Teamwork in customer service: Secrets to service excellence

Have you ever been transferred between three different agents, only to repeat your issue each time? That frustrating experience is a direct symptom of poor teamwork in customer service. 

In this article, we’ll break down why disconnected teams create unhappy customers and what you can do about it. We’ll look at the key traits of a collaborative team, proven models for service excellence, and how to foster a culture of teamwork that turns frustrating experiences into loyal customers. Let’s get started!

What is teamwork in customer service?

Teamwork in customer service is a shared company culture where delighting the customer is everyone’s responsibility, not just a single department’s. It means different teams actively collaborate to create a single, smooth experience. 

For example, your sales team shares a customer’s goals with the support team for a personalized handover. Support then relays customer feedback to the product team, helping to improve the product and prevent future issues. Logistics coordinates with support to provide proactive shipping updates, ensuring the customer feels consistently valued by one cohesive team.

Why is teamwork important in a customer service role?

Teamwork is crucial in a customer service role because it directly addresses modern consumer expectations for fast, accurate, and personalized support. With customer interactions spread across various channels like chat, social media, and phone, a single agent cannot manage everything alone.

Effective teamwork brings significant advantages:

• Reduced agent burnout: A collaborative environment allows agents to share workloads and responsibilities, preventing burnout and improving job satisfaction.
• Accelerated innovation: When frontline agents have clear channels to share customer feedback with product and development teams, it creates a powerful loop for innovation and improvement.
• Enhanced customer loyalty: Customers who receive consistent, empathetic support at every interaction feel valued, which builds trust and strengthens loyalty.
• Stronger brand reputation: Although the inner workings of teamwork are not visible to customers, the results are. A unified team delivers a seamless experience that enhances brand perception and builds a reputation for reliability.

However, the real cost of poor teamwork is high. When internal collaboration fails, businesses see slower resolutions, which forces customers to repeat their issues across different touchpoints. This friction has a direct impact on the bottom line. 

For instance, 33% of consumers admit they would switch to a competitor after just one poor service experience, and 49% of businesses confirm that a lack of internal collaboration negatively affects their customer experience. These figures prove that disconnected teams lead to dissatisfied customers and lost revenue.

What makes a customer service team high-performing?

A high-performing customer service team is built on a foundation of shared purpose and strong mutual support. Below are 3 core traits that allow them to consistently deliver exceptional support:

1. Clear role definition without silos

Every team member understands their specific responsibilities and how they contribute to the customer’s journey. For example, a Level 1 agent handles initial inquiries like order tracking or password resets. If an issue becomes a complex technical problem, they know exactly when and how to pass it to a Level 2 technical specialist without making the customer repeat themselves. This ensures efficiency and a smooth customer experience.

2. Knowledge sharing as a team habit 

These teams create systems for sharing solutions and insights openly. For instance, they might use a shared digital space where agents can post tough questions and get quick answers from colleagues. They may also hold brief weekly meetings to discuss the most common customer issues from the previous week and brainstorm better ways to resolve them, making everyone on the team more effective.

3. Emotional intelligence and peer support

Team members are skilled at recognizing and responding to customer emotions with empathy. An agent might say, “I understand how frustrating this delay is, and I will personally follow up with our shipping partner for you.” Afterward, they can turn to a teammate for support, creating a resilient environment where agents feel cared for and can continue to provide great service.

How to build strong teamwork in your customer service department?

Here are five practical ways to foster strong teamwork in your department.

1. Build a foundation of psychological safety

Psychological safety is the shared belief that a team is a safe place for interpersonal risk-taking. It is the foundation of great teamwork. This allows people to be vulnerable without fear of negative consequences. To build this in your team, you can take these actions:

• Encourage questions and feedback: Create specific channels, like a dedicated Slack channel or a segment in team meetings, where agents can ask for help without judgment.
• Model vulnerability: When leaders openly admit their own mistakes and discuss what they learned, it signals to the team that it’s okay not to be perfect.
• Respond productively to failure: When a mistake happens, focus the conversation on solutions and learning, not on blame. This turns errors into opportunities for team growth.

