Insider Perspectives: Public Sector Service Expert Wendi Brick

Wendi Brick, Customer Service Consultant

Think about the service you get from government agencies.

What comes to mind? Perhaps you think about your last trip to the DMV, an interaction with the city planning department, or a municipal utility.

Outstanding customer service may not be the first thought that crosses your mind when you think about the public sector, but several million dedicated professionals go to work each day in service of the public.

I sat down with Wendi Brick, President and CEO of Customer Service Advantage, Inc. to get her perspective. Brick's company helps public sector organizations deliver world class customer service.

She's also the author of The Science of Service: Six Essential Elements for Creating a Culture of Service in the Public Sector. I highly recommend her book for any public sector employee.

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Q: What are some challenges unique to serving customers in the public sector?

"There are two primary differences between customer service in the public and private sectors.

"The first is in the public sector, the customer is not always right. A police officer making an arrest for a crime is first concerned with protecting public. If you think of the person being arrested as the customer, they might not walk away 'satisfied' with the process in a traditional sense. Someone working in a city planning office can't approve an eight foot tall wall when the zoning regulations say the maximum height is six, no matter how much that customer wants the wall to be eight.

"The second difference is the service provided by government agencies is often regulatory or enforcement oriented. In the big picture, government exists to protect people in some way, whether it's food quality, public safety, or something else.

"It's not the Disney Way or Nordstrom, but you're still there to help, even if in the end, the customer doesn’t walk away with exactly what they want. Satisfaction with the outcome isn’t always the goal for the interaction."

Q: If public sector agencies aren't always targeting traditional customer satisfaction, what should they be targeting?

"The focus should be service delivery. In my book, The Science of Service, I outline three criteria for excellent public sector service delivery.

"First is professionalism. This means doing your job and doing it well. You want to treat customers with courtesy and respect.

"The second is knowledge. Public sector employees often need to keep track of extensive rules, regulations, laws, and procedures. It's important that you have accurate information to share with your customers.

"The third is timeliness. We're all familiar with bureaucratic red tape. Public sector employees must navigate through that too to provide the fastest possible service.

"At the end of the day, a customer may not get exactly what they wanted, but they should walk away believing they were respected, they received accurate information, and they didn't waste their time. And maybe they feel they were offered some options that would work, even if they weren’t exactly the same as the original request."

Q: Public sector employees don't always have the best reputation for outstanding service. Why do you think that is?

"I can tell you that 99 percent of the government employees I meet are really dedicated. They make less money and often put in more hours than their private sector counterparts because they really believe in what they do.

"So it's heartbreaking to these employees when one of their colleagues does something wrong, especially when it makes the news or is held up as an example of what's wrong with public sector service.

"Keep in mind that a lot of customer service is driven by systems and process. There are so many instances when a public sector employee would like to do more, but they're constrained by an antiquated system or cumbersome process. 

"Working in the public sector really is a noble mission. It takes a certain type of person to do it. The vast majority of people who work in government do so because they really want to help."

Q: It sounds like public sector service can be frustrating for employees too.

"It can be. Employees give a lot of themselves, so the biggest risk is burnout. People can get jaded.

"I always try to remind people that it's a marathon, not a sprint. It's important for public sector leaders to help their staff prevent burnout. This includes giving people time to recharge and letting employees talk through their frustrations.

(Side note: download this exclusive report on the causes of contact center agent burnout.)

Q: What are some of the similarities you see between the public and private sector when it comes to customer service?

"In any industry, an organization's reputation is built on everyday impressions. Employees need to understand that everyone has a sphere of influence. You might make an impression on a customer or even a coworker.

"That makes it important to model the right behavior so you can have a positive impact on others."

Insider Perspectives: ICMI's Erica Marois on Contact Centers

Erica Marois, Community Strategist

In any industry, there are a few people you absolutely need to know.

Erica Marois is one of those people for contact center professionals. She's the Community Strategist for the International Customer Management Institute (ICMI) and a terrific source of information on Twitter. Her role involves connecting people in the contact center community to give them the tools and resources they need to advance their careers.

Marois is uniquely plugged in to contact center trends and the people who are driving them. She's also one of the industry's most passionate advocates.

She recently took some time to share insights on how contact center professionals can grow in their careers and what leading contact centers are doing to succeed.

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Q: Tell me about some of the ways you help contact center professionals connect with each other to learn and grow?

"Customers like to connect with their favorite brands in many ways, and our members like to connect with ICMI and each other in many ways too.

"One of my favorites is the weekly ICMI Chat on Twitter [Tuesday's at 10am Pacific, #icmichat]. The discussion revolves around a new topic each week and participants provide a lot of fun and insightful commentary. It's even led to a sort of mastermind community where people connect outside of the weekly chat to discuss challenges and share ideas. A lot of regular participants have had a chance to meet in person at ICMI conferences and have become good friends, which is fun too.

