Customer Service Week

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! I know it’s not quite the winter holiday season, but yesterday kicked off Customer Service Appreciation Week and that’s pretty wonderful, too!

This week, what my teams have referred to as simply, CSAW, is about showing appreciation for our colleagues that help our customers day in and day out. They are, so often, the faces and the voices of the company.

I am thankful every day for the people that choose to work with us to support our customers. I promise to never take that for granted, and I enjoy taking this week to share in showing my appreciation.

Of course, Customer Service Appreciation Week shouldn’t be the only week where contact center leaders show their appreciation. But it is a week where we concentrate a ton of fun and appreciation. Because of that concentration, it can also be a week where we test new ideas for showing our appreciation throughout the year.

A couple of tips to help craft a CSAW that everyone loves

An important step, and one I learned early in my career, is to ask all your co-workers in what ways they feel appreciated. I’ve been fortunate to work with some incredibly talented and creative leaders that come up with terrific ideas to celebrate CSAW. But it always starts with knowing what everyone prefers and not just group consensus (by the way, waiting to get group consensus before showing appreciation is a sure-fire way of not appreciating team members).

I have learned that is better to share more information with my team than share less. For many years, I have prepared a financial summary throughout the year to show our entire team how we’re performing compared to our budget and to give them the opportunity to learn more about the financial side of running a large team. And this includes what it costs to deliver CSAW. There have been years when we were able to budget hundreds of dollars per team member, and there were other years where we weren’t able to budget anything, and everything in between. Showing the overall cost for CSAW and how it fits in the annual budget can show the importance we’ve placed on this week.

Some past CSAW hits

In the past, I have asked colleagues from throughout the company to send me a video thanking our team for everything they do. Putting these together in one long video (including the bloopers) or sending them out throughout the week was always well received. Getting videos from customers can also be great! And of course, doing a video can cost nothing (or next to nothing), freeing up more money to spend on other things.

When we were all together in the office, food almost always played a central role in CSAW. One of the coolest activities our team did was rent several old school video games… Ms. Pac Man, Galaga, etc., and hosted a “Pizza Planet” luncheon.

Giving team members a chance be together with their co-workers has also been a hallmark of CSAW. In our brick-and-mortar days, we scheduled time throughout the week for activities that would allow team members to do fun activities together. Once everyone was working from home, we had to be more deliberate to give individuals the opportunity to interact with their co-workers. Just having activities in Zoom might not be enough. Try giving people an additional break or two each day or give team members the ability to have some Zoom time with one or two of their colleagues.

A favorite activity on one of my teams is a game called Spin-A-Tale. One person per team starts a story with a sentence and then sends it to the next person and so on. After a few days, all the stories are turned in and a panel of judges decides a winner or two. I have seen teams get competitive, especially when the prizes are great, and it’s a lot of fun.

Speaking of prizes… Give away PTO! Time is often a great way to show someone that you appreciate them. Some of our PTO giveaways also come with a “use it anytime you’d like, even without notice” … a sort of Super-PTO! And that means exactly what it sounds like… even if it’s on our busiest day! If someone wins a full day or two, or just a few hours of this Super-PTO, knowing that they can use it at any time, without repercussion is always welcome. Although not technically “free”, giving away PTO has always been a way to get the most out of our budget, and it is always a popular prize!

For many years, I have written thank you cards to each member of our team. Depending on the size of my team, I begin this process weeks or months in advance of CSAW. I really enjoy the time spent writing a personalized thank you to each of my colleagues and have heard positive feedback about them from many.

What are your favorite Customer Service Week activities?

I love hearing about activities that other contact center teams do, or fun ways to show appreciation to team members. Please share yours in the comments.

Thank you to all the customer service team members out there, regardless of what your title is, for the work you do every day. Thank you for helping, and for going out of your way to advocate for customers, even when, at times, there can be stupid company rules that seem to make doing so difficult.

And here’s my favorite Customer Service Week song by the incredibly talented, Jenny Dempsey!

Happy CSAW!