Customers are the lifeblood of any business, and customer service reps are often the only contact your customers will have with your business. Training top-quality customer service reps and motivating them to go above and beyond every day is a massive challenge that reaps massive opportunity. The only way your organization will improve its customer service quality is to truly develop a passion for customer service. 

Every department of your business should in some way support your customer service reps. As founder and CEO of Walmart Sam Walton once said, "The goal as a company is to have customer service that is not just the best but legendary." Here are 3 easy ways to better motivate and train your customer service reps.

1. Foster Your Customer Service Community

Customer service is known to be a grind. Long hours, fixed schedules, little variance from the activity of listening to unsatisfied, often rude customers. The sense of belonging to a tribe is what keeps people who work tedious jobs like customer service from changing profession. 

Connect Your Tribe

Fortunately for business owners, it's easier than ever to foster community and tribal connection in an organization. Morry Ngai, founder of Savfyshop says: "We connect our team by arranging department-wide weekly video chat meetups on Google Hangouts, Skype, or WhatsApp. This allows us to share concerns, challenges, and creative ideas". Encourage team members to innovate and try new ways of doing their jobs if it leads to increased productivity.                                   

Gamify The Dirtywork

Make your customer service department's activities more fun and engaging by gamifying their goals. Turning the greatest challenges your reps face into a game is a great way to build community, and will help your team feel like customer service is the coolest of all departments.

2. Everyone Is Customer Service

Founder and CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos has thousands of Amazon management, himself included, attend yearly customer service training. Jeff Bezos makes his email known and very visible online, and encourages anyone who has a problem with Amazon's service to email him directly. The Amazon CEO is known to include an empty chair in conference meetings to signify their ideal customer in the room as they make business decisions. 

Work A Shift

Your customer service team's experience and output will be the most optimal when everyone in the organization is customer-service minded. Consider working a shift or two in customer service every year, and encourage your managerial staff from every department to do the same. 

3. Increase Possibilities For Achievement

Studies show that companies who invest in workplace training are more profitable and sucessful. Training for your customer service reps doesn't have to be boring. Developing world-class customer service reps requires improving their communication, empathy, stress management, and persuasion psychology skills. Personal development seminars, courses, books, and classes are fun training and networking opportunities that will benefit them in all aspects of their life. We all serve others for a living. The degree and volume in which we serve determine the quantity and quality of life we enjoy.

Consumers expect more and more from customer service reps regardless of company size. Pricing will never outweigh the value of customer success and positive experience. Training and motivating your customer service reps has never been more important, and there has never been greater opportunity to create a world-class customer service team.