"We've just launched our ICMI book club on Goodreads. A couple of people mentioned they were thinking of starting a book club in their contact centers, so I thought it might be a good idea for ICMI. Our industry has such a thirst for knowledge, and books are a great way for directors, managers, supervisors, and agents to learn new ideas. Each month, we'll feature a new book and have a live discussion with the author at the end of the month. The first book is The Culture Engine by Chris Edmonds.

"We also publish original case studies and articles, a weekly newsletter, and host the annual Contact Center Expo and Contact Center Demo conferences."

Note: You can save $200 on the upcoming Contact Center Expo conference when you use the code SPKR at checkout.

Q: You seem to be everywhere at those conferences! What's your primary goal while you're there?

"My top priority is to meet as many people as possible. I enjoy hearing from them and what their struggles are because it helps me do a better job. I’m passionate about helping people overcome those struggles. 

"I also try to maintain our social presence at the conferences. There are a lot of great discussions happening on the conference's Twitter backchannel [note: the backchannel refers to the conference's Twitter hashtag, such as #ccexpo]. I've learned there are even more people who aren't necessarily active participants in those online discussions, but they're still actively listening."

Q: What do you see top contact centers doing that others don't necessarily do?

"The most successful contact centers treat their employees like adults. They empower them by giving them the tools and resources they need to serve their customers, and they don't chain them down with rigid scripts or cumbersome policies.

"If you hire people you trust, you need to trust them.

"Employee engagement is a top priority for leading contact centers. They don't get too bogged down in tactics or employee satisfaction. These contact centers understand that engaged employees are self-motivated and invested in the mission of the company. 

"To do that, employees need to know the mission. In The Culture Engine, this month's book club book, the author talks about having a 'cultural constitution' that spells out the company culture and what behaviors are expected. 

"It's so easy to get stuck focused on metrics, that contact center leaders often forget to focus on people. The best contact centers have an employee engagement champion who is constantly making sure this is a priority."

Q: What do you think are some unique aspects about serving customers in a contact center?

"I didn't have any contact center experience before I joined ICMI, but I quickly learned to appreciate what these professionals do every day. It's such a relatable industry because we've all been on the receiving end of a contact center's customer service.

"What really stands out for me is the passion. People are hungry to learn, improve, and share their experiences. You've got to have a servant leader's heart to be successful in this industry."

Q: Is there something about contact centers you wish other people knew?

"People need to realize the great value that contact centers provide.

"In many cases the contact center is the company's first and primary point of communication with customers. Agents have a big opportunity to create a positive impression of the company in their customers' minds. The contact center also collects an awful lot of customer data that the marketing department, R&D team, and even the CEO should be paying attention to.

"Too many organizations think of the contact center as a cost center where expenses need to be minimized, but the contact center is really one of the most customer-focused aspects of any company."

The Amazingly Simple Way to Develop Better Interview Questions

Coming up with interview questions can be tricky.

I'm going to focus on hiring customer service employees, but my experience as a recruiter has taught me that it's a tricky process for nearly any role. 

There's no shortage of ideas on the topic. Books, articles, and webinars galore are dedicated to coming up with interview questions. The problem is it's just too much to make sense of it all.

You might ask the typical questions, such as "Why do you want to work here?"

Some people ask challenging questions, such as "What would your last boss say was your biggest weakness?" (Correct answer: "Sometimes I work too hard because I care too damn much.")

Others enjoy weird questions that focus on how the candidate answers: "If you were a fruit, what kind of fruit would you be and why?"

There's often a fatal flaw in all of these approaches. A flaw so bad that research shows you'd make better hiring decisions if you skip the interview questions entirely.

Three simple steps can fix that.

Step 1: Create an Ideal Candidate Profile

Just as a teacher wouldn't give a test without making an answer key, asking interview questions without knowing what a successful candidate should say is a recipe for disaster.

You can solve this problem by creating an Ideal Candidate Profile. It's a list of the specific skills and attributes that would make a job applicant the ideal candidate. The profile ultimately serves as the answer key for your interviews. 

For example, let's say you manage a tasting room at a winery and want to hire a wine room host to conduct tastings and sell wine. Some wineries promote a party-like atmosphere, but your winery really focuses on educating guests about great wine so they'll appreciate it more.

So one item on your Ideal Candidate Profile for a wine room host might be "a passion for learning about wine." Someone who loves learning about wine is more likely to share that passion with your guests, which is exactly what your winery wants.

You can use this handy tool to create your own Ideal Candidate Profile. I've even included a couple of how-to videos.

Step 2: Develop Your Questions

The next step is to develop at least one interview question for every item on Your Ideal Candidate Profile.

The idea is to use the interview to help you uncover whether or not a candidate has the specific qualities you're looking for. If you want someone who is a team player, you should have a question that helps you learn if this person is truly good at teamwork. 

