Motivating ESS to Improve Skills and Exceed Expectations

As a School Business Manager responsible for managing Education Support Staff, have you considered if your team enjoys doing puzzles?

Encouraging your team to ‘play’ at work can have a positive impact on their customer service skills. By treating every challenge or problem as a puzzle, your team can come to work with a curious mindset and be ready to solve the puzzle of customer expectations. The staff ‘win’ when they are able to identify and exceed those expectations.

 

Motivating ESS to Exceed Customer Expectations

However, it is important to note that motivating staff with just the promise of pay may not be enough to sustain their desire to consistently exceed customer expectations. It takes dedication, education, and self-motivation to achieve this level of service excellence, especially when interacting with all types of customers every day.

To help your team, you can ask them what motivates them to exceed customer expectations. Some may enjoy the challenge of adapting to each customer’s unique service style, while others may find joy in helping people or listening to their needs. It’s important to allow your team to freely share their thoughts and ideas on how they can do better and provide what they need to achieve their goals.

 

Allowing Your Team to ‘Play’ at Work

Allowing your team to ‘play’ at work does not mean being unprofessional and silly with customers. It means giving them permission to think like detectives and solve the ‘puzzle’ of customer expectations in a professionally inquisitive way. This approach can lead to your customers receiving a level of service that delights them and your staff feeling energised by a ‘game’ that has many ways to win.

 

Empowering Your ESS to Provide Excellent Service

Providing excellent service is not a ‘one size fits all’ process, and it’s important to empower your team to think creatively and develop their own strategies to exceed customer expectations. By giving them permission to think like detectives, you can have a team of people who come to work ready to ‘play’, and a satisfied customer base that feels valued and respected.

 

Conclusion and Further Resources

If you want to help your team become detectives, you can check out Chapter D of my book, which provides further insights on this topic. You can click this link to download the first chapter for free.

By Cate Schreck