can speak up in a rigid environment. It furthermore reflects in their jobs, where they are required to enforce strict laws and act in ways that go against their moral values.

The circumstances don’t have to be dire for this to occur; a corporation short on workers may rely too heavily on existing employees and request overtime or establish unpleasant working hours to stay afloat. Also, you should try and avoid this by any means necessary; unhappy workers are less likely to perform well.

Ask for excellence, but be realistic about what you’re expecting from one person. Always check yourself and ensure you’re thinking both about the customer and the employee when making important decisions, not just your bottom line.

Final Thoughts

Customer service is a highly demanding job. While the appropriate equipment and quality managers help get the work done on time, the best guarantee of a job well done is satisfied and relaxed employees.

All of our tips can help you in preventing fatigue, but in the end, it all boils down to prioritizing your employees and caring about their needs – as any good boss should.