Let's go back to the winery example. Here's a question that might help you discover if a person has a passion for learning about wine:

"Can you tell me about the last time you went wine tasting?"

Someone who has a passion for learning about wine will spend their own time exploring wineries and learning all they can. They'll be able to describe a specific experience and what they learned from it.

The advantage of developing your own interview questions (versus copying from a generic list) is you can use the questions to target specific characteristics. I found Janis Whitaker's excellent Interviewing by Example workbook to be a huge help with this task.

Step 3: Evaluate Your Candidates

By now, you should have an Ideal Candidate Profile and an interview question for each characteristic. The final step is to apply these in a job interview. 

Let's say you interview three candidates for the wine room host position. All have prior customer service experience and have warm, outgoing personalities. Take a look at their answers to the question, "Can you tell me about the last time you went wine tasting?"

Candidate A: It was a long time ago. I went with some friends and I remember it was a lot of fun. Let’s just say it was a good thing we had a driver! If I get this job, I definitely plan to go a lot more often.

Candidate B: I love wine tasting! I went out with some friends two weeks ago and it was a lot of fun. At one winery, we got to do a cave tour where we walked through these elaborate wine caves. Another winery offered flights on this beautiful patio that overlooked the entire valley.

Candidate C: I’ve been so busy with work and school that I don’t get to visit wineries too often. However, my friends and I like to organize our own wine tastings. We pick a theme, such as a particular region or grape, and everyone brings a bottle. The bottles are covered in paper bags so we don’t know which wine we are tasting, and we all compare notes about what we like and don’t like.

Candidate D: I read about a winery where you can taste the same wine out of two different oak barrels. I often hear winemakers talking about American oak or French oak, so I thought this would be a great way to learn how oak influences wine. It was a fun experience, because you really can tell the difference when you're tasting the same wine from the two barrels side by side. I learned the American oak is a little bolder and brings out more vanilla flavors, while the French oak is a little more subtle with spicier tastes.

Which candidate would you pick?

All four seem to enjoy wine. But the Ideal Candidate Profile indicates the perfect employee will have “a passion for learning about wine.”

Based on their answers, Candidates A and B do not fit the profile. Neither expressed a passion for learning about wine.

Candidate C fits the profile, even though they don’t go wine tasting. Their thoughtful answer made it clear they still enjoy learning about wine and found a creative way to do it with limited time and money.

Candidate D also fits the profile. They actively sought out a tasting experiences to learn more.

This is just one interview question. Perhaps Candidate C or D will further separate themselves as you ask them additional questions.

The Ideal Candidate Profile helps you identify up to five must have qualities for your ideal candidate. Each dimension will give you a clearer idea of whether the candidate is qualified for the job.

Insider Perspectives: Hyundai's Sprina Moon on Franchises

Sprina Moon, Sr. Manager Retail Process Improvement

Customer service is outsourced in many businesses.

That fast food chain may be run by a franchisee, not the brand on the building. Your delivery driver might be an independent contractor. The contact center you call with billing questions might be run by an outsourcer.

This creates a challenge for businesses that want to deliver outstanding customer service, but don't directly control the people that are delivering it.

The automotive industry is set-up this way. The vast majority of new cars, trucks, and SUVs are sold through a network of franchised dealerships.

I spoke with Sprina Moon, Senior Manager, Retail Process Improvement for Hyundai Motor America to ask how her company tackles this challenge.

Moon works with Hyundai dealerships to improve the customer sales experience which ultimately leads to better customer satisfaction and loyalty. Her company is doing quite well as Hyundai has been ranked #1 in customer loyalty for seven years in a row.

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Q: How important is customer-focus to the success of Hyundai's dealerships?

"Hyundai typically offers more value than our competitors. What I mean is that for the same dollars or less you get a Hyundai vehicle with more options than the competition, so we should generally win if customers are looking for a vehicle we offer. But if a customer doesn't trust their salesperson, they will go somewhere else. Most Hyundai customers spend a large amount of time researching the vehicle they are interested in buying so when they get to the dealer, they can tell if the sales person is being less than honest. The thing to think about in this day and age is that most OEM’s [original equipment manufacturers] make good quality vehicles, so what separates the good dealers from the bad ones is how well they do with the customer sales experience and added value of why a customer should buy from your dealership.

"Salespeople don't always realize the customer's buying decision is not just about price. People want to buy where they're treated with respect. Respect of their time and respect of their buying decisions. 

"Dealerships don't actually make the bulk of their profit on new car sales margin. They make a large portion of their money from the new car finance and insurance department. Another very important department at the dealership is the service and parts department so you want to start creating a long-term relationship with a customer during the sales process by getting them comfortable with coming to the dealership for their maintenance service needs. 

