Recently the Zendesk Community showcased our best practices on how to manage & maintain your agent workforce. This is part two in our series, hosted by Cat Hurley, Director of Customer Advocacy, where she covered how to empower your team to thrive, work through growing pains as they arise, and plan ahead to handle changes in a looming turbulent marketplace. We were also joined by Jared Loman from Kajabi, who shared his expertise & experiences on our focus topic!
Video Recording
Questions from the Q&A
Q: What is the best way you've found for tracking Agent results and productivity?
A: The best way we found is not to focus on a single data point. Take the full story into account.
Q: How do you keep personal connections between team members who are 100% remote?
A: Digital happy hours with supplied gift cards work well for some teams. More importantly than anything, it’s about deliberately providing some on-the-clock time to socialize and being agile with how you do it.
Q: Any advice on managing agent team schedules?
A: We would recommend Playvox's Aggyle Time and also implement a dedicated Workforce Management team.
Q: How do you spot inefficiencies on your agent team?
A: Dedicated resources to WFM and capacity coordination is something we didn't do nearly soon enough but is essential in identifying inefficiencies.
Q: How do you deal with rapid growth in the team and communicating changes?
A: Knowledge Centered Service both externally and internally -JL I go through this a little on my slides.
Q: How do you inspire a team to enjoy what they do? Coaching tips to help agents thrive and not only survive in current roles?
A: There isn't a magic bullet or a one-size-fits-all approach. The most effective method I've found is to get to know as many people on the team as possible and instill the importance of this practice as far down into the org chart you can go.
Q: How do you determine a suitable volume of workload for your team?
A: To start we need to achieve the goals of the business, control our costs and most importantly ensure we are exceeding customer expectations. Once you understand the appropriate model for your business, budget to accommodate the needs mentioned above while providing ample time out of queue so that agents have the capacity to take part in projects, contribute to VOC initiatives and otherwise maintain relationships with their peers.
Q: How do you manage motivation during a restructure?
A: It's not easy… take advantage of the absolute earliest possible time you can to gather feedback, build consensus and buy-in from the team. Provide as much time as possible between the time you announce a restructuring and the time it happens. Listen… genuinely listen to the feedback. Even when a decision is entirely out of your control, you can drastically alter the perception of the change by finding quick wins or opportunities found in the feedback you collect.
Q: How do you manage motivation during a restructure?
A: It's not easy… take advantage of the absolute earliest possible time you can to gather feedback, build consensus and buy-in from the team. Provide as much time as possible between the time you announce a restructuring and the time it happens. Listen… genuinely listen to the feedback. Even when a decision is entirely out of your control, you can drastically alter the perception of the change by finding quick wins or opportunities found in the feedback you collect.
Resources from the event
Presentation Material:
Future Events & Opportunities
Zendesk Relate 2022 on Demand Content
2 Comments
👋 flagging that this is not the right slides deck as it points to Deep Dive on What’s New with Sell - Advanced Analytics
Hi Kevin,
Appreciate letting us know about the deck link not being correct and this should be working now,.
Thanks.
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