A BLOG TO EDUCATE AND IMPROVE CUSTOMER SERVICE. This mean recognizing that people are human—they have flaws, limitations, and their health should come before anything else. **Without your health, how are you able to work?!**
Our life changes the moment you stop feeding your brain constant stimulation and start feeding it meaningful experiences.
Most people today are not truly exhausted because they are working too hard—they are exhausted because their minds are overloaded with artificial dopamine. Endless scrolling, instant entertainment, comparison, notifications, and temporary pleasures have trained the brain to crave quick rewards while slowly weakening patience, focus, discipline, gratitude, and emotional resilience.
💫Real dopamine—the kind that creates lasting fulfillment, motivation, peace, and inner confidence—is earned through intentional living. It is built slowly through habits that reconnect you with your body, your mind, your purpose, and the present moment.
💫Morning sunlight is not just light; it is nature’s way of telling your brain to wake up with clarity and hope.
💫A simple 30-minute walk is not merely exercise; it is therapy for the mind, movement for the soul, and proof that healing does not always require complexity.
💫Strength training teaches one of life’s greatest lessons: resistance is not punishment—it is how growth happens.
💫Every workout completed reminds your brain that you can do hard things even when motivation disappears.
💫Writing down goals gives direction to scattered thoughts and transforms vague dreams into intentional action.
💫Reading a book trains the mind to focus deeply in a world addicted to distraction.
💫Completing even the smallest task creates momentum because the brain begins trusting you again.
Over time, self-confidence is not built through motivational speeches; it is built when your actions repeatedly prove to your mind that you keep your promises to yourself.
💫Spending time in nature slows the chaos inside you. The trees do not rush. The sky does not compete. The wind does not seek validation. Nature quietly teaches what modern life often makes us forget: peace is productive too.
💫Helping someone else creates one of the purest forms of dopamine because purpose always feels better than selfish pleasure. The happiest people are rarely those who consume the most; they are often those who contribute the most.
This is completely true. Management is about the people under you, not the job or their duties. It’s about taking care of your subordinates, not about meeting deadlines. They should be able to meet deadlines,but if they can’t, it is the manager’s job to find out why and provide not only support but additional training or assistance if needed.
Managers are about onboarding their subordinates. They’re about educating and supporting them. They’re about providing opportunities of growth.
A manager should be a leader.
Management is about managing the people, not the job, duties, or business.
A toxic manager ruins your life. A great one changes it.
Here's how to tell the difference:
You likely spend more waking hours with your manager than your family.
That relationship shapes your stress levels, confidence, and energy every single day.
Subtle ways to spot the difference between a toxic manager and a great one (before it's too late):
1. When Things Go Wrong
🚩 Red Flag: They blame you for their poor planning
✅ Green Flag: They take responsibility and ask "How can I support you?"
2. How They Manage You
🚩 Red Flag: They micromanage every detail of your work
✅ Green Flag: They give you autonomy and trust your judgment
3. The Work Environment They Create
🚩 Red Flag: They create unnecessary urgency and chaos
✅ Green Flag: They shield you from organizational drama and politics
4. Credit and Recognition
🚩 Red Flag: They take credit for your wins, blame you for failures
✅ Green Flag: They advocate for you and share credit publicly
5. Their Daily Behavior
🚩 Red Flag: They're inconsistent with mood and expectations
✅ Green Flag: You know what to expect and feel psychologically safe
6. How They Handle Your Ideas
🚩 Red Flag: They dismiss your ideas without consideration
✅ Green Flag: They listen first, then provide thoughtful feedback
7. After-Hours Contact
🚩 Red Flag: They contact you outside work hours expecting responses
✅ Green Flag: They respect your boundaries and model healthy habits
8. Their Focus on You
🚩 Red Flag: They focus only on what you're doing wrong
✅ Green Flag: They develop your strengths and invest in your growth
You don’t just work for your manager.
You live with their impact.
What's the biggest red flag you've experienced with a manager?