"That first lease or purchased car can lead to many others. Some people lease a new car every two or three years. Even people who purchase a car are likely to come back within about five years to buy their next one."

Q: How do you help dealerships improve customer satisfaction?

"I do a lot of training around sales, product knowledge, and soft skills. In a dealership, soft skills are things like a proper greeting and doing through needs analysis so that the consumer is buying the right vehicle for their needs. I also work with the dealerships' owners and general managers to help them better understand how customer service can impact their bottom line.

"For example, one project I've been working on is identifying buyers who live near a Hyundai dealership, but purchase a vehicle at another Hyundai dealership that's farther away. I can share this data with a dealership's general manager to help him see how a poor customer experience might be costing the dealership sales.

"Another thing I do is share best practices. One thing I share with dealerships is how to create a wow moment when a customer comes in to pick up their new vehicle. The salesperson can put the vehicle on display in the showroom or put a big over-sized bow on it to make them really feel special when the customer comes in for their new vehicle. This can create a lasting impression that makes the customer feel great about their purchase. 

"Many of the best practices that I review with the dealer are common sense practical items that we experience every day. Some of the things I ask dealers to think about is their non-dealer experiences like how they get treated at their favorite restaurant or when they go shopping at a high end retailer. The customer experience they get is no different than the way that their customers expect to be treated when they buy or service their car at the dealership.

"I also learn a lot from the dealerships too. Hyundai might have a new program that seems great in theory, but it doesn't work for our dealers for some reason. I can share that feedback with our National office and help to make it better."

Q: What are some of the most important skills that a dealership's salespeople should have?

"Salespeople need to be able to ask the right questions to uncover customer needs. Asking a customer what color car they wanted can backfire if they ask for a specific color that's not available. A better approach is to ask if the customer is looking for a lighter or darker car. This might give the salesperson more options to share. 

"One of the biggest and most underrated skills in understanding what your customer vehicle needs are is to not say anything and listen carefully to what your customer is looking for and then ask appropriate open ended questions. 

"It's also helpful to be resourceful. The specific vehicle a customer wants might not be on the dealer's lot, but the dealership can often track it down for the customer.

"Customers visit just 1.4 dealerships on average before purchasing or leasing a vehicle, so it's important to create a positive relationship right away. That's where it helps for a salesperson to have the right attitude. You can teach someone with the right attitude how to sell cars."

Q: What's the biggest challenge you face in your role?

"I look young for my age, so sometimes these veteran sales managers and general managers see me and think, 'Why is this young lady trying to tell me how to sell cars?' Some of the really tough ones will ask, 'Have you ever sold a car before?'

"I tell them, 'No, I haven't. But I have a lot of customer information, and that information can help you get more customers to buy from your dealership.' That usually gets their attention. I also worked at our National office building training curriculum that was designed to help our dealers provide a better sales experience. 

"Employee turnover is a major challenge for some dealerships, so I try to share some best practices with sales managers. A dealership's sales manager is often someone who was a really good salesperson and got promoted. They might be good at selling cars, but they have not had proper training on how to train and motivate their sales teams."

Q: What have you learned from the automotive industry that you think could help people in other industries improve customer-focus?

"I was talking about this with a dealership's General Manager the other day. He was telling me about an experience he had buying a television where he spent a little more money at one store because he felt they treated him with dignity and respect.

"We discussed how this should be the way his customers felt too.

"It's a helpful exercise. Think about the last difficult experience you had as a customer. The customers who are walking in to do business with you could be you in another environment. You would never want to treat your customers the same way you were treated in that bad experience.

"A lot of dealerships are worried about negative online reviews, but if you treat someone with dignity and respect they won't give you negative reviews. We often see someone buy a car from another dealer but still recommend that dealership to a friend and say, 'They didn't have the vehicle I was looking for, but I think you should give them a try.' People tend to write those negative reviews when they feel disrespected."

How to Tell if Your Mission Has Lost Its Meaning

Raise your hand if your company has a mission statement.

Most companies have one. Yours probably does. Mine does. But have you ever wondered what purpose the mission actually serves?

You could go with the stock answer here. "The mission tells everyone why the company exists." Ok, let's test that. See if you can answer three questions about your company's mission statement:

1. What is it?

2. What does it mean?

3. How do you contribute?

Nobody's listening to that voice inside your head, so you can be honest. Did you struggle to come up with a quick answer to those three questions? If so, your mission isn't fulfilling it's purpose.

Now, go ask your employees the same three questions and see if you get consistent answers. If you get a lot of blank looks or wildly different responses, your mission has lost its meaning.

How the Mission Drives Service Quality

I'm taking some liberty with terminology here, so let me take a moment to clarify.

Elite organizations have created a shared definition of outstanding customer service that all employees understand. I call this a customer service vision.

