7 Creative Ideas on How to Motivate Your Customer Service Team

A post from our Customer Service blog

Everyone who works or has ever worked in customer service knows how stressful this field is, and how hard it is to stay focused and motivated throughout the job. Customer service advisors have to deal with repetitive requests and frustrated customers on a daily basis, so it's easy to understand why they experience burnout or discouragement from time to time.


If your employees are dispirited and unmotivated, however, the problem can filter down to the customer and adversely affect their experience, so keeping your employees happy is vital for the general health of your customer service system.

But how can you motivate your team and make sure they are content? How do you ensure that they don't burn out or become less productive? Here are 7 creative ideas on how to motivate your customer service team.

1) Know what motivates them

In order to successfully motivate your team, it's vital that you understand them. Since not everyone is the same, you need to know what motivates each of them, what affects their individual performance, and what incentives they might appreciate.

The easiest way to find the answer to these questions is to conduct surveys or questionnaires, have brainstorming sessions, and engage in casual conversations with your team.

2) Keep the communication flowing

Communication is crucial when it comes to keeping your employees motivated. Not only does it show that you care for their well-being, but employees will feel left out and unmotivated if they don't feel that the company cares about them and their opinion.

You can prevent this by sharing vital information with them, forewarning them about added workloads during sales, and recognising good performance.

3) Encourage friendly competition

There's nothing like some friendly competition between team members to add a little extra motivation to everyday tasks. Not only is it one of the most effective ways to motivate your entire team, but it also encourages your team to perform better together.

If you set challenging goals for them, they'll work together to reach that goal. That's the attitude friendly competition tends to cultivate.

4) Appreciate their efforts

One of the best ways to keep your team members motivated is to appreciate their efforts and reward good performance. This connects to the first point – when you know and understand your team (and individual team members), you can offer them the right rewards for their efforts. This can come in many forms, such as creating a reward system, remembering their birthdays and anniversaries, and by ensuring they get breaks and take vacations once in a while.

5) Empower you team

Your team needs the right tools in order to function well and provide an exceptional customer service, so make sure that these are available to them.

Another great way to motivate them and increase their productivity is to empower them. You can do this by assigning leadership roles to different employees at different times, or simply changing their responsibilities so they can learn a wider array of skills and develop. Group discussions and meetings will also get your employees involved.

6) Provide training opportunities

Although most companies provide preliminary training, many of them don't offer refresher courses to their existing employees – which is a mistake.

Companies with successful customer service systems often invest in ongoing training courses. Not only does this show that you're invested in your employees, but it will also allow them to develop new skills, which will benefit both you and your employees in the long run.

7) Have some fun

There are several companies that are consciously trying to add a little joy and cheer to the workplace in order to motivate their employees. In fact, this is one of the best ways to do just that, as it allows you and your employees to connect in a slightly more casual setting and allows them to relax and release a bit of stress.

If you'd like to create a more joyful workplace, try arranging company outings, conducting puzzles and games, organising contests or similar activities.



Do you have any other ideas on how to motivate your customer service team? Make sure to let us know in the comments below.