One thing I love the most that I always show people is the amazing above image about when people say they do their “best” every day.
Did you know your best changes every day?
Literally, there are so many factors that play into it: energy, sleep quality, food, how others treat you, your physical health, your mental health, stress level, etc..
Your best changes day-to-day. What was easy yesterday might be really challenging today and that’s acceptable!!!
12 MVP Life Skills
(you never learned in school)
Read 2 books/month + apply what you learn
Your Future Self will thank you ✨
𝟭 --> 𝗚𝗼𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴
*Write out specific + measurable goals daily
*Visualize your success for 2 min each day
*Break down big goals - take the Next Best Step
𝟮 --> 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
*Figure out what’s important - prioritize it
*1-3-5 Rule: Complete 1 large, 3 medium, and 5 small tasks daily
*Use timers to manage task length
𝟯 --> 𝗘𝗺𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲
*Journal to understand thoughts and emotions
*Full body listening when others are speaking - phone down
*Express gratitude and appreciation freely (include yourself!)
𝟰 --> 𝗡𝗲𝗴𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
*Know what your goals are in advance
*Mirror: repeat the last 3 words spoken
*‘If-then’ language fosters a give and take dynamic
𝟱 --> 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
*30 Sec Rule: State your main point w/in 30 seconds for clarity and engagement
*Align your body language with your words
*Echo Technique: Use "So, you're saying..." to confirm understanding
𝟲 --> 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗺𝗮
*Power + Warmth + Presence = Charisma
*Be interested in others - ask questions
*Smize - smile with your eyes (IYKYK 😉)
𝟳 --> 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘆
*Use an app or spreadsheet to monitor spending
*Educate yourself to improve your money mindset
*Repeat, "I attract abundance effortlessly"
𝟴 --> 𝗠𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗻𝗲𝘀𝘀
*Start and end your day with 3 deep breaths
*Put your fork down at least once while eating
*Single- task to enhance presence
𝟵 --> 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗮𝗶𝗹
*Fail Successfully: Write down the positives from ‘failures’
*Treat failures as experiments / learning opportunities
*Remember... failure is an expected and inevitable part of the process
𝟭𝟬 --> 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰 𝗦𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴
*Speak daily in front of a mirror
*Speak up more often - at least once in every meeting/gathering
*Record and review practice sessions for improvements
𝟭𝟭 --> 𝗦𝘁𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁
*Daily activity and outdoor time to lessen stress
*Try a calming scent like lavender or chamomile (candle, spray, oil…)
*Relaxation techniques - yoga, breath work, journaling
𝟭𝟮 --> 𝗠𝗼𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
*Set personal rewards for task completion
*Set up effective systems to reduce reliance on motivation
*Surround yourself with positivity
𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘴 𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴!
PS ~ What would you add?
My Commentary:
The title is rather negative and not supportive of the public school system. Why not aid in providing these skills in primary and secondary school instead?
I learned goal setting, time management, and financial literacy in high school. It was part of a new program about allowing kids to learn to be independent and career-focused by graduation. I did go to a prep high school so that may have been why. Public Speaking, I learned in oral communication in University. They even had programs in University about Stress Management, Mindfulness, Motivation, and How to Fail. I just thought you might to know.
Henry Cavill's Highlander reboot from John Wick director Chad Stahelski has gotten an exciting update.
I just wanted to point out the bad marketing this image is.
While it employs the concept of immortals in the Highlander universe of “there can be only one”, it is bad marketing because it implies that Henry Cavil either gets killed off in the movie or show, or Henry Cavil is wrong for the job. It could also be taken as Christopher Lambert doesn’t like his replacement, and yes, he is still alive.
While I am aware that the image of Connor MacLeod is him holding his sword, it looks like a possible intentional threat.
There are different causes of job burnout. They include:
Lack of control. Not having a say in how you do your job, such as your schedule, assignments or workload, can lead to job burnout. Not having what you need to do your work also can add to burnout.