This customer service vision can be a stand alone statement, but often it does double duty as a company's mission, vision, values, or customer service standards. Most, but not all, elite organizations use their mission statement to define outstanding service for their employees.

So a clear mission can give employees guidance in their daily activities. Here are just a few benefits:

• It provides a sense of purpose when they come to work.

• It acts as a compass to point in the right direction in moments of uncertainty.

• It reinforces what employees should be doing to serve customers.

For example, JetBlue has led J.D. Power's North American Airline rankings for 12 consecutive years. A lot of their success comes from using their mission statement, Inspire Humanity, as a shared definition of outstanding service.

Every JetBlue crewmember (i.e. employee) knows his or her job is to bring a human touch to service. In an age of self-service and automation, humanity is sorely needed.

JetBlue is one of the outstanding companies profiled in my new book, The Service Culture Handbook. It's due out in April, 2017, but you can download Chapter One when you sign-up for updates.

Why Employees Don't Know the Mission

There are three common reasons why employees don't know or understand the mission.

1. It's never mentioned. The mission is almost never openly discussed.

2. It's not trained. Employees receive no instruction on what it means or how to live it.

3. It's not a priority. Employees are overloaded with too many statements like a mission, vision, values, credo, slogan, brand promise, customer service standards, etc. that create confusion about what's important.

That last one really stands out. Employees won't know or understand the mission unless you make it a priority. That challenge here is many leaders fall into the multiple priorities trap.

The Know Your Mission Challenge

Back to those three questions.

You can restore your mission (or customer service vision) to relevance if you can provide the training and coaching necessary to help each employee give a consistent answer to these three questions:

1. What is it?

2. What does it mean?

3. How do I contribute?

Are you up to the challenge?

Lessons from The Overlook: Prioritization

Note: Lessons from The Overlook is a monthly update on lessons learned from owning a vacation rental property in the Southern California mountain town of Idyllwild. This experience is a hands-on opportunity to apply some of the techniques I advise my clients to use.

People misuse the word priority all the time.

It literally means one thing is more important than another, but business leaders often forget that. They'll say strange things to employees like "you need to juggle multiple priorities," which makes no sense given that nothing gets prioritized when you try to make everything a priority.

Sally and I knew we needed to prioritize our work on The Overlook when we bought it. We both have full-time jobs that involve a lot of travel, so time was already scarce.

I had envisioned myself exploring some of the many hikes in the area or building a website to showcase the cabin, but that would have to wait.

Our immediate challenge was we closed escrow on October 6 and needed to get the house back on the rental market by November 1. There were already guest reservations for November, which is peak rental season for Idyllwild.

Idyllwild's hiking trails would have to wait. Photo credit: Jeff Toister

Safety is Priority One

You never want anyone to get injured. You really never want anyone injured when they're a guest on your property.

The Overlook needed a few safety repairs that were called out in our home inspection. For example, the gap between the railing boards on our deck was too wide in places and we needed to add some additional wood to make it safe.

So a lot of our precious time in October was spent finding a licensed contractor to do the job and coordinating the work from our home two hours away in San Diego. 

Sally and I also had to consider our own safety. Many people get into business without thinking about the appropriate type of organization (sole proprietor, LLC, Corporation, etc.) or insurance. 

We spent a lot of time on both. 

Our attorney, Ric Bauman, is incredibly efficient and cost-effective, but it still takes time to organize documents, set up appointments, etc. I shudder to think how much time we'd waste if we didn't have someone like him on our side.

Insurance was even more difficult since we had the double-whammy disadvantage of buying a home in a wild fire hazard area and wanting to use it as a vacation rental. Surprisingly few highly rated companies write policies for these types of properties, but we managed to get a good deal through a Farmer's Insurance agent who understood our needs.

Function was Priority Two

Safety issues out of the way, we had to turn our attention to making the cabin functional for our guests.

There were a few things that needed attention. The internet, cable, and phone took untold hours and 23 contacts with Time Warner Cable to get up and running. 

We also needed to add some furniture to the master bedroom. (The previous owners had closed off this room to renters for some reason, so it was sparsely furnished.) Our property manager had scheduled time to take pictures to add to her website, so we ended up having just two days to get it done.

Living Spaces really saved us here after we spent half a day hitting up used furniture stores and consignment shops. They have a huge selection of reasonably-priced, high-quality furniture. We found a nice dresser and matching nightstands that could be delivered to our home the same day we bought them. This allowed us to haul them up to the cabin the next day.

There were a million other things for us to do too. We had to replace cracked dishes, get some electrical repairs done, and add in some additional items we know guests will appreciate like an iron and ironing board.

The Big Takeaway on Prioritization

October was a whirlwind, but we got the important things done.

I really wanted to spend time on fun things to help us offer an amazing guest experience, like mapping the guest journey, creating a kick-ass guidebook for the house, and turning the garage into a game room.

