Supportreads.com has only been live for a short while but it’s already gathered hundreds of interesting and high-quality customer service and CX articles.
We created this community-curated reading hub to connect thousands of support folks around the world through our mutual love for reading and sharing outstanding CX content.
We’ve been enjoying this platform a little too much, spending hours reading the fascinating blog posts and articles people have posted and upvoted there. To make sure you don’t miss out on some of the most valuable content pieces, we picked out five nuggets of gold for you.
5 Things Support Reps Wish They Could Tell Their Managers
This article by Dania McDermott, published in the Aircall blog, feels like a good breath of fresh as it tackles one of the topics that nobody else wants to talk about. Honestly and abruptly, here’s what customer service agents wish they could share with their managers.
Key points:
?“I’m drowning” due to the conversation volume,
?“I have goals outside of support” – we are all human after all,
?“I hate doing X” and that’s why your team is losing motivation,
?“I need more training”, so help agents achieve their goals,
?“I want to know how my work matters” because everybody wants to feel that they make an impact
? We love how Dania brings these topics into the sunlight and accompanies them with actual solutions to that you can try out right away. Read the full article here.
The 5 Professional Love Languages to Improve Your Team’s Connection
Mercer Smith-Looper reminds us how awesome our team members are as individuals – and how rarely we actually appreciate them for that. This article published in the Nicereply blog takes the theory of Love Languages and puts it into use in a professional setting.
Key points:
?Words of Affirmation are important for people who love being told they are appreciated. In the professional world, you can do that by giving positive and constructive feedback.
?Acts of Service are a way of showing how much another person is valued – by, for example, taking tickets out of your colleague’s queue.
?Receiving Gifts can mean a lot to your coworkers. In the professional setting, this can happen in the form of sharing interesting blog posts or giving good productivity tips and tricks.
?Quality Time makes people feel that they are appreciated in one-on-one meetings, coffee breaks, or other individual time dedicated to your teammate.
?Physical Touch could be expressed as “keeping in touch” with your colleagues in your spare time, discussing their hobbies, or asking how their families are doing.
? We were intrigued to learn how the theory of Love Languages could possibly work in the professional environment. If you are too, then read the full story here.
Confessions of a call-center scammer
BBC journalist Rajini Vaidyanathan interviewed a scammer who put up fake call centers to trick people into paying money for removing malware from their computers. This intriguing article opens up the darker side of what happens behind the scenes of a scam call center.
“When he started out, Piyush was paid one rupee for every dollar he made in sales. So for a $100 dollar scam, he’d only get $1.25. But once he became the boss the money flooded in. Some “lucky months” he took home $50,000.”
? Though it wasn’t exactly a pleasant read content-wise, the problem of call center scams definitely deserves attention. Read the complete interview here.
6 Challenges of Remote Customer Service + Solution Ideas
Leah from Userlike sheds some light on how the sudden switch to remote work (due to the coronavirus crisis) has affected customer service. All challenges are neatly equipped with good pieces of advice on how to tackle them.
Key points:
?Increased workload, support requests because everybody is working hard to save their businesses,
?Stressed customers due to the uncertainty and troubles they are facing in their lives,
?Using new software as support channels have changed with the switch to remote,
?Uncomfortable working space in home offices that lack the devices support reps were used to using,
?Mental and physical distractions because for many people, working from home means juggling work, homeschooling, and personal time.
?Trouble staying positive and motivated with the borders between work life and home life dissolving.
? We loved this article for the actionable advice it provides for each of the remote work challenges listed there. Go and see the solutions for yourself.
Make working from home fun (yes, really)
Tyler McGoffin from Atlassian knows how to bring some entertainment to your lockdown day number who-can-count-them. We have three words for you: remote work bingo.
We couldn’t resist it, so here’s our result:
? Let’s see yours, too! Get the template here (and download Klausmojis here).
Thanks for all the great content you’ve created and for sharing them with everyone! We are beyond excited to be a part of the community.
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Read more:
Thriving with Cultural Diversity in Customer Service
Remote Work Tools to Make Your #wfh Experience Less Dreary
Read the previous Supportreads.com digest: Best CX Fall Reads from Supportreads.com
