Working in customer service is an almost surefire way to become burned out these days. Employees often have to weather abuse from clients, leading to compassion fatigue and high turnover. People of color in this industry, and Black people in particular, often face worse treatment from both customers and supervisors compared to their white peers.

Workers at Greenhouse, a recruiting software company, were recently experiencing just this problem. Over the course of 2021, leaders in the company’s customer service team noticed people of color were facing a disproportionate amount of customer complaints and escalations—a term for when a customer is not satisfied and requests to speak with management. These employees in turn reported far lower engagement levels with their work, and lower confidence in their managers; Black employees’ engagement was 30 points lower than their white peers.

“The experience was not good for a lot of our employees from underrepresented groups. And our leaders also were feeling like they didn’t have the right tools to address those escalations in the moment,” says Jamie Wernet, senior director of customer service at Greenhouse. She partnered with Kevin Do, senior manager of customer success, to find a new framework to address escalations, and avoid burnout among underrepresented employees.

Greenhouse recruited Paradigm, a DEI strategy firm, to help solve their problem. While more companies have started focusing on their DEI strategies internally, paying attention to customers’ treatment of employees is still largely overlooked, says Joelle Emerson, CEO of Paradigm.

“I think this really highlights that challenges around inclusion and equity actually permeate every part of an organization, and if we really want to create places where people from all backgrounds can do their work and can thrive, we have to be taking an equity and inclusion minded lens to looking at everything about how you work,” she says.

Greenhouse created community groups for customer service managers, where real-life customer conflicts would be roleplayed by volunteers in monthly facilitated meetings, allowing attendees to work on problem-solving and assisting their colleagues. The company created two groups, one that was inclusive of all identities, and another specifically for BIPOC employees.

The company also implemented a five-step response process for leaders to get more involved when customer service problems spiraled out of control. Managers were first tasked with ensuring “psychological safety” on their own team by making employees feel comfortable to approach them about an issue with a customer. They would then get to know the context of the problem better, brainstorm possible solutions with client-facing workers, create an action plan, and execute the agreed plan. They were also trained to be mindful of their own hidden biases.

“Sometimes managers can go directly to problem-solving and treating things in a very diagnostic kind of way. And that doesn’t create the space for the complexity of people of color,” says Do. “This framework needed to give them the tools to have both the emotional support side and the problem-solving side.”

The new framework for escalation seems to be paying off. Greenhouse saw an average 40% increase in Black employees’ engagement for 2022, and a 78% increase in Black customer service managers’ confidence in leadership at the director level and above. And 93% of Black employees reported feeling included at the company in 2022, though it was the first time Greenhouse measured employee inclusion. 

“That’s something we’re proud of here…because there’s a culture to being a service organization, that you’re gonna get escalations, you’re gonna have angry customers,” says Do. “But how do you actually train your leaders and create a culture, where you can also account for the nuances for folks with different identities?”

Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion

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