Those are all items that will get done eventually, but they didn't need to get done in time for the renters who had booked the place in November. Safety and functionality came first so our guests would have a nice place to stay.

This exercise was a big reminder on the importance of prioritization. There were times when Sally and I didn't know when we'd find the time. Whenever we felt this way, we went back to our priorities and set aside any task that wasn't red hot urgent.

You can apply this lesson too. 

Take a moment to clarify your priorities. These could come from your values, your business plan, or a separate exercise. Then use those priorities as a guide to help you manage your time.

Reflecting back on last October, I was reminded that the best customer service leaders embrace prioritization. They understand they can't do everything at once, so they do what needs to be done now and do it well, before moving on to something else.

The good news is The Overlook looks great and our guests have been thrilled so far. We even survived a heater that went kaput right before guests arrived on the coldest day of the year, but that's a story for next month.

How to Stop Automation From Stealing Your Job

The woman walked into Starbucks, glued to her phone.

She never said hello and wasn't greeted. Eyes fixed on her phone screen, she strode over to the counter where you pick up your drink and waited without saying a word. She continued staring at the phone until her drink appeared on the counter.

The woman grabbed her drink, turned around, and left without ever engaging with another human being.

You may have guessed she ordered her drink via the Starbucks app, a technology that allows customers to by-pass the cashier line. It may eventually eliminate cashier jobs.

Other positions may not be far behind. Computers, bots, artificial intelligence, and other forms of automation are threatening customer service jobs everywhere. 

But what about the barista who made the woman's beverage at Starbucks? That person was voluntarily giving up her job to automation because she never once brought something that was uniquely human to the service interaction.

That's the key to staving off the rise of automation — humanity.

The Rise of Self-Service

Look everywhere and you'll see machines doing customer service jobs that were once performed by humans.

Banks are replacing tellers with ATMs. Hotels are starting to offer mobile check-in options, a feature airlines have had for years. Contact centers operate automated phone menus, self-help websites, and use bots to respond to text messages.

The IBM Watson artificial intelligence platform is being tried out in multiple customer service roles, such as retail salesperson. Uber might soon offer a fully autonomous car service, right after Amazon cuts out delivery drivers and sends your order via automated drone.

Andy Puzder, the CEO of the CKE Restaurants, the parent company of the Carl's Jr. and Hardee's fast food chains, has openly talked about opening a fully automated restaurant in response to rising wages. Puzder is also Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Labor.

What Drives Automated Customer Service?

It's helpful to understand why businesses might want to automate your job. There are three pressures businesses face that drive this trend: speed, cost, and quality.

Speed is crucial because you can generally serve more customers faster in an automated environment. Do you remember waiting in line at a highway tollbooth? Now you can whiz past an array of sensors that automatically deduct the toll from your account.

Cost tends to decrease with automation. You have to pay customer service employees for every hour worked, and that cost is ever-increasing. In my hometown of San Diego, minimum wage just increased to $11.50 per hour and many businesses, such as restaurants, are struggling to absorb higher labor costs. You typically pay less for automation over time.

Quality is another concern. Automation leads to greater consistency since machines can repeat the same task over and over. There are also several studies that show customers spend more in fast food restaurants when they order via a kiosk, so machines may be outselling humans.

The Big Risk: Employees Who Act Like Robots

If automation will eventually win on speed, cost, and quality, the only area where humans can continue to excel is being human.

People like human-to-human interaction. When we talk about great customer service, we still inevitably talk about people. 

Perhaps it was someone who was extra kind or engaged us in some way. It could be a person who solved a persistent problem, or maybe it's just someone who has become a friend over years of service.

A lack of humanity is where many customer service employees routinely put their jobs at risk. 

When I go to the post office, I usually use the kiosk because it's faster than waiting in line. I'm always amused at the end of the transaction when the screen reads, "It's been a pleasure to serve you." Unfortunately, at my local post office, I'll likely to get just as robotic a thank you from a live person. Why wait longer to get the same level of interaction as the machine?

Supermarket cashiers are another example. Too many fail to engage their customers. Or they don't know what to say when they ask, "Did you find everything OK?" and the customer says, "No." We're all excited to see how the Amazon Go grocery store concept works out because the supermarket checkout adds no perceived value to the customer.

Contact centers are seeing an increase in complex phone calls, primarily because customers are handling simpler transactions on their own. This means phone agents need to be empathetic, problem-solving humans who engage customers and make them feel better. All too often, agents instead sound like monotone robots and who either lack the caring or capability to resolve an issue.

If you want to save your job, you need to bring humanity to service.

Five Ways to Bring Humanity to Customer Service

This isn't an exhaustive list, but these are five things you can do to make yourself indispensable to your customers and your boss.

