5 Ways to Boost Team Performance

Just because you can instantly create new teams by swapping a few people around doesn’t mean that team success follows. Rather, the opposite is true, and it takes a committed and conscious effort to create true cohesion.

That’s why we interviewed CX experts Clare Santos, Nerys Corfield, and Pier Ragone to uncover some of their “tried and tested” strategies for fast-tracking your way to stronger team results.

1. Set Up Team-Against-Team Competitions for a Quick Burst of Energy

Setting up a fresh round of team-against-team competitions can be a much-needed quick win.

Nerys Corfield, Director at Injection Consulting Limited — Nerys Corfield

“Building stronger team spirit is where gamification still has its place and can be used to really good effect.

However, what you’ve got to be really mindful of is that it’s communicated well, so everyone understands the reward and how to get there.

Of course, this takes a lot of energy on the team leader’s part to keep momentum with this challenger mentality, but this approach can really help with boosting the whole team’s results.” – Nerys Corfield, Director of Injection Consulting Limited

This doesn’t have to be an ongoing initiative to be impactful either. You can get much of the benefit from short bursts – running anything from a month-long competition to get your C-SAT up to a fun competition on a Friday afternoon.

Quite simply, any means to unleash a quick burst of competitive energy can work wonders for team results.

You could also use motivational games to improve employee engagement. For advice on this, read our article: Top 20 Motivational Games for the Contact Centre

2. Pair Agents Up to Counter Strengths and Weaknesses

When trying to boost the whole team, leaders are inevitably faced with a variety of individual performance stats, which can make it feel impossible to get everyone up to the same level.

One way to overcome this is to pair up a stronger member of the team with a weaker member to cross-skill and focus on all-round improvement. This can be done by skill set too.

For example, pairing someone who is good at delivering empathy but not quite so hot on meeting their AHT target with someone who has opposite strengths, so they can both learn from each other and improve.

This approach really helps to cross-skill the team and foster a sense of responsibility for building everyone up and learning from each other, as well as breaking down some of the barriers and negative attitudes around “Oh Joe over there always lets everyone down.”

Over time, this really helps to nurture a team mindset of “we’re working together to move forward” – instead of just waiting for a formal, top-down training session to fix everything.

3. Give Your Agents Some Ownership of the Team Meeting Agenda

It can also help to give your team more of a stake in your regular huddles, so they engage more with the wider team goals – rather than just their own performance.

Clare Santos, Director, Knowledge & Quality, Customer Experience at Aviso — Clare Santos

“When agents take the lead on a team meeting, it not only boosts their confidence and widens their skill set, but it ensures that they have a stake in what’s happening in their team.

Even regularly asking agents for items THEY want to appear on the meeting agenda can help to nurture the mindset that it’s “our” team huddle and therefore “our” team results and performance – not just a passive listening experience.” – Clare Santos, Director, Knowledge & Quality, Customer Experience at Aviso

To keep team goals front of mind, they also need to be discussed (at least) on a monthly basis to check in with how everyone is getting on. After all, if the team goals never get a mention, how is anyone supposed to get behind them?

Make sure to regularly celebrate wins in this space too! A combination of leadership recognition and peer-to-peer mentions can really keep the spotlight on what’s going well and how everyone is moving forward.

For other ideas to keep your agents happy, engaged and productive during their meetings, read our article: How to Make Team Huddles More Engaging

4. Keep KPIs to a Minimum to Help Your Team Focus on What Matters

Of course, there’s no point even trying to get agents behind your team KPIs if they are too vague or complicated to start with.

And it’s not just about how clear the message is either, it’s about how many KPIs you are trying to concentrate on too! Less is definitely more – so keep your team focused on just one or two clear goals that they can all rally behind.

Pier Ragone, Director of Contact Centre and Customer Relations at Porter Airlines Inc. — Pier Ragone

“The key is to translate corporate goals into KPIs that your frontline teams can get excited about, as when you can pivot the language in such a way that it reflects the reality of your agents’ day-to-day work, you can really start to drive team performance in a clear and focused way.

After all, if everyone is confused about what they are striving for, you inevitably miss out on those team performance highs, as everyone is pulling in different directions – even if they do have the best of intentions.” – Pier Ragone, Principal Consultant, CX Operations & Strategy

5. Make Good Use of the Team’s Whiteboard to Encourage Banter and Belonging

Another overlooked element of boosting team performance is simply how much fun they have together and how connected they feel to their friends at work – as this can all help to foster healthy team spirit.

A fun way to promote team bonding is to add a “Question of the Week” to your whiteboard – as we heard at our site visit to Costa Coffee.

For example, “Which TV series are you watching right now?” or “What would you do if you won the lottery?” Then agents can write their answers up on the board to create talking points across the week.

You could also use your whiteboard as a way to visually keep track of team goals, as well as allow agents to put their personal goals up there too (e.g. weight loss), so it becomes a dedicated space for keeping progress front of mind. (Just like we heard at Fasthosts.)

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