To maintain an incredible team, you have to put the effort into allowing them to be the best version of themselves.
People are the most important asset in a support organization. We spent the most time in this area, and had a high retention rate through the years. People don’t stay at a company just because they like the company. They believe in the leadership, they believe in the value of their work, they’re challenged to improve themselves, and they enjoy others that they work with.
These 3 deep dives will support your people to become the best version of themselves
- Team Culture
- Enablement
- Career growth
Team Culture is important to build trust, to develop a drive, and also to enjoy where you work. Also, keep in mind that the culture you build within your team directly translates into the experience the customers have. So, if the relationships are good on your team and there’s a culture of asking questions and being collaborative, that will trickle down to the experience customers will have.
Culture starts at the top. It’s modeled by the leadership and then spread throughout your org. Then the team feels comfortable asking each other clarifying questions and asking upward management questions while letting their guard down and being vulnerable. How this trickles down to the customer is they feel comfortable asking customers questions so they can deliver proactive answers. We have to remove any underlying culture of fear.
You might say, “We don’t have a culture of fear on our team,” but I ask you to inspect every aspect. Let me flip the question around, “Are you infusing trust in every process and decision made?”
People don’t buy a product, they buy an experience. Experience starts with the type of culture you have on your team. Culture is so important on a support team because it is a thankless job. Support representatives are pouring out so much of themselves into the customers that we, as Managers, need to pour into our people. They need to be refilled.
We did a Team Identity workshop with our team. The primary questions we asked them were,
- What makes you proud to be on the support team?
- What do you wish the company knew about Support that they may not know about?
- What is the impact support has on the company?
- What would you change about our culture?
Because of this, our team knows how their work ladders up to the bigger picture and they’re now invested in the work that they’re doing. We want people to show up to work, feel great about the value they’re providing, the impact they’re making, and we want them to enjoy doing life together.
Building off of culture is enablement. Enablement equals empowerment. The more your team is empowered with knowledge and training, the more they will feel in control with their outcomes.
We took the time to create training sessions for new hires. Or, when a new feature or product was rolled out, we would walk through the customer’s experience with the team so they understand the impact, rather than replying to a customer with a scripted macro that was already written for them.
Based on the customer experience you want to give, you need to empower your team with education. As leaders, enablement needs to be top of mind because if the team is not empowered, they will not perform well and it will reflect in the customer experience.
After you’ve built the culture and enablement, this funnels right into their career growth trajectory.
People will want to grow and what does that look like?
I split the job leveling into 3 categories, explaining how an employee is hitting or missing these targets:
- Product Knowledge and Impact
- Communication and Problem Solving
- Work Management, Teamwork and Leadership
You can choose to make this growth model 10 key points within each target, or leave room to discuss a personalized trajectory.
You will only have growth-minded people if you show them the path.
Developing a model gives your people something to work on and something to look forward to.