We’ve already summarized the main activities of a Team Leader. But now, we’ll take a deeper dive into those all-important responsibilities.

As a Team Leader, you will guide a group of live chat agents as they work to serve online visitors in the best way possible. You will monitor progress towards this goal and then report back to senior management. 

A Team Leader is responsible for guiding a team towards its goal while managing and resolving technical and interpersonal roadblocks along the way. Because of this, the job requires you to exercise both organizational and people skills. 

Here are some examples of key duties:

Uniting the team: the Team Leader should ensure that all agents clearly understand their roles. Everyone should know how they are expected to work together to achieve success.

Planning goals and milestones: you should establish a plan for the team to reach their assigned objectives and communicate specific duties to individual team members.

Tracking and communicating progress: monitor the progress of team members and update everyone as necessary. In addition, keep senior managers and other stakeholders informed about progress.

Supporting team members with feedback: act as a peer mentor to the team by offering feedback, encouragement, and strategies for improvement.

Providing inspiration and motivation: there are good days and bad days in every job. It’s your job to keep everyone motivated, regardless of what’s happening in the chats or the company in general.

Arranging ongoing training: technology changes fast, as do management and working practices. So you will need to ensure that your agents are always up to date with the latest training available.

Seeing as both Team Leader and manager are more senior positions, it’s easy to mix them up. So what’s the difference between the two?

People in both roles solve problems, assign work, and monitor progress. However, team leaders usually manage smaller teams, while managers can be responsible for entire departments.

Unlike managers, Team Leaders are usually not responsible for employee discipline, performance reviews, and wages.  

In short, a Team Leader is responsible for looking after a single group of chat agents on a day-to-day basis. You will keep things running smoothly and deal with everyday issues. But if a serious problem arises, you will typically handle this over to a senior manager.