What Kind of Customer Service Leader Are You? [Quiz]

Support centers are notoriously intense environments, requiring significant work from all parties to create a successful, customer-centric culture and shopper experience. Unfortunately, this approach can force pressing demands on employees and cause emotional stress and dissatisfaction. The result is high rates of agent churn, a factor that 67% of CX leaders find to be a concern in their own workplaces. To prevent this alarming amount of exhaustion, the solution starts by asking the question, “What kind of customer service leader are you?” and optimizing your personal management style to be as strong a leader as possible.

[ Read more: Agent Churn – The Costs of Losing Agents and How To Stop It ]

Business Impact of Poor Customer Service Leadership

Industries across the globe are feeling the difficulty and consequences of poor leadership. A report from DDI found that only one in three CEOs felt their frontline leadership (e.g. support managers) was successful, a startling indication of how much more internal managers can guide team success.

But when discussing the shortcomings of support center leadership, few bring up the fact that management is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. By understanding different leadership styles and applications, a manager can more confidently lean into their strengths in a way that empowers employees to follow suit and feel more in control of their own day-to-day work.

How to Learn Your Support Leadership Style

Knowing this, ask yourself what your strengths and weaknesses are and how you can best apply your managerial style. We at Gladly know that these are difficult questions to ask yourself without any guidance, which is why we’ve developed this What Kind of Customer Service Leader Are You? quiz to pinpoint your leadership personality on your quest to become the most effective manager you can be.

As you go through this quiz, think carefully about the types of positive relationships you aim to have with your staff. With your results, you’ll have a clear direction to move into the next phase of your managerial development.

What Kind of Customer Service Leader Are You?

See where you fall on the customer support leadership spectrum to best leverage your management style in the workplace.

How do you assign projects or tasks to your employees?

A. I use proven data to inform the best possible organizational structure for optimal success.
B. I put agents in charge of tasks where they’ve previously shown good performance.
C. I keep my agents as mobile as possible, giving them different opportunities within the support center to apply unique insight and learn more about various service processes.
D. I work directly with agents one-on-one to see where they’d be most comfortable applying their skills or trying out new opportunities.

How do you communicate your expectations to your staff?

A. I set specific but transparent goals based on performance metrics that demonstrate consistent success over time.
B. I set conservative but growth-minded goals to ensure we’ll meet expectations for ourselves without pushing workers too hard or underperforming for customers.
C. I aim to inspire an above-and-beyond mindset by empowering my staff with incentives and top-tier technology to be the best support agents they can be.
D. I prefer to meet with staff one-on-one or in small groups to define personalized goals for each team member.

How do you incorporate data into your support center management?

A. It informs almost every aspect of my decision-making process, fostering a deeply analytics-driven work environment.
B. I use it to guide my decisions and ensure I’m not overreaching on assigning tasks, setting goals, etc.
C. I use it to identify opportunities and provide insight into new frontiers for our support center to explore.
D. I use it intermittently as a means to inform my employees where they’re succeeding or underperforming to get them to think proactively about ways to improve.

How do you most commonly communicate constructive criticism to an employee?

A. I use data to show areas of performance they can improve and tangible actions to take to make those adjustments.
B. I work with the employee to carefully adjust their work cycles, schedules, or task management to ensure they’re set up for success as best as possible.
C. I encourage employees to try different ways to handle tasks they struggle with or offer them the opportunity to explore new aspects of the support center where they might be more successful.
D. I work one-on-one with employees to create positive-minded improvement plans with regular check-ins to help them achieve optimal performance.

How do you recognize accomplishments in your support center?

A. I take success and quality performance into consideration as I plan for the future, rewarding data-backed results.
B. I support success as it comes but don’t set unreasonable expectations of every employee overachieving consistently.
C. I champion high performance and encourage those who go above and beyond to pass on their learnings and motivations to those around them.
D. I encourage staff to celebrate one another in their successes so they feel more empowered by their day-to-day work.

How do you think your employees would describe your managerial style?

A. I am deeply analytical and operate within the world of measurable truths to achieve consistently successful outcomes.
B. I balance a focus on the long-term success of my support staff with the need to hit specific monthly goals, ensuring we do so without taxing our mental health.
C. I have a vision for the long-term success of the support center and aim to empower those under me to buy into this vision and contribute their own innovative ideas.
D. I’m very hands-on with each employee and try to be understanding of individual needs to ensure a healthy, holistic work environment.

Your Customer Service Leadership Type

Mostly “A” Answers: You are a Tactician

Your focus is on driving data-driven solutions using proven measurements and results to get positive customer outcomes. You also want to keep your support staff feeling motivated, using individual performance reports to best organize your team.

Mostly “B” Answers: You are a Rationalizer

You’re cautiously optimistic as you aim for carefully planned growth that doesn’t outstretch your reach. While doing so, you’re cognizant of employee happiness, health, and performance, providing the scaling growth you want that doesn’t come at the cost of a strong, effective support center.

Mostly “C” Answers: You are a Trendsetter

Your decisive nature helps keep your team on track and focused. But your affinity for innovation keeps you open to employee ideas and a desire to let your team find new opportunities to expand their roles within your brand.

Mostly “D” Answers: You are an Inspirer

You lead your team from the ground up, providing opportunities for others to take control of situations and guidance to get to solutions that serve both customers’ and agents’ happiness.

Develop Your Management Style Further

Now that you can better respond to “What kind of CX leader are you?” the next step in your journey should be honing those skills to become the best version of that personality type. Start maximizing your potential — read our ultimate management and leadership guide to become the ideal superior to guide and uplift your staff.

GUIDE

Create a more service-driven support center

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