Lack of clarity about what's expected of you. If you're not sure what your boss or others want from you, you're not likely to feel like you're doing a good job.
Conflicts with others. Maybe you work with an office bully. Or you feel that co-workers are against you. Or your boss is too involved with your work. These conflicts can add to job stress.
Too much or too little to do. Maybe your job is boring. Or it's so busy you can't keep up with the demands. In these situations, you need a lot of energy to stay focused. This can lead to fatigue and job burnout.
Lack of support. If you feel alone at work and in your personal life, you might feel more stressed.
Problems with work-life balance. Problems with work-life balance. Maybe your work takes up so much of your time and energy that you have nothing left for family and friends. This lack of balance can lead to job burnout.
Job burnout risk factors
The following factors can add to job burnout:
Having a heavy workload and working long hours.
Struggling with work-life balance.
Working in a helping profession, such as health care, that involves a lot of giving to others.
Feeling of having little or no control over work.
Costs of job burnout
Doing nothing about job burnout can make the problems worse. As a result, you might:
Feel drained.
Not feel able to cope.
Not be able to sleep.
Be sad, angry, irritable or not care.
Use more alcohol or other substances.
Get heart disease, high blood pressure or type 2 diabetes.
I was reading the below article and found it fascinating, so I thought I would share. I would love to hear your opinion and experiences.
Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers
by Matthew Dixon, Karen Freeman, and Nick Toman
From the Harvard Business Review Magazine (July–August 2010)
Summary. The notion that companies must go above and beyond in their customer service activities is so entrenched that managers rarely examine it. But a study of more than 75,000 people interacting with contact-center representatives or using self-service channels found that over-the-top efforts make little difference: All customers really want is a simple, quick solution to their problem.
The Corporate Executive Board’s Dixon and colleagues describe five loyalty-building tactics that every company should adopt: Reduce the need for repeat calls by anticipating and dealing with related downstream issues; arm reps to address the emotional side of customer interactions; minimize the need for customers to switch service channels; elicit and use feedback from disgruntled or struggling customers; and focus on problem solving, not speed.
The authors also introduce the Customer Effort Score and show that it is a better predictor of loyalty than customer satisfaction measures or the Net Promoter Score. And they make available to readers a related diagnostic tool, the Customer Effort Audit. They conclude that we are reaching a tipping point that may presage the end of the telephone as the main channel for service interactions—and that managers therefore have an opportunity to rebuild their service organizations and put reducing customer effort firmly at the core, where it belongs.
Article. The idea that companies must “delight” their customers has become so entrenched that managers rarely examine it. But ask yourself this: How often does someone patronize a company specifically because of its over-the-top service? You can probably think of a few examples, such as the traveler who makes a point of returning to a hotel that has a particularly attentive staff. But you probably can’t come up with many.
Now ask yourself: How often do consumers cut companies loose because of terrible service? All the time. They exact revenge on airlines that lose their bags, cable providers whose technicians keep them waiting, cellular companies whose reps put them on permanent hold, and dry cleaners who don’t understand what “rush order” means.
Obstacles All Too Common
Most customers encounter loyalty-eroding problems when they engage with customer ...
56% report having to re-explain an issue
57% report having to switch from the web to the phone
59% report expending moderate-to-high effort to resolve an issue
59% report being transferred
62% report having to repeatedly contact the company to resolve an issue
Consumers’ impulse to punish bad service—at least more readily than to reward delightful service—plays out dramatically in both phone-based and self-service interactions, which are most companies’ largest customer service channels. In those settings, our research shows, loyalty has a lot more to do with how well companies deliver on their basic, even plain-vanilla promises than on how dazzling the service experience might be. Yet most companies have failed to realize this and pay dearly in terms of wasted investments and lost customers.
