All employees need feedback, both of the negative and positive variety. Regularly offering the members of your staff a healthy and fair combination of constructive criticism and words of encouragement is essential to the overall success of your business. After all, your employees are the ones who allow for your company to function. Without them, you wouldn’t have much of a business to run, would you?
Why is constructive criticism necessary? Firstly, it’s important to note that “negative” feedback really isn’t supposed to be negative. Offering some words of advice to help your employees improve upon their performances is supposed to be a good thing. It’s necessary because it will inevitably help to strengthen their abilities to do their jobs. The offering of tips about how to handle customer complaints or how to boost sales opportunities should be welcomed by their recipients.
Of course, it’s all in how you provide the feedback that counts. It’s important never to chastise or ridicule the individuals who are receiving your instructions. Your feedback should be structured in such a way that it builds people up as opposed to tearing them down. Some business owners and office managers fail in this regard. Their approaches come off as too harsh or disrespectful, and this doesn’t help to motivate staff members to do better.
What is the best way to offer constructive criticism? We’ve always liked the sandwich technique. It’s the concept of placing a piece of negative feedback in the middle of two positive statements. Here’s an example: “Your tone of voice is excellent. You always sound very pleasant on your calls. However, it’s important to make sure that you make at least two attempts to overcome objections. If not, sales will be harder to come by. Keep up the good work, you’re improving daily!”
Now, to be fair, we don’t imagine that you’re employees are made up of children. Grown adults should be able to accept feedback without getting their feelings hurt. But, we all know that certain personalities may receive constructive criticism in ways that demotivate them. While the “sandwich technique” many not always be required, it’s wise to firmly consider the personalities of the people you’re dealing with when offering negative feedback.
Why is positive feedback necessary? The importance of boosting employee morale can never be understated. Again, you’re dealing with human beings and not robots. Emotions play big roles in the way that people are able to perform their jobs. Never shy away from telling your employees about the great jobs they’re doing. If they’re excelling in their positions, let them know how much you appreciate them!
Don’t be afraid to offer your positive feedback at morning meetings so that your entire staff can bear witness to your acknowledgements. This not only helps for the honoured staff members to feel extra appreciated, but it will provide motivation to the rest of the team. It’s not uncommon for people to want their own accomplishments to be acknowledged and showcased in front of their co-workers.
At MeloTel, we offer an excellent tool for business owners who wish to provide regular feedback to their employees. It’s called the Monitor/Whisper Control Panel and it enables you to listen to the calls being made and taken by your phone agents. The calls can be listened to live using the “monitor” portion of the feature and you can even “whisper” information to your phone agents during their calls without the other parties hearing it!
This awesome feature is known for helping to boost both employee morale and sales numbers in call centres all across North America. For more information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at 1-888-MELOTEL or use the Live Chat feature on our website!