For example, the market research company Quantilope strengthens psychological safety by setting up a Mental Health Committee and training some employees as Mental Health First Aiders. These trained colleagues act as a safe, confidential support system where team members can share personal challenges without fear of judgment. 

2. Train for collaboration skills

Teamwork is a skill that can be developed through intentional training programs. The goal is to give every employee a holistic view of the customer journey and equip them with the skills needed to work together effectively.

Here are some practical actions you can take to train your team for better collaboration:

• Implement cross-departmental “ride-alongs,” where employees shadow other teams for a day.
• Run weekly “case study” meetings where a complex ticket is analyzed by the group to find the best collaborative solution.
• Create a “skill-sharing” program where team members with specific expertise can train their peers.
• Use role-playing to practice de-escalating conflicts and managing difficult customer conversations that require input from multiple departments.

A company that excels at this is Zappos. Their approach is a masterclass in building a customer-centric culture through training. All new hires, from accountants to developers, must complete an intensive four-week customer loyalty training program, which includes taking calls in the support center. 

This isn’t a one-time event; every year, all employees, including top executives, must spend 10 hours assisting the customer service team during the busy holiday season. This ensures that everyone in the company, regardless of their role, understands the customer’s needs and appreciates the challenges the support team faces. 

3. Invest in the right collaboration tools

Equip your team with technology that makes collaboration intuitive and removes friction. The goal is to create a single, unified view of the customer so that anyone can step in and help without missing context.

Here are some actionable steps to take:

• Centralize conversations: Use a shared ticketing system like Zendesk or Freshworks to manage all customer interactions from different channels in one place.
• Create a single customer view: Integrate your support platform with your CRM to give agents a 360-degree view of the customer, including purchase history and past interactions.
• Enable quick internal communication: Use internal chat tools like Slack so agents can ask questions and get help from peers instantly.

The luxury fashion platform Farfetch did this successfully when it adopted Talkdesk CX Cloud. This move allowed them to handle a 30% increase in workload by automating simple tasks and giving agents AI-powered tools. The result was a 40% increase in cost efficiencies and a more streamlined operation where agents could collaborate effectively.

4. Create a culture of recognition

To encourage teamwork, you must celebrate it. Shift the focus from purely individual achievements to recognizing collaborative efforts that lead to positive outcomes. A culture of recognition reinforces the behaviors you want to see and makes employees feel valued.

Here are some practical actions to build a culture of recognition:

• Start a “team assist” of the week award to celebrate agents who help their colleagues solve tough problems.
• Create a dedicated Slack channel or a physical “kudos board” where anyone can post shout-outs to their peers.
• Allow customers to nominate employees who provided outstanding service, giving them a voice in the recognition process.
• Tie recognition directly to specific positive behaviors, such as great customer feedback or a creative solution, not just general performance.

Shopify encourages merchants to build this culture through its extensive platform capabilities. They emphasize that recognition should be specific and consistent. 

For example, a retail manager using Shopify POS can see an employee’s sales data, units per transaction, and average order value. This allows them to praise an employee not just for being “good at their job,” but for specific actions like “doing an amazing job upselling accessories with our new product line.” 

5. Measure what matters

The metrics you track signal what your organization values. To foster teamwork, you must measure team-oriented outcomes that reflect shared success.

Important team metrics, known as Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), include:

• First-Contact Resolution (FCR): This measures the percentage of inquiries resolved in the first interaction, which improves when knowledge is shared effectively.
• Team-based CSAT/NPS: These scores measure overall customer satisfaction and loyalty to the company, not just satisfaction with one agent.
• Handoff success rate: This tracks how smoothly issues are passed between agents or departments.
• Cross-team resolution time: This tracks the total time it takes to solve issues that require input from multiple teams.

​​Southwest Airlines proves that the right metrics can capture more than numbers. The company gives its people freedom to solve problems with warmth and creativity, which creates a service experience customers remember. Their focus on CSAT and NPS reflects this spirit, because these scores show the journey as a whole, not just one step. 

