7 Ways to Boost Productivity in Your Remote Support Team

Remote work is here to stay. As the number of teams working remotely keeps growing, new challenges appear. Humans are social beings, and remote work can lead to people feeling isolated. Still, there are ways of bridging this gap, which this article will discuss.

Keeping people together is of utmost importance as 70% of the workforce will work remotely by 2025 for at least a couple of days per month. What’s more, more brands are outsourcing their customer support teams for lower costs, around-the-clock availability, and quality of service.

Keep reading to see how you can ensure consistent productivity from your remote teams. You can expect outstanding results with the right approach.

1. Equip your support team with the best tools

Your team's productivity will largely depend on the range of tools they can use. Your goal is to provide team members with tools to make their work easier and help them stay productive and effective. For customer support, that means providing:

• Collaborative communication system
• CRM tool
• Modern hardware

Remote support teams spend all of their time communicating with clients and among themselves. Therefore, the most important asset is a good collaborative communication system. That’s why many businesses opt for apps like Nextiva. These VoIP platforms come with features that make it easier for your customer support to be productive.

Agents can work together on customer calls, keep track of client interaction, and seamlessly communicate among themselves and your brand’s headquarter staff. Another feature to consider is integrations with other tools.

That’s where picking a compatible CRM tool can help. All your client data can be in a single database accessible by other team members. 

This way, a colleague from the sales team knows everything about the client before contacting them. Or technical team members know some website design improvements they can make as per the client’s feedback in the CRM.

Last but not least, invest in hardware that simply works. Purchase high-quality headsets so your customers can clearly understand your agents.

2. Expand each team member’s skillset

Employees are always searching for a way to grow. Without enough room for progress, they might change jobs and seek better opportunities. It’s your responsibility to create a plan for every employee to ensure their quick advancement.

Customer support can quickly become tedious. However, there are ways to make it more engaging for the employee. Today, customer support teams communicate with customers on a multitude of platforms. These channels include social media, email, phone, ticketing systems, and more.

It’s a good idea to provide training for each of these channels. For example, you can employ a phone operator initially, but they could receive training in social media communication in a couple of months. Then, you repeat the same process with other communication channels.

That way, employees will remain engaged and interested in their working position as they build their skillset. Once they learn more, they can be promoted and work in a position that uses all of these communication channels.

Creating room for growth for your employees is a great way to keep them in your company and move your business forward.

3. Set KPIs to keep the focus high

If there are no clear goals established, people can quickly get demotivated. That’s why key performance indicators, also known as OKRs, play an important role in every business. However, you must set KPIs that employees can realistically achieve without pressure.

They serve not to create pressure but to keep employees on track to achieving daily goals. Therefore, devise a system that takes into account the number of customer support interactions and the quality of service.

With such a system in place, you can expect your agents to stay focused and deliver better performance in the long run.

4. Create a reward system

Incorporate gamification elements in your team’s performance. For example, different KPI values can lead to various prizes. It’s a good idea to hold monthly or weekly competitions that reward team members.

Instead of creating a single reward, it might be better to create several tiers of rewards, so the top five agents get the prize in the form of a bonus or some time off. Use different prizes every month, and you’ll quickly see what your employees find the most rewarding.

5. Hold regular video calls

Establish a communication plan if you want to create a company culture that all employees will feel a part of. As corny as it may sound, communication is the key to success in every business. Feeling like a part of a community will keep the remote team motivated to work hard.

That’s why it’s important to get creative with your weekly calls. The goal is to go over the KPIs and include all the participants. A great way to do so is to change the host of the meeting every time.

That way, the host has to prepare the agenda for the meeting. Whenever someone’s a host, they’ll be engaged in the meeting.

Even though a part of the meeting will address things such as KPIs, be creative and use an activity to learn more about the team members. How do they feel about the current projects? Do they have any suggestions to make them better? 

These questions will motivate people to engage during the meeting and improve your brand’s customer support.

6. Use tools to monitor performance

When you monitor performance, you see which team members need help to become better. In some cases, they might lack knowledge of a particular process. In others, they might be experiencing personal problems.

All these factors can impact the levels of productivity. As an example, around 70% of workers say that stress harmed their productivity to some extent.

Whatever the case, use the data to communicate with team members and see what you can do for them. Offering support and understanding is something that employees will appreciate and reciprocate with better productivity when they feel better.

As more time passes, you’ll have a better idea of your top-performing employees and what keeps them moving forward. Then, you can capitalize on meeting their expectations, which will drive productivity.

7. Feedback

Feedback isn’t only necessary when people are doing things wrong. One of the best ways to keep employees motivated is to say when they’re doing great. Establish a schedule of one-on-one calls to share your feedback with team members.

Keep in mind that giving feedback is a two-way street. After you share your thoughts, hear what employees have to say. Use the feedback to create a better work culture and meet the expectations of all your employees.

Remember to ask the right questions. Don’t go the usual way, but get creative. The end goal is to build an honest relationship with your employees and nurture it.

Concluding Thoughts

Use these ways to grow your remote support team’s productivity. As it’s likely that remote work is here to stay, the sooner you start practicing these approaches, the better. The good part is that we now have all the necessary technologies so even remote teams can feel the presence of company culture.

With a little bit of creativity and consistent effort, you’ll be able to grow the productivity of your remote teams.