If you want to place customer satisfaction at the heart of your company or team, you need to take the time to train and support agents and to model behavior they expect customers to receive.

Jeff Mowatt, customer service strategist and author, offers these five strategies that can help brokers, managers, and team leaders make this shift.

1. Practice empathy. When training agents at your office, try to put them in clients’ shoes. Mowatt uses an exercise where he asks sales professionals to create a list of what they expect when they are clients themselves. Also, words matter. For instance, compare a sentence such as, “I’ll have to check my schedule,” with “I’ll be happy to check my schedule for you.” 
2. Be selective about your team. If you have an agent whose negativity is souring your office culture, ask them to leave. Toxic personalities turn off clients and demotivate other agents and staff.
3. Celebrate good work. When an agent provides stellar service, recognize that person at your next sales meeting. It shows your appreciation and sends a motivating message to others.
4. Dedicate a meeting to customer service. Mowatt encourages regular customer service team meetings. Hold one each month during your sales meeting where you go over customer service feedback and coaching moments, and brainstorm ways to improve buyers’ and sellers’ experiences.
5. Reward service stars. In addition to recognition, monetary rewards can go a long way in motivating agents. When an agent goes above and beyond for a client or they receive an excellent customer review, consider providing an added bonus, Mowatt says.

Source: “Getting your Team to Care about Customers,” Sept. 18, 2017