62. Motivate Your Team

One of your most important tasks as a customer service star is to motivate your coworkers. Motivation occurs when people feel good about their jobs. Motivation encourages people to strive to achieve more and do better. If accomplishments go unnoticed, the drive to achieve wanes. People want to hear a word of encouragement. People want someone to notice when they perform well. People want to know their efforts matter. That goes for everyone. It is human nature to want to be noticed and recognized. The best form of motivation is recognition, and you can only give recognition when you know what is going on.

Performance Prompts

• Give group recognition, and thank your team when the members perform well.

• When giving recognition or saying thanks, offer specific details.

• Be sincere when saying thanks and giving recognition. Too much of anything may begin sounding phony or ho-hum and will lose its impact.

• Never underestimate the power of a word of encouragement. Or a smile. Or a pat on the back. Or a thumbs up. . . . You get the idea.

• Motivate your best performers. Do not take them for granted.

• Recognize customer service accomplishments, by both individuals and the team as a whole.

• Motivate with recognition, awards, and compensation.

• Recognize positive accomplishments during a meeting or by posting a notice on a bulletin board, providing a coworker with a designated parking space for the month. . . . Reward coworkers by treating your team to breakfast, buying a box of candy, giving a gift certificate. . . . Compensate an individual with an hour off with pay, allowing an extended lunch hour, giving a small bonus. . . .

• Caution: there is a danger in motivating with rewards and compensation. Be careful that the rewards do not become the reason your coworkers strive to achieve. The best motivation is a feeling of pride in doing a job well. Recognize more than you award or compensate.

When This Happens ...

You understand the importance of motivation and consider yourself a great team motivator. You give individual praise during your weekly meetings. You bring bagels and juice every Friday when your team exceeds results. Now you are noticing the bagels and juice are becoming routine. One of your coworkers said she is tired of bagels and would prefer if you brought lunch instead. You are thinking that a change is necessary. Perhaps, you will start giving movie tickets to the top performer each week.

Try This

Uh-oh. You are in danger of making the rewards the reason a person does a good job. When you start a cycle of rewarding positive behavior with “things,” you are creating a bad habit. It is great to offer bagels and juice—once in a while. Instilling internal feelings of satisfaction are going to last longer. Go back to basics and recognize good performance more than you award it. If your coworkers ask why you are not bringing in food weekly, say “I’ll bring something every now and then as a special thank you.”

Positive words of encouragement should be a large part of your vocabulary.