Highlights:
- Cross-team collaboration can boost agent motivation and engagement and ensure optimal experiences for customers.
- Clear communication and responsibilities are key to good team collaboration.
- RingCentral’s cloud-based solutions are designed with cross-team collaboration efforts in mind.
Isolated teams and a lack of team collaboration can sabotage agent motivation. If your contact center is seeing signs of poor agent motivation, it might be time to focus on cross-team collaboration efforts.
Getting all agents from different teams involved can keep them more engaged at work, and help reduce high rates of agent churn. Such collaboration can improve contact center agent productivity and deliver high-level customer experience.
Here’s what every contact center manager should know about cross-team collaboration.
What is cross-team collaboration and why is it important?
Cross-team collaboration refers to a group of people from different teams working collectively to achieve the same goal. This concept is key to successfully scaling a business. Lack of team collaboration makes it more difficult to complete tasks and achieve specific goals.
Contact centers that make an effort and invest in cross-team collaboration can benefit from higher employee satisfaction and engagement, better agent productivity and retention, and more successful customer experiences.
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Ways to boost cross-team collaboration
When workers from different teams or functions across the business come together to work toward a common goal, they’ll feel more connected and will be better at problem-solving. Here are some ways to enhance cross-collaboration efforts in your contact center.
Centralize communication channels
Contact centers that use several communication channels for internal communication may want to consolidate such channels into one omnichannel platform. This will help avoid the need to switch between various windows and applications, which can be cumbersome and compromise communications. An omnichannel platform also allows for discussions within one interface, eliminating the need for agents to log in to multiple apps at once.
RingCentral offers omnichannel solutions that can consolidate and facilitate various levels of communication, including telephone calls, video conferencing, SMS, live chat, and instant messaging.
Adopt a holistic view of team interactions
Each department plays a crucial role in the operations of a contact center, and it’s important that they have a shared vision to bring them together and consolidate efforts to achieve the same goals. Taking a holistic view of the different teams in a contact center will allow management to consider how various processes are designed to help attain these shared goals. Ask employees to share feedback on how they work with others and what they think should be improved.
Share common objectives
Workers will feel more motivated and engaged if they’re kept in the loop of common goals and how their individual efforts can help the company achieve them. Providing agents with context and clarity for the company’s long-term vision can both boost agent engagement and company success.
Introduce cross-team projects
Projects that require the inclusion and effort of all team members can effectively foster a sense of belonging among all employees. Each team member should understand the importance of such projects and how the results will benefit them. In turn, they’ll be more likely to be motivated to work effectively together.
Ensure information transparency
Information that is made readily available to all agents — regardless of where or how they work — is helpful, particularly as it pertains to projects they’re involved in. To foster better cross-functional collaboration, it’s important to ensure full transparency and avoid any information silos.
Build company culture for off-site workers
Remote workers don’t get the typical workplace experience that in-house employees get, for obvious reasons. Being physically present in a contact center offers the opportunity to develop relationships with various workers, managers, and departments.
Management should take steps to involve remote employees as much as they involve on-site workers. Bringing all team players into the mix can remove silos and help all agents build rapport with each other. In this way, not only does cross-team collaboration focus on business-related concepts, but also on healthy working relationships that can foster a healthy company culture.
Use asynchronous communication tools
Given the growing remote workforce that modern contact centers employ, it can be tough to communicate information on daily activities when everyone is in different time zones.
Although real-time communications are ideal, asynchronous communication can be used when such collaborations prove difficult. It can be useful for setting schedules and agendas, submitting work to management, and more.
Share key metrics regularly
Set specific dates to share important business metrics with all members of all teams. These communications don’t have to be lengthy, but just long enough to review and highlight all metrics tracked, as well as past successes and failures to pinpoint what’s working and where improvements should be made. These meetings can also be recorded and shared with those who cannot attend in real time.
Adopt innovative technology solutions
Effective and efficient contact centers depend not only on their workforce to ensure the success and satisfaction of customers, but also on the technology used for these communications. Implementing innovative digital technology can improve and optimize contact center operations, particularly in regards to cloud-based solutions. With the right tools, contact centers can optimize both agent and customer experiences.
At RingCentral, we offer solutions for contact centers, including those that encompass hybrid teams combining both an in-house and remote workforce. With the power of cloud-based digital technology, RingCentral’s modern solutions for today’s contact centers can integrate all communication channels and aspects of control center operations.
Reach out to a representative from RingCentral today to request your free demo.
Originally published May 17, 2022, updated Aug 08, 2024
