EGIA
Ask the Experts
Author: Lucas Ehrbar | May 23rd, 2018

Ask the Experts | Include CSR’s in Tech Meetings?

Question: Should we include our CSR’s in tech meetings each week?

Stephen Dale; Trainer & Coach, Power Selling Pros:

Great question, and I’ll answer it with one word and then I’ll explain my thought behind that. I would say: ABSOLUTELY.

The reason I feel this way, and Mike and James may have some different thoughts, I’d like to hear their thoughts as well, is that I read a lot about what’s called “CX” – that’s customer experiences. But there’s also an “EX,” which is the employee experience, and that has to do with your culture at your company.

What I say is when you have meetings, and I don’t necessarily call them tech meetings because that excludes everyone else, but when you have your town hall meetings or your weekly team-building meetings, everyone is included. That’s a great opportunity to get the entire team moving in the direction that you’re looking for.

When you realize that we are one — we’re one company, we’re one team, we have one goal, everybody is rowing in the same direction so we can make some momentum there. What I have found is many people will not include their CSR’s, and a CSR will feel left out, abandoned; they will not receive as much attention (as a service professional) as one of your technicians will, and this is an opportunity to include them as a vital team member of your company. They also will gain some knowledge on some technical issues, and it will also give them some really good perspective sometimes.

Mike mentioned this I think it was last week, I wasn’t on the call but I listen to them all the time because they’re just golden. Someone had asked about meeting during the busy time and Mike was like, “Yes, absolutely!” Maybe it’s a refresher, maybe it’s a shorter version, but you’re always talking about getting the team on board moving in this one direction, and so out of sight, out of mind.

And so I believe that absolutely you should have the whole crew involved. When we did it there was a tech time when one technician per week would get up for five minutes in front of everybody and they would get to talk about something positive or something uplifting. Which was maybe, “Hey, Susie took care of this customer, thank you so much,” or they’d say, “My daughter just won a softball tournament,” or they’d say, “I just learned a new way to approach a customer about an IAQ product or surge protector.” It was a five-minute time.

And also our CSR’s had a five-minute time, and it was uplifting. One of them would get up, and it builds confidence in them to get in front of people, but also it was a time for them to share some positive reflection. So we made the meetings a team-building exercise every time.

Now, if I had a manufacturer coming in – say, whatever manufacturer you’re with – displaying a new flux capacitor, whatever the case is, and it was a training for technicians only, I would more likely not include our CSR’s. I only invited them when we were doing whole team meetings, because I wanted them to feel like part of the team. It’s not an “us” and “them,” but it’s a “we” thing. So it really helped build some camaraderie between our inside office support – our CSR’s – and our outside support system, which is our technicians. And together it built some affinity that they were able to help communicate concerns and things like that in that meeting.

So that’s my thought on that, the answer should be “Yes!” But love to hear from James and Mike as well.

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