Build Rapport: Customers like feeling special, and people can do that in a way that no robot can. Find ways to develop rapport with your customers like learning and using their names. You can search the Customer Service Tip of the Week archives for more rapport-building tips.

Listen Intently: We've probably all yelled "Live agent!" at a phone menu. The frustration comes because the machine isn't listening. You can transcend that by becoming a good listener. It's harder than you think. Our listening skills erode with experience. We also find ourselves robotically using stock phrases like, "How are you today?" which causes us to miss amazing opportunities.

Empathize: Machines don't express genuine empathy, but you can. Try to understand and acknowledge your customers' feelings, especially when they are annoyed or frustrated by a problem. You can find some good empathy tips using this guide.

Develop Expertise: Find ways to solve problems that automation can't. My local UPS driver once brought a package to my house that had the wrong address on it. He explained he knew it was mine because he recognized my last name and it was wine. He succeeded as a human because he understood his delivery route and his customers better than a machine.

Find Icebergs: Help your customers avoid getting stuck in an infinite loop by finding and fixing recurring problems, called icebergs. I recently had to contact Time Warner Cable 23 times to get new cable, phone, and internet service. It was a frustrating experience because everyone I encountered was so heavily scripted they couldn't see the root cause of the problem until I connected with Rich, a Tier 3 specialist who spent several days unraveling the mess that Time Warner's automated system had created.

Let's go back to the Starbucks example at the beginning of this post. It's inevitable that some customer service functions will become automated, like ordering via an app instead of a cashier. That doesn't mean that the people in the service chain should act like robots too.

It's up to us to create such a fantastic human-to-human experience that companies will recognize the irreplaceable value of having people involved with the process.

How Do You Smile When You Don't Feel Happy?

It's not easy to hide your feelings.

My friend Jenny Dempsey wrote a personal and poignant post about this on her blog. Her beloved dog, Miso, had died and she was finding it difficult to hide her grief at work. 

That's exactly what her job required her to do.

Jenny was a customer care manager at DMV.org. Her legendarily warm and bubbly customer service inspires songs from customers. That's what makes her so good at her job, where displaying warmth and friendliness towards customers is expected.

Suddenly, this was very difficult.

How do you bring a warm, bubbly personality to work when you don’t feel that way? As Jenny wrote, grief isn’t often welcome in customer service: “We’re expected to stuff those feelings down and get to work.”

Many customer service professionals do just that. They engage in surface acting, where they pretend to be happy and friendly even when they’re not.

This takes an incredible toll. Surface acting can cause poor customer service, decreased job satisfaction, and burnout. Here's what you need to know and what you can do about it.

What is surface acting?

Surface acting is a technique where you display an emotion that you don't actually feel. For example, here are some emotional displays typically required of customer service employees:

• Smiling

• Warm tone of voice

• Positive and open body language

Those are all easy to display when you actually feel happy.

Surface acting is when you don't feel happy but force yourself to smile anyway. This gets increasingly harder the bigger the gap between how you feel and the emotions you put on display.

Expending this kind of emotional labor is exhausting.

What is emotional labor?

Emotional labor is the effort required to engage in surface acting. The term emotional labor was first coined by Arlie Hochschild in her book, The Managed Heart.

Like any type of effort, exerting too much can be exhausting.

Think about a time when you were feeling ill at work. Perhaps you had a headache, congestion, or something else that made you feel miserable. Now, try to remember how hard it was to smile and act friendly with customers.

That effort is emotional labor.

Why aren’t customer service employees friendly?

A neighbor recently complained to me about poor customer service he experienced while dining with his niece in a restaurant. His server wasn't friendly and he and his niece came to the conclusion that the server should be fired.

My neighbor can be a bit surly, so I can only imagine what a gem he must have been as a restaurant guest. It's an incredible challenge to serve someone with a smile who regarded you with such disdain that they would callously suggest you should lose your job.

Unsympathetic, demanding customers are a big drain on emotional labor, especially when people like this test our natural fight or flight instinct. I have the luxury of politely ending the conversation with my neighbor when he gets too grumpy. A restaurant server must stick with it and act happy.

Customer service employees face other challenges, too.

You might be grieving, like my friend Jenny, or just be having a bad day. Perhaps you dislike your coworkers, your boss, or even your customers. You might be tired of defending a defective product or a dumb policy.

Many customer service professionals don’t get paid enough. While intellectual and physical skills are highly valued, studies show you don't make a lot of money just for being good at taking crap from other people. 

Unpredictable schedules can also make outside of work difficult.

This incredible New York Times article (subscription required) profiled a young single mother who tried to balance school and child care while dealing with a work schedule that could change from week-to-week or even day to day. 

It's no surprise that retailers came under investigation by several states for requiring employees to be on-call for work without getting paid.

How does emotional labor affect service?

There are many ways that emotional labor impact service. 

