As a business owner or leader in a customer service organization, you can spend countless hours (and dollars) on refining your processes and technology. Despite the expense of research and planning, the entire customer experience is actually made or broken in an instant. One moment.
That moment can be ruined by a pet. Or a moody teenager. Or traffic.
ICMI recently found that 92% of consumers say an agent’s perceived happiness affects their personal customer experience.
As you take a moment to let that statistic sink in, take a quick temperature on your own mood right now. How are you feeling? Did you just come out of a meeting where you looked like the rock star? Did your commute include a soul-crushing traffic jam? Is your personal life in a state that swings your mood either up or down? How does your stomach feel after lunch?
Now think about your tendency to treat others differently depending on your own physical, mental and emotional state. For example, when I go to my local coffee shop, they know my name, greet me warmly, know my favorite drink (sometimes forget to charge me for it) and chat with me while I wait. By the time the cup is in my hand, I’m in a pretty good mood.
As I exit the shop and see someone else approaching the door, I am more likely to hold the door open, smile and say, “good morning” to them. The psychological concepts we’re talking about are mood (how I’m feeling) and affect (what I’m doing).
Got it? Here’s how it affects a business’s bottom line: Mary is a member of the front-line customer service team. On the way out the door, she discovers that her aging pet has made a mess on the carpet. She has to clean that up, which delays her departure time for work. This means she won’t beat the traffic and is therefore irritated when she arrives. She doesn’t have time to drink her first Diet Coke and chat about last night’s "Game of Thrones" episode with her coworkers. Instead, she comes in on the tail end of their conversation around the vending machine. She sees her supervisor looking at the clock, panics, hurries to her putty-colored cubicle, takes a quick sip of her drink, logs in and is served an interaction.
How do you think this scene is going to play out?
Even if your organization has spent years of time and thousands of dollars on creating and refining processes and scripts, the experience of Mary’s customer actually depends more on her aging pet than on your careful planning. The most artfully written script, when read by an agent in a bad mood, can create a poor experience.
Here are a few things to think about, as you work to help your agents get (and stay) in the right frame of mind.
1. Mindfulness Training
Mindfulness has been a topic of study for several years. It examines the effect of activities like meditation, prayer and relaxation on workers. Some of the benefits include increased attention, greater productivity in accomplishing tasks and lower turnover rates.
But keep in mind that your customers aren’t calling into a day spa or dial-a-guru. They’re calling your company to interact with your brand about their problems. When encouraging mindfulness in your team, be sure that you’re guiding them to be mindful about representing the company and championing for the customer. If you lose that focus, you’re just helping your people chill out.
2. In-line Mindfulness
Your contact center platform should be able to accommodate mindfulness, given that your agent’s state of mind is as (if not more) important than proper technical training.
For example, Mary takes a phone call and, because of her frazzled state of mind, she stumbles a bit. Your communications system is listening to Mary and detects some words, phrases or inflections that indicate she’s not at her best. The system automatically pauses Mary’s next interaction and instead sends her a brief mindfulness exercise to help her get centered. Mary’s next interaction is likely to be of a much higher quality.
…and let’s take it one step further.
3. IoT Helping Agents
Mary owns a FitBit, an Apple Watch or any other number of devices. She chooses to allow the system to see her heart rate data. The system then pairs word, phrase and inflection data with Mary’s physical state to determine when she needs a breather.
If your contact center systems aren’t helping your agents holistically, meaning technical training and encouraging mindfulness, you’re likely trying to provide great service with one hand tied behind your back. If you are encouraging focused mindfulness in your customer service teams, share some of your success stories in the comments section.