The Bad-Service Ripple Effect
Service failures not only drive existing customers to defect—they also can repel
25% of customers are likely to say something positive about their customer service experience
65% are likely to speak negatively
23% of customers who had a positive service interaction told 10 or more people about it
48% of customers who had negative experiences told 10 or more others
To examine the links between customer service and loyalty, the Customer Contact Council, a division of the Corporate Executive Board, conducted a study of more than 75,000 people who had interacted over the phone with contact-center representatives or through self-service channels such as the web, voice prompts, chat, and e-mail. We also held hundreds of structured interviews with customer service leaders and their functional counterparts in large companies throughout the world. (For more detail, see the sidebar “About the Research.”) Our research addressed three questions:
How important is customer service to loyalty?
Which customer service activities increase loyalty, and which don’t?
Can companies increase loyalty without raising their customer service operating costs?
About the Research
We defined “loyalty” as customers’ intention to continue doing business with a company, increase their spending, or say good things about it (or refrain from saying bad things). During a three-year period, we surveyed more than 75,000 B2C and B2B customers about their recent service interactions in major non-face-to-face channels, including live phone calls, voice prompts, web, chat, and e-mail. The companies represent dozens of industries, ranging from consumer electronics and packaged goods to banking and travel and leisure, in North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. We isolated the elements of each interaction that drove customer loyalty, both positively and negatively, and controlled for variables including the type of service issue, whether it was handled by an in-house or an outside contact center, the rep’s tenure with the company, the company’s size, the customer’s personality type, the customer’s mood prior to the interaction, switching costs, the frequency with which ads were seen or heard, the perceived product quality and value, product price, the industry, and the specific company. Finally, we conducted several hundred structured interviews in order to understand companies’ customer service strategies and operations in detail.
Although our research focused exclusively on contact-center interactions, it makes intuitive sense that the findings apply to face-to-face encounters as well.
Two critical findings emerged that should affect every company’s customer service strategy. First, delighting customers doesn’t build loyalty; reducing their effort—the work they must do to get their problem solved—does. Second, acting deliberately on this insight can help improve customer service, reduce customer service costs, and decrease customer churn.
Trying Too Hard
According to conventional wisdom, customers are more loyal to firms that go above and beyond. But our research shows that exceeding their expectations during service interactions (for example, by offering a refund, a free product, or a free service such as expedited shipping) makes customers only marginally more loyal than simply meeting their needs.
For leaders who cut their teeth in the service department, this is an alarming finding. What contact center doesn’t have a wall plastered with letters and e-mails from customers praising the extra work that service reps went to on their behalf? Indeed, 89 of the 100 customer service heads we surveyed said that their main strategy is to exceed expectations. But despite these Herculean—and costly—efforts, 84% of customers told us that their expectations had not been exceeded during their most recent interaction.
One reason for the focus on exceeding expectations is that fully 80% of customer service organizations use customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores as the primary metric for gauging the customer’s experience. And managers often assume that the more satisfied customers are, the more loyal they will be. But, like others before us (most notably Fred Reichheld), we find little relationship between satisfaction and loyalty. Twenty percent of the “satisfied” customers in our study said they intended to leave the company in question; 28% of the “dissatisfied” customers intended to stay.
The picture gets bleaker still. Although customer service can do little to increase loyalty, it can (and typically does) do a great deal to undermine it. Customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction disloyal than loyal.
Another way to think about the sources of customer loyalty is to imagine two pies—one containing things that drive loyalty and the other containing things that drive disloyalty. The loyalty pie consists largely of slices such as product quality and brand; the slice for service is quite small. But service accounts for most of the disloyalty pie. We buy from a company because it delivers quality products, great value, or a compelling brand. We leave one, more often than not, because it fails to deliver on customer service.
Make It Easy
Let’s return to the key implication of our research: When it comes to service, companies create loyal customers primarily by helping them solve their problems quickly and easily. Armed with this understanding, we can fundamentally change the emphasis of customer service interactions. Framing the service challenge in terms of making it easy for the customer can be highly illuminating, even liberating, especially for companies that have been struggling to delight. Telling frontline reps to exceed customers’ expectations is apt to yield confusion, wasted time and effort, and costly giveaways. Telling them to “make it easy” gives them a solid foundation for action.
