In an era where remote work has become commonplace, many customer success managers aren’t too happy. Why? Don’t the enjoy working from their home office? Sure, many professionals do, but their dissatisfaction is because the home office lifestyle inhibits their ability to meet face-to-face with customers. These in person interactions are the foundation of many excellent customer relationships, and it can sometimes be a challenge to build or sustain relationships without them.

For a variety of reasons, be it a cultural shift in the workplace or a major event like COVID-19, more companies have employees working remotely with little to no in-person interaction. And, for every time there's a remote employee, there's also someone who's tasked with managing a remote team. So, how can you keep a support team happy and working together when they are 10, 100, or even 1,000 miles apart? Here are 7 tips for managing a remote customer support team…

Everything is moving along nicely with your company and then – out of nowhere – an emergency pops up. For some companies it could be their software is having login issues, but one emergency many companies are working through currently is the emerging concern and uncertainty created by the Coronavirus (COVID-19). Events around the world are being postponed or cancelled, and it’s fundamentally changing the way people work and interact with each other.

As a customer, hearing the answer “go read this self-service article” from a support agent can be a frustrating experience. So many companies do self-service poorly that this type of response can feel like the agent is brushing the customer aside to focus on another issue. However, a great self-service experience can change this feeling of being ignored to one of feeling satisfied and empowered.