5 Real Ways to Show Appreciation to Customer Service Teams

The holiday season is coming up, which means now is a busy time for most support centers. With the added stress of an intensive shopping period, customer service agents are gearing up to correspond with combative shoppers at high volumes. This means now more than ever it’s important to show customer service appreciation, which goes a long way in maintaining a positive work environment.

Why Is It Important To Show Customer Service Appreciation?

These busy seasons can contribute to high attrition rates in support centers, reaching 30% to 45% on average compared to the industry standard of 15%. But managers have the ability to prevent that through acts of customer service appreciation that uplift their teams and keep morale high.

What gestures, activities, and rewards really show your agents that you care? Here are a few ways to demonstrate appreciation in customer service, which makes agents feel acknowledged and ultimately leads to better overall performance.

Learn from CX visionaries shaping the future of customer service

GLADLY CONNECT LIVE

5 Ways to Show Appreciation in Customer Service

1. Write thank you notes

Writing a customer service appreciation letter is one of the easiest and most effective gestures you can make. The combination of time you put into the note and the personal details you add let your team know how much you value them.

Start by calling out some of the recipient’s successes at work. In particular, include some combination of the following:

• Tell them you’ve noticed their hard work and their skill within their role
• Call out some examples of the successes you’ve noticed
• Mention there’s an opportunity for growth based on their performance
• Include a quote from a satisfied customer

2. Acknowledge hard work

Highlighting individual performances in the workplace can give each employee a chance to feel like a valued contributor, as well as a moment in the spotlight to feel proud of their work. It also acts as a motivator for other agents who want to receive the same public praise.

Here are some ways to acknowledge an employee’s hard work:

• Call out top performers during team meetings
• Send out company newsletters with blurbs on high-performing employees
• Highlight employees’ performances on social channels

3. Host off-site or team-building days

Try giving your team a break from work to learn, share, and grow together. This will show you’re invested in your agents’ mental health and interested in directly hearing from them about ways to improve their work lives.

Here are some ideas you can try:

• Appreciation Circles
• Service-themed scavenger hunts
• Off-site community service days
• Team-building exercises

2023 REPORT

See what motivates agents, the top challenges they face, and how to solve them.

Free Download

4. Reward performance

Communicating your appreciation will go far, but rewarding strong performance is a tangible way to demonstrate an agent’s value. Depending on your budget, these rewards can incentivize better performance from your team.

Here are some examples of rewarding performance:

• Direct bonuses or raises
• Extra vacation days
• Physical prizes

5. Show you’re invested in them

Acts of customer service appreciation can go even further than notes and gestures. Investing in technology that gives your agents more autonomy will have the dual effect of boosting morale and improving your support performance.

Make sure your customer service platform has some combination of the following:

• Accessibility and simplicity for new agents to easily onboard
• Automation that matches your best-fit agents to the right customers in each scenario
• A system driven by conversations rather than tickets

Customer Service Appreciation Case Study: JOANN

Gladly has helped ecommerce brands like JOANN foster happy, productive agents. Using accessible and self-actualizing technology that provides autonomy to support agents, JOANN led with an agent-first mindset and built their customer loyalty ecosystem on the backs of positive and well-equipped teams. As a result, they were able to better connect with customers and create dedicated, life-long fans out of their shoppers.

When you show customer service appreciation, your agents will feel more fulfilled in their work. That positivity will be reflected in how they serve customers, allowing them to make stronger connections from more meaningful conversations. From those relationships, your shoppers will feel more loyalty toward your company and come back to buy more time and again.