In 2023, Southwest’s CSAT reached 78, above the industry average of 76, a result that speaks to teamwork across every role. From gate agents to flight crews, every employee contributes to a seamless, friendly journey that customers truly value.

Key teamwork models that drive service excellence

Here are three key models that drive service excellence.

1. The relay model

This model works like a relay race, where a customer issue is passed sequentially from one specialist to the next until it is resolved. Each person has a distinct role and hands the issue off smoothly after completing their part. This approach is highly efficient for predictable, multi-step processes, such as order fulfillment.

For example, a sales agent takes an order, passes it to the warehouse for packing, which then hands it off to logistics for shipping, with the support team ready to handle any post-delivery questions. The key to success is a seamless handover at each step.

2. The swarm model

In the swarm model, the entire team converges on a single, complex, or high-priority problem at once. Instead of a linear process, it’s a dynamic, all-hands-on-deck approach to collective problem-solving. 

This is ideal for urgent situations, like a major website outage or a viral customer complaint on social media. Everyone from technical support to PR and leadership might “swarm” the issue to diagnose the root cause, communicate with customers, and implement a solution simultaneously. This ensures a rapid, coordinated response when time is critical.

3. The bub-and-spoke model

This model features a central team of experts (the hub) that supports frontline agents (the spokes). The hub acts as a core knowledge base, providing specialized information, handling escalations, and ensuring consistency across the organization. 

For example, a company might have a central “product expert” team. When a frontline agent receives a question they can’t answer, they consult the hub for a verified solution, which they then relay to the customer. This model allows for distributed, quick action at the customer-facing level while maintaining high-quality, centralized knowledge.

The future of teamwork in customer service

The future of teamwork in customer service will be defined by a closer integration of technology and a shift toward more agile, cross-functional structures. Here’s what to expect:

• AI is a true team member: Artificial intelligence will move beyond simple automation to become a core collaborator. For example, AI chatbots like Chatty for Shopify can handle common customer questions about order tracking, product details, and return policies 24/7. This frees human agents from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on complex, high-empathy issues where their skills are most valuable. The AI handles the routine, while the human manages the relationship.
• The rise of distributed, 24/7 teams: Remote and hybrid work models are no longer a trend but a reality. While this presents collaboration challenges, it also creates the opportunity to build global support teams. With agents working across different time zones, businesses can offer seamless, around-the-clock support without relying on overnight shifts, leading to better work-life balance for agents and faster responses for customers.
• A shift to customer experience squads: Companies are moving away from siloed customer service departments and toward integrated “customer experience squads.” These are small, cross-functional teams composed of members from support, product, marketing, and even engineering. Each squad owns a specific part of the customer journey, allowing them to proactively identify and solve problems, leading to a more cohesive and responsive customer experience.

FAQs

What are the 5 C’s of teamwork?

The 5 C’s of teamwork are Communication, Commitment, Camaraderie, Confidence, and Coachability. These emphasize open communication, a shared commitment to goals, a sense of trust and friendship (camaraderie), belief in the team’s abilities (confidence), and a willingness to learn and adapt (coachability).

What are the biggest teamwork challenges in customer service?

The biggest teamwork challenges in customer service often stem from information silos, inconsistent communication, and a lack of shared resources. Information silos occur when knowledge is trapped within one department, forcing customers to repeat themselves to different agents. Inconsistent communication and a lack of proper tools can lead to fragmented customer experiences and slow response times.

Can AI replace teamwork in customer service?

No, AI is unlikely to fully replace teamwork in customer service, but it will transform it. AI excels at handling repetitive, data-driven tasks, which frees up human agents to focus on complex, emotional, and relationship-building interactions. The future of customer service is a hybrid model where AI acts as a collaborative partner, enhancing the capabilities of the human team, not replacing it entirely.

Final thought

Ultimately, effective teamwork in customer service is the invisible engine that drives customer loyalty and satisfaction. When we empower our teams to work together smoothly, everyone wins: the customer, the employee, and the business. How will you foster better teamwork this week?