High employee turnover has a negative impact on productivity, customer service and team morale. Every time an employee leaves, you need to invest time, money and energy in recruiting and training someone new, resources you could be spending on growing your business instead. It could also take weeks before a new person learns your ways and becomes productive. As many restaurants in the industry are finding it hard to rehire the staff they need to operate at full speed, you can’t afford to lose any of your existing team members. Learn how a robust phone system can help you keep your employees happy, engaged and loyal to your business.
How can your phone system help reduce turnover?
Ensuring that your employees are engaged at work can go a long way in keeping turnover low. Engaged employees work more efficiently, stay longer with their employer, and are more motivated to do their best work. A VoIP phone system can provide you with the tools you need to boost engagement on your team. Here is how.
It helps you set clear expectations.
There are few things more stressful for an employee than not knowing what is expected of them. So, be clear and take the time to train your team thoroughly. Set expectations by providing them with examples of good and bad customer service, and let your staff members listen to call recordings, so they know exactly how they are expected to respond to phone orders. Requiring new team members to shadow a more experienced colleague and letting them listen to customer calls using the Call Monitoring functionality is a great way to teach them how your specific store or restaurant likes to handle customer service.
It supports opportunities for growth
For may employees, opportunities for growth are an important measure of job satisfaction. Good employees usually like to be challenged and want to feel accomplished. So take the time to train your team, provide targeted feedback, and give them your support when they fall short of standards, so they know that you are dedicated to their success. Call Monitoring allows you to listen to their calls and give them feedback on their customer service skills, and you can even coach them during challenging conversations without the client hearing. A little attention to your employees will help ensure that they don’t take their talents elsewhere.
It allows you you to celebrate achievements.
Employees who feel appreciated are more likely to stay with your company long-term. So, don’t be shy to let your team know when they are doing a good job. Tracking call statistics enables you to see how everyone is performing and even gamify your customer service by setting fun goals for your staff. Give them an opportunity to win prizes when the number of abandoned calls, average hold times or average call length go down in any given week or month.
It helps you staff wisely.
Having enough staff to handle customer orders well can go a long way in preventing stress, burnout, and hence, turnover on your team. A robust phone system, such as S-NET’s, enables you to track your call statistics, including as call volume, average hold times and abandoned calls, so you can make informed decisions about staffing. When your customers are waiting on hold longer than usual, or you see that daily call volume is gradually growing for your business, it may be time to add more people to the team or reassign shifts to better meet customer demand. Keeping an eye out for growth metrics and noticing trends as they start happening will enable you to stay ahead of the curve and hire new staff before everyone becomes overwhelmed.
Providing your team with support and ensuring that they are engaged and happy at work may not always be easy, particularly if your store is understaffed and struggling to keep up. But it is a critical step in ensuring that you don’t lose employees when you need them the most. Take advantage of the features that a robust phone system puts at your disposal and ensure that your staff is incentivized to stay.
