Whilst the primary aim for any support team is to accomplish their company goals as a team, this is only possible if customer support representatives (CSRs) within the company achieve their personal goals. Managers that allow CSRs to engage in personal goal-setting will set thier team up for success.
When setting company goals, a top-down approach is important. This allows managers to determine what they would like to achieve as a team and communicate how they can work together to achieve them.
However, when it comes to managing CSRs’ personal goals, a more staying with the company longer.
This article will cover three main benefits of personal goal-setting for CSR:
- Improved employee happiness
- Strengthened workplace engagement
- Revamping productivity
Improved employee happiness 😊
It’s no secret that employees that are happy are more productive, higher performing, and create a work environment that nurtures further team development. According to Murph Krajewski on Amazing Business Radio, happy customer support representatives are 20% more productive than unhappy ones.
So how can managers create a happier customer support team?
Alongside company culture, the delegation of responsibility and autonomy is one of the main catalysts for increasing the happiness of customer support representatives. Research shows that setting one’s own goals directly contributes to the improvement of their level of happiness in the workplace.
Managers who allow their team members to be involved in the personal-goal setting process will notice their team are happier to work on tasks that otherwise may have seemed boring and monotonous. To put it simply: a happy CSR is a better CSR.
Strengthened workplace engagement 🔗
Whether managers give CSRs full ownership of their personal goals or take a hybrid approach and provide guidance, allowing involvement from the bottom up will increase their team’s engagement with their work drastically. Cognitive Neuroscientist Dr. Lynda Shaw says:
“Goal setting is very important. By taking the time to find out an employee’s personal goals, and then relating them to your organization, you will be motivating your employee to strive to achieve. Ensure your employee is directly involved in their own goal setting, as that will increase ‘buy-in’ from them”.
Often, company goals are set monthly or even yearly and an employee’s contribution is hard to quantify making it hard to remain engaged and motivated. However, setting personal goals amidst a shorter-timeframe gives the feeling of accomplishment more often allowing employees to more frequently celebrate success and feel more engaged.
Managers who implement this bottom-up approach will realize a heightened sense of motivation amongst their CSR’s to achieve not only their personal objectives but company goals as well.
Boosted productivity 📈
Personal goal-setting gives CSRs a sense of ownership over there own objectives. This increased sense of pride in one’s work is conducive to a heightened level of productivity, encouraging team members to work harder towards achieving their goals.
Research shows that employees have a desire to evaluate their own goals and when granted this opportunity, often outperform those that are working towards a delegated goal. The possibility of not only setting one’s own goals but being able to track their own progress towards achieving it on a daily basis, encourages a higher level of motivation and hence increased productivity.
Managers who empower their teams to set their own personal goals will notice a growing level of ownership of tasks and objectives and see a higher caliber of productivity and efficiency.
Manager’s checklist for personal goal-setting
Whilst there has been a great shift towards autonomy when it comes to support representatives setting their own goals, many managers still need to play a significant role in ensuring that CSRs set, evaluate, and are rewarded for their personal goals. Here is a checklist for how customer support managers can help ensure their team members are setting actionable goals for themselves:
- Set up achievable, actionable company goals with contribution from your CSRs
- Analyze each CSRs performance based on historical metrics
- Collaboratively analyze these performance metrics to locate areas that need improvement
- Work together to formulate weekly goals that promote gradual performance improvement
- Regularly check-in and 1:1 meetings with each CSR to evaluate their progress towards achieving their personal and company goals
- Ensure that you are celebrating the successes and achievements of these goals by rewarding CSRs
Streamlining your team’s personal goal-setting
Whilst a manager’s role in CSRs achieving their goals is important, ensuring that each team member is able to achieve these goals is a difficult and time-consuming task. Kaizo allows customer support managers to move away from micro-management of their team’s personal goals towards empowering support agents to pilot their own improvement through self-management.
- Provides 50+ real-time performance metrics for each team member to allow managers to easily formulate actionable company goals
- Gives automated weekly reports based on each CSRs performance to pinpoint which areas they need to improve on
- Allows support representatives to set their own weekly goals guided by an AI trainer that ensures continual performance improvement
- Grants CSRs and managers real-time access to their personal goal progress to steer team members in the right direction before an issue occurs
- Ensures both managers and CSRs are educated and ready with actionable insights for each 1:1 with transparent, real-time metrics accessible to all team members
- Continually allows team members to celebrate successes as they gain skill points and level up their avatar for their positive actions
With the ability to set, evaluate and achieve their personal goals, CSRs are more motivated than ever to earn their skill points, level up their avatar, and in turn contribute more greatly to achieving the company goals.
If you would like more information on how Kaizo’s personal goal-setting can boost the engagement and productivity of your team, schedule a demo with us!