Telling reps to exceed customers’ expectations is apt to yield confusion, wasted time and effort, and costly giveaways.
What exactly does “make it easy” mean? Simply: Remove obstacles. We identified several recurring complaints about service interactions, including three that focus specifically on customer effort. Customers resent having to contact the company repeatedly (or be transferred) to get an issue resolved, having to repeat information, and having to switch from one service channel to another (for instance, needing to call after trying unsuccessfully to solve a problem through the website). Well over half the customers we surveyed reported encountering difficulties of this sort. Companies can reduce these types of effort and measure the effects with a new metric, the Customer Effort Score (CES), which assigns ratings from 1 to 5, with 5 representing very high effort. (For details, see the sidebar “Introducing the Customer Effort Score.”)
Introducing the Customer Effort Score
We evaluated the predictive power of three metrics—customer satisfaction (CSAT), the Net Promoter Score (NPS), and a new metric we developed, the Customer Effort Score (CES)—on customer loyalty, defined as customers’ intention to keep doing business with the company, increase the amount they spend, or spread positive (and not negative) word of mouth. Not surprisingly, CSAT was a poor predictor. NPS proved better (and has been shown to be a powerful gauge at the company level). CES outperformed both in customer service interactions.
CES is measured by asking a single question: “How much effort did you personally have to put forth to handle your request?” It is scored on a scale from 1 (very low effort) to 5 (very high effort). Customer service organizations can use CES, along with operational measurements of such things as repeat calls, transfers, and channel switching, to conduct an “effort audit” and improve areas where customers are expending undue energy. Many of the companies we work with use CES to intervene with customers at risk of defecting.
We found the predictive power of CES to be strong indeed. Of the customers who reported low effort, 94% expressed an intention to repurchase, and 88% said they would increase their spending. Only 1% said they would speak negatively about the company. Conversely, 81% of the customers who had a hard time solving their problems reported an intention to spread negative word of mouth.
We believe that the superior performance of CES in the service environment derives from two factors: its ability to capture customer impressions at the transactional level (as opposed to NPS, which captures more-holistic impressions of a company) and its ability to capture negative experiences as well as positive ones.
A related diagnostic tool, the Customer Effort Audit, can be downloaded at http://www.executiveboard.com/salesandmarketing/CCC-CustomerEffortAudit.html.
During our study, we saw many companies that had successfully implemented low-customer-effort approaches to service. Following are five of the tactics they used—tactics that every company should adopt.
1. Don’t just resolve the current issue—head off the next one.
By far the biggest cause of excessive customer effort is the need to call back. Many companies believe they’re performing well in this regard, because they have strong first-contact-resolution (FCR) scores. (See the sidebar “What Should You Measure?”) However, 22% of repeat calls involve downstream issues related to the problem that prompted the original call, even if that problem itself was adequately addressed the first time around. Although companies are well equipped to anticipate and “forward-resolve” these issues, they rarely do so, generally because they’re overly focused on managing call time. They need to realize that customers gauge the effort they expend not just in terms of how an individual call is handled but also according to how the company manages evolving service events, such as taking out a mortgage or setting up cable service, that typically require several calls.
What Should You Measure?
The number one cause of undue effort for customers interacting with contact ...
Bell Canada met this challenge by mining its customer interaction data to understand the relationships among various customer issues. Using what it learned about “event clusters,” Bell began training its reps not only to resolve the customer’s primary issue but also to anticipate and address common downstream issues. For instance, a high percentage of customers who ordered a particular feature called back for instructions on using it. The company’s service reps now give a quick tutorial to customers about key aspects of the feature before hanging up. This sort of forward resolution enabled Bell to reduce its “calls per event” by 16% and its customer churn by 6%. For complex downstream issues that would take excessive time to address in the initial call, the company sends follow-up e-mails—for example, explaining how to interpret the first billing statement. Bell Canada is currently weaving this issue-prediction approach into the call-routing experience for the customer.
