Tis the season! Yes, that means the holidays are here. However, that does not mean your manufacturing business comes to a standstill.

While many of your employees are focused on taking time off for the holidays, you can’t forget about those that remain in the office, in person or virtually. They are not just keeping the lights on—they are essential to your manufacturing business continuing to hum along by meeting or exceeding production goals, keeping costs in line, maintaining profitability, and most importantly, keeping your customers and distributors happy. From production lines, to back office workers, and even those team members managing your third-party suppliers, everyone is still busy while team members are out of the office. This includes your contact center agents.

As we know, staffing your contact center appropriately is essential to ensuring calls are answered promptly and experts are available to deliver the right responses and outcomes to your customers. When staffing is impacted by employees taking time off to enjoy the holidays, it is imperative that the agents holding down the fort feel appreciated.

According to a recent Hubspot report, 69% of employees will work harder when they feel appreciated.

So how do you keep agents happy and motivated while appropriately staffing your contact center? Here are some tried and true ideas I’ve heard over the years, as well as my perspective:

Keep your agents involved in planning for holiday staffing

Before we talk about anything else when it comes to preparing your staff for the holiday season, let’s start by talking about transparency and considering. Everyone want’s to take time off at the holidays to celebrate and spend time with loved ones, but the fact is, you have to staff your contact center during this time to continue to provide the excellent customer service your company is known for.

So we’ve established that not everyone can take all the holidays off, which means someone, in fact, multiple people are going to be in your contact center on their favorite holiday. Here are a few things to consider when planning for staffing during this time.

  • Involve your staff in decisions around who is working when - by involving your team in these decisions they feel heard, empowered and know that your company cares;
  • Understand staffing needs - look back at past holiday seasons to understand how many agents are required during this time to effectively run your business;
  • Consider the option for agents to work at home - even though this might not be the norm at your company doesn’t mean it can’t be an option;
  • Make sure it is not always the same people working - notice who are the team members who always are asked to work during the holidays and make sure they get a chance to take time off;
  • Ask your team, “Who wants to work during the holidays?” - this makes some decisions easy for you, if members of your staff want to work during this time, this opens up time off for others;
  • Most of all, be accommodating - yes your contact center has to keep running at peak efficiency, however, that does not mean you can’t take everyones’ requests into consideration and look for creative solutions for staffing issues.

Now let’s look at some of the basics for your agents that are working during the holidays and how can make them successful and keep them motivated.

Empower your agents

This one may sound simple, however, empowering your agents is so important and this comes with access to information. We’ve all heard the saying, knowledge is power—this holds absolutely true in the contact center.

According to many speakers on the subject, to provide excellent customer experiences, your agents must have access to detailed information including:

  • knowledge about the products you manufacture
  • your processes
  • past customer and supplier interactions

Plus, they may require the assistance of experts behind the scenes when they’ve exhausted all other avenues. Agents with insufficient access to information can become ineffective, inefficient, and frustrated in their efforts to help customers. In fact, 75% of a typical manual (agent-facing) support call is spent searching for client account information.

Make agent experiences positive with gamification, peer feedback, and recognition

I know we call it work for a reason, but that doesn’t mean work can’t be fun and rewarding. Here are a few ways to make it so:

  • Gamification: Gamification can add some fun and competition to the mix when it comes to day-to-day work in the contact center. Agents can create their own avatars, take part in friendly competitions in teams or one-on-one, and win company currency to buy swag or other items of value. These activities add up to enhanced agent engagement, while encouraging agents to step up their game to provide the best customer experiences.
  • Gamification does have its pros and cons. However, I found more pros than cons in my research. One pro that directly relates to manufacturing is that it can be used as an effective training tool, and we know that well-trained agents are more knowledgeable and effective.This was confirmed in a study from Axonify, with 57% of respondents reporting that training is very effective in helping them do their job well. As for those in manufacturing/logistics, 68% reported that training was effective in helping them do their job well.
  • Peer feedback: In addition to healthy rivalries in the day-to-day work environment, being recognized by your coworkers and managers can go a long way in any career. The contact center is no exception. Offering the ability for coworkers to sing each other's praises for helping to hit a team goal or going above and beyond in their daily work can provide a great deal of incentive and encouragement. Being called out by your peers for a job well done not only feels good, it fosters teamwork and a sense of pride that you’ve gone above and beyond, and your peers recognize it.
  • Recognition: This is also an opportunity for managers and supervisors to use this feedback to formally call out agents for performing at a high level in the contact center. This may seem like tossing around a lot of praise. However, if you think about it, the contact center relies on providing the best possible service efficiently and effectively while keeping costs in line. This approach lends itself to calling out areas where agents can improve their performance, i.e. where they may not have been doing their jobs to the best of their ability. Simply recognizing your agents for the great work they are doing with the help of employee recognition software can help offset the relentless drive to improve their performance. In a recent research report from Zappia, 69% of employees said they would work harder if they felt their efforts were being recognized through feedback. This goes to show that a little feedback can go a long way.

Make agent experiences rewarding with opportunity, incentives and communication

Setting clear goals for your employees with the ability to advance their careers based on hitting these goals is essential to the success of any business and the manufacturing industry is no exception. Also, let’s remember that offering incentives, bonuses, spot bonuses, trips, and even extra time off can help you push individual and overall performance over the top.

  • Opportunities for advancement: it is important for you to let your employees know that their role in the company is not just as a contact center agent; it is an opportunity for advancement and a career in the customer service industry. When employees first join the company, and throughout their career, be sure to understand their goals and provide them with the necessary tools, training and development to meet and exceed them.
  • Incentives: Performance-based bonuses are part of the pay structure and very common in a contact center environment. These are based on agents meeting or exceeding their performance goals. And in addition to providing a cash incentive, it helps your company reach its revenue targets—a win win.
  • Open communication: Successful businesses pride themselves on transparency to build trust with their employees. Understanding what the overall goals of the company are, and how they translate to agents’ day-to-day jobs and their goals, helps keep everyone on the same page and helps drive motivation among the ranks. Also, creating a sense of purpose that is clearly defined for everyone helps build camaraderie. This focus translates extremely well in a contact center environment where teamwork is critical.

In the manufacturing industry, and many others, it is important to be able to effectively cover for employees while people are taking time off to enjoy the holidays. When it comes to your contact center, 8x8 can bring all these tools and techniques together in a single solution running on a cloud-based platform. This helps your manufacturing business create consistent customer experiences even when employees are out for the holidays. 8x8 can maximize operational excellence and provide the agility required to move quickly when your business needs it most. A key imperative for manufacturers is agility to remain competitive, and 8x8 seamlessly delivers on this requirement from the back office, to the front office, to the shop floor.

Next steps

To learn more about how manufacturers are taking advantage of 8x8 solutions download this case study from Kubota Tractor Corporation. To learn more about how you can leverage 8x8, download this Manufacturing Solution Brief.