Successfully Managing Remote Employees

We all want our employees to perform at the highest level possible because we all have goals. With people working from home becoming the new norm, making sure everyone stays focused and on track is no easy chore.

Foxie has come up with some solutions on how to achieve this while keeping your at home employees happy and productive.

Keeping your employees performing and focused can be the difference between a financially successful business and one that will soon be closing its doors.

Use data for better results - All managers know that data is king. It’s important to ensure that the data and metrics you choose to keep up with are useful for achieving company-wide objectives. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) help to reveal whether your team is moving in the right direction or becoming stagnant.

Employees who work from home need to be able to access information at a moment’s notice. There are no support coaches or team leaders to ask questions of, so at home agents must have answers to questions at their fingertips and know how to access them quickly. A customer does not want to be placed on hold while the agent searches for the answer, so this should be of utmost importance.

When calls are coming in, your employees need to have the customer history on their screen instantly. Not just their name and personal info, but their entire purchase and interaction history to be well informed and to be able to speak to any of the customer's questions. 

Listen to your agents and your customers -The best way to understand what your employees are going through is to listen to them! Ask for honest feedback on what they think works and what needs improvement, and adjust accordingly.

Providing an outlet for their concerns and a way for them to interact with management can make it much easier to keep them motivated to do their best work. There are multiple ways to go about doing this:

Host virtual town hall meetings for ideas to be aired without judgment or repercussions. Key Performance Indicators help to reveal whether your team is moving in the right direction or becoming stagnant. Some other suggestions:

• Create regular surveys to gauge agent experience and general satisfaction among your team members. Something like a questionnaire should be given to employees at the end of their work week to write down what is bothering them. These can be made more powerful by providing a safe space for employees to submit detailed feedback and suggestions anonymously.
• Have scheduled one- one-on-one meetings that make it easier for agents to voice ideas directly to managers without having to make time in their busy schedules to do so.

Nobody likes to be micromanaged -Keeping your remote call center agents on a relatively short leash may seem like a good idea, but such an approach can do more harm than good. When your agents are properly trained and have all the information they need to do their job properly, micromanaging becomes completely unnecessary.

Employees who are open to trying new solutions to customer problems will often be much more productive than those who constantly need to defer to management for assistance or permission.

By knowing your team, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses, you should be able to find the right balance to make your team happy and successful.

Are you ready to take communications with your employees and customers to the next level?

Allow us to introduce FoxieEngage.

Foxie has developed FoxieEngage, which is a single platform that gives you the ability to chat, respond to social media questions, text, talk, and communicate with your staff, customers, and vendors…all on their terms and in the way they choose to communicate with you.

 Be more engaged with your customers...call me at 866-BE-ENGAGED (866-233-6424), text START to FOXIE  (36943) or shoot me an email at ajohnson@foxie.com.

I'm looking forward to engaging with you soon!