Fidelity uses a similar concept on its self-service website, offering “suggested next steps” to customers executing certain transactions. Often customers who change their address online call later to order new checks or ask about homeowners’ or renters’ insurance; therefore, Fidelity directs them to these topics before they leave the site. Twenty-five percent of all self-service transactions on Fidelity’s website are now generated by similar “next issue” prompts, and calls per household have dropped by 5% since the policy began.
2. Arm reps to address the emotional side of customer interactions.
Twenty-four percent (24%) of the repeat calls in our study stemmed from emotional disconnects between customers and reps—situations in which, for instance, the customer didn’t trust the rep’s information or didn’t like the answer given and had the impression that the rep was just hiding behind general company policy. With some basic instruction, reps can eliminate many interpersonal issues and thereby reduce repeat calls.
One UK-based mortgage company teaches its reps how to listen for clues to a customer’s personality type. They quickly assess whether they are talking to a “controller,” a “thinker,” a “feeler,” or an “entertainer,” and tailor their responses accordingly, offering the customer the balance of detail and speed appropriate for the personality type diagnosed. This strategy has reduced repeat calls by a remarkable 40%.
One company teaches its reps how to listen for clues to a customer’s personality type and tailor their responses accordingly.
The lighting company Osram Sylvania sifts through its call transcripts to pinpoint words that tend to trigger negative reactions and drive repeat calls—words like “can’t,” “won’t,” and “don’t”—and coaches its reps on alternate phrasing. Instead of saying “We don’t have that item in stock,” a rep might explain, “We’ll have stock availability for that item in two weeks.” Through such simple changes in language, Osram Sylvania has lowered its Customer Effort Score from 2.8 to 2.2—18.5% below the average we see for B2B companies.
LoyaltyOne, the operator of the AIR MILES reward program, teaches reps to probe for information they can use to better position potentially disappointing outcomes. A rep dealing with a customer who wants to redeem miles for an unavailable flight might learn that the caller is traveling to an important business meeting and use this fact to put a positive spin on the need to book a different flight. The rep might say, “It sounds like this is something you can’t be late for. The Monday morning flight isn’t available, but with potential delays, you’d be cutting it close anyway. I’d recommend a Sunday evening flight so that you don’t risk missing your meeting.” This strategy has resulted in an 11% decrease in repeat contacts.
3. Minimize channel switching by increasing self-service channel “stickiness.”
Many companies ask, “How can we get our customers to go to our self-service website?” Our research shows that in fact many customers have already been there: Fifty-seven percent of inbound calls came from customers who went to the website first. Despite their desire to have customers turn to the web, companies tend to resist making improvements to their sites, assuming that only heavy spending and technology upgrades will induce customers to stay there. (And even when costly upgrades are made, they often prove counterproductive, because companies tend to add complicated and confusing features in an attempt to keep up with their competitors.)
Customers may become overwhelmed by the profusion of self-service channels—interactive voice response, websites, e-mail, chat, online support communities, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and so on—and often lack the ability to make the best choice for themselves. For example, technically unsophisticated users, left to their own devices, may go to highly technical online support communities. As a result, customers may expend a lot of effort bouncing between channels, only to pick up the phone in the end.
Cisco Consumer Products now guides customers to the channel it determines will suit them best, on the basis of segment-specific hypotheses generated by the company’s customer experience team. Language on the site’s home page nudges technology gurus toward the online support community; those with less technical expertise are steered toward knowledge articles by the promise of simple step-by-step instructions. The company eliminated the e-mail option, having found that it didn’t reliably reduce customer effort. (Our research shows that 2.4 e-mails, on average, are needed to resolve an issue, compared with 1.7 calls.) When Cisco Consumer Products began this program, in 2006, only 30% of its customer contacts were handled through self-service; the figure today is 84%, and the volume of calls has dropped accordingly.
Travelocity reduced customer effort just by improving the help section of its website. It had learned that many customers who sought solutions there were stymied and resorted to the phone. By eliminating jargon, simplifying the layout, and otherwise improving readability, the company doubled the use of its “top searches” and decreased calls by 5%.
4. Use feedback from disgruntled or struggling customers to reduce customer effort.
Many companies conduct postcall surveys to measure internal performance; however, they may neglect to use the data they collect to learn from unhappy customers. But consider National Australia Group’s approach. The company has frontline reps specifically trained to call customers who have given it low marks. The reps focus first on resolving the customers’ issues, but they also collect feedback that informs service improvements. The company’s issue-resolution rate has risen by 31%.
Such learning and intervention isn’t limited to the phone channel. Some companies monitor online behavior in order to identify customers who are struggling. EarthLink has a dedicated team of reps who step in as needed with clients on its self-service website—for example, by initiating a chat with a customer who has spent more than 90 seconds in the knowledge center or clicked on the “Contact Us” link. This program has reduced calls by 8%.
5. Empower the front line to deliver a low-effort experience.
Incentive systems that value speed over quality may pose the single greatest barrier to reducing customer effort. Most customer service organizations still emphasize productivity metrics such as average handle time when assessing rep performance. They would be better off removing the productivity “governors” that get in the way of making the customer’s experience easy.
An Australian telecommunications provider eliminated all productivity metrics from its frontline reps’ performance scorecards. Although handle time increased slightly, repeat calls fell by 58%. Today the company evaluates its reps solely on the basis off short, direct interviews with customers, essentially asking them if the service they received met their needs.
Freed to focus on reducing customer effort, frontline reps can easily pick low-hanging fruit. Ameriprise Financial, for example, asks its customer service reps to capture every instance in which they are forced to tell a customer no. While auditing the “no’s,” the company found many legacy policies that had been outmoded by regulatory changes or system or process improvements. During its first year of “capturing the no’s,” Ameriprise modified or eliminated 26 policies. It has since expanded the program by asking frontline reps to come up with other process efficiencies, generating $1.2 million in savings as a result.
Some companies have gone even further, making low customer effort the cornerstone of their service value proposition and branding. South Africa’s Nedbank, for instance, instituted an “AskOnce” promise, which guarantees that the rep who picks up the phone will own the customer’s issue from start to finish.
The immediate mission is clear: Corporate leaders must focus their service organizations on mitigating disloyalty by reducing customer effort. But service managers fretting about how to reengineer their contact centers—departments built on a foundation of delighting the customer—should consider this: A massive shift is under way in terms of customers’ service preferences. Although most companies believe that customers overwhelmingly prefer live phone service to self-service, our most recent data show that customers are, in fact, indifferent. This is an important tipping point and probably presages the end of phone-based service as the primary channel for customer service interactions. For enterprising service managers, it presents an opportunity to rebuild their organizations around self-service and, in the process, to put reducing customer effort firmly at the core, where it belongs
This is a question that TED Conferences posted on LinkedIn.
If I run out of work:
I ask my co-workers🧍🏻♂️ if they need help with anything first. I will check with my manager 👨💼. I may even ask if I can cross train with another department. I have seriously done these actions and I found cross training to be the most interesting since it tends to be different then what I am doing. 😄
It is also possible when you go to your manager, unexpected events may occur: your co-worker could be asked to stop what they are doing and give their work to you, so they can go train or do something else elsewhere. That’s a bit challenging, at times, not to feel disappointed that you were not asked. That is okay but don’t take it personally.
That is difficult to handle at times.I have found a way to multitask that doesn’t cause problems, such as
Change your view point if you can. Just remember that this is job security and your manager knows you are great at what your current duties are. Excelling at your tasks or assigned duties and having your manager give you more of that work so someone else can do something else is a compliment. It means they trust you to know what you’re doing. Gaining that trust is immensely wonderful for a job and means you’re secure in what you’re doing.
Now if the work is boring or repetitive:
I want to point out that multitasking does not work; science says so. What I have found is when you’re doing tasks that require different ways to be engaged, you can do a lesser engaging task with a more engaging task, such as
If your task requires you to transcribe or data entry 🖥️, I recommend music you enjoy without lyrics. Video game soundtracks are good options besides, say, classical music.
Hearing lyrics can mess up your typing sinxe you’ll end up typing what you’re hearing instead of what you’re reading. It isn’t easy to engage both the visual (eyes) and audio (ears) centers of the brain at the same time, so says the last audiologist I saw in either 2022 or 2023.
If you are working with numbers, like spreadsheets or budgets ⌨️, then listening to regular music with a heavy beat that makes you almost feel like dancing can work well. Also, audiobooks or podcasts can be an option too.
Note: I do not mean actively doing math. Math requires both visual, usually kinetic (hand writing or typing), and problem solving. Mathematics is usually a heavy duty task for your mind. You need essentially something in the background that can help with focus.
Just remember it is ok to turn it off or turn it down if you need to focus. As I stated above, engaging both your visual center and audio center of the brain is difficult first most people to do.
If you’re doing physical labor 👷, such as construction or cleaning a room or house🧺, anything to engage your brain and/or thoughts can work to help too.
Did you know changing body position can also be a way to help motivation and energy? Sitting too long can be harmful 🪑while standing has shown to increase productivity 🧍♀️.
What have you done to help with motivation and engagement at you? I would love to hear from you. Leave a comment or reblog. Thanks!
Source:
Now, new research from the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health indicates that standing desks may boost productivity in a
Imagine a customer yelling and cursing at you because they’re dissatisfied with the product. They’re saying how bad words and blaming you except you didn’t do anything. This is the first time you’ve ever spoken to them.
How do you not take this personally?
You cannot make everyone happy. It isn’t possible. Everyone is unique with their own ideas and culture as to what people should do and how they should act.
You are doing your best. Your best changes day to day. It isn’t the same and many people don’t realize that. It’s ok to have an off day. Communication is key on off day to aid you to keep your best going.
Remember that you’re not directly responsible for the product. You’re responsible for assisting the customer and are a face and/or voice of the company. Think like the customer, act like the owner.
Radical acceptance. This is probably one of the most challenging concepts I have ever had to learn and keep reminding myself exists. It helps everywhere: in your day-to-day and life, in general.
Radical acceptance is the skill to accept things, events, and experiences as they are and understanding you cannot change them. It teaches you to let go of your bitterness, to stop fighting or resisting reality, to stop asking ‘Why me?’, and accept things are as they are.
Life is worth living, even with painful experiences in it.
How to radically accept your reality:
“It should be this way.” Recognize that you are fighting and/or questioning reality, the event, or experience.
“This is what happened.” Remember that your unpleasant or distressing experience is just as it is and cannot be changed.
“This is how things happened that made them this way.” Remember the causes and acknowledge what led up to that moment.
Practice acceptance of this reality, of what led to that moment with your whole self (mind, body, soul). Use positive self-talk, mindfulness breathing, or imagine yourself in a different environment.
Practice Opposite Action: list all the behaviors you would be doing if you accept the facts. Pretend as if you already have accepted it and act those behaviors out.
Cope ahead. Imagine believing what you don’t want to accept. Then, practice what you would do if you did accept what seemed to be unacceptable.
Be aware of what your body is feeling, the sensation in your head, skin, arms, leg, chest, muscles, and so forth. Be present in the moment. What does your body feel like right now?
Allow the negative emotions to be felt, such as disappointment, sadness, grief, anger, and others. How do you feel?
Remember: Life is worth living, even with painful experiences in it.
If you find you are still resistant to accepting your reality, write a pros and cons list.
Pros—Why accepting what happened cannot be changed will help you?
Cons—What happens if you do not accept what happened? How does that help you?
The benefits of practicing radical acceptance.
Sources:
Radical acceptance with DBT can help patients understand how past trauma affects their present. Learn about DBT training at CONCEPT Professi