The obvious one is employees simply get tired. Expending too much emotional labor is one of the biggest reasons why customer service employee struggle to be friendly. 

Researcher Alicia Grandey at Penn State University discovered a strong link between surface acting and low job satisfaction. She also found a clear link to emotional exhaustion.

This may explain why my own study found that 74 percent of contact center agents are at risk of burnout. 

The tangible impact of all of these problems is lower customer satisfaction, lower employee engagement, and higher turnover. 

What Can You Do About It?

On a personal level, it's up to each employee to find his or her own happiness. One exercise you can try is called the Attitude Anchor.

For customer service managers, the solution isn't another incentive program or some other short-term fix. It's also not an annual employee engagement survey, which is usually a waste of time. Your challenge is to create a work environment where employees can actually be happy.

You need a plan. Try creating your own road map by using this simple assessment or let me help you with a comprehensive, full-service version.

Above all, give your employees something to smile about.

Why Your Team Needs Customer Service Refresher Training

Quite frankly, I used to think annual refresher training was worthless.

Conducting these workshops was part of my job years ago when I was the Director of Training for Ace Parking, a parking management company. The training was a requirement written into the management contract for many of our locations.

My first impression was the training was done just to make our clients feel good. (In parking, the clients are the companies that actually own the parking facilities such as hotels, office buildings, stadiums, airports, and stand-alone parking garages and hire a management company like Ace.)

After all, what good could a once annual training do?

I quickly noticed something important. The parking managers who readily scheduled the training with me had higher customer service levels than the few managers who didn't do the annual refresher.

Was it because of the training? 

The real answer was it was because of the training and everything else those managers did throughout the year to elevate service at their locations. The annual refresher was part of a larger system.

Here's why you really need annual refresher training for your team, when you should do it, and how you can get it done.

Why You Need Refresher Training

Let's start with a quick definition. Annual refresher training typically has these qualities:

• Short duration (my typical program is two hours)

• Focus on fundamental customer service skills

• May introduce a new concept or two

So why should your employees attend? Three reasons:

First, it helps your team re-focus on the basics. It's easy to get caught up in day-to-day work. People might even develop some bad habits. Refresher training gets everyone back on the same page.

Second, it sets the stage for the year or season ahead. This is a perfect time to introduce a new customer service initiative. You can also help employees make a connection between customer service and your strategic plan.

Third, it's fun. Good refresher training should be something employees look forward to. I've had many managers position this training as recognition for employees. (It should never be seen as a punishment for poor service.)

Back to my experience at Ace Parking. I quickly learned that managers whose employees were great at service were eager to schedule refresher training for all of these reasons. 

They also saw the training as an integral part of everything they did to support a service culture on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis. That was the real secret -- the refresher training was just one piece of the whole puzzle.

When To Conduct Refresher Training

There are a few considerations for scheduling annual refresher training.

• Event-based: Schedule it right before a busy season or a major new initiatives.

• Volume-based: Schedule the training for a slow period in your normal business cycle.

• Plan-based: Scheduled at the start of your fiscal year to coincide with a new annual plan.

From a practical standpoint, you may need to juggle some schedules to make sure that work gets done while employees are attending training. Many of my clients schedule multiple sessions so they can maintain operational coverage.

How to Conduct Refresher Training

Start with a theme. What is the one thing you want the team to focus on for the next year? Whatever it is, make sure it's connected to your customer service vision.

Next, identify a source for the training. There are options available for all budgets.

If your company has the resources, consider bringing in a professional speaker. This can really charge up the team and show everyone you care deeply about service.

For more limited budgets, you can use training videos like my courses on lynda.com. You may have a lynda.com account already, which means there's no cost to use these videos. If you don't have an account, you can get a 10-day trial just in time for your training.

There are even good options for teams with no training budget at all.

• Use this free workbook: 10 Training Activities to Supercharge Your Team.

• Build your own program using learning objectives and this technique

• Use the event to write or re-rewrite your customer service vision 

You can also get more low and no-cost training ideas from Halelly Azulay's fabulous book, Employee Development on a Shoestring.

Finally, don't forget to prepare your team for training. Here's a handy planner to help make sure everything is ready to go.

New Year's Plans: Forget New Until You've Mastered Old

You've got big customer service plans for next year.

Maybe it's new technology or adding a new service channel. Perhaps you're contemplating a new strategy or an employee engagement program. 

Forget it.

There's one thing you need to do before you start thinking about all that new stuff. You need to master what you're already doing.

Photo credit: Matthias Buehler

The New Year Trap

There's a lake near my home with a two-lane running and biking path around it. January always brings a large spike in walkers, runners, and bicyclists.

Most will be gone by February. These people made New Year's resolutions to get fit. Unfortunately, history and science tell us that most resolutions fail.

Business initiatives are the same way.

January is the start of the fiscal year for many companies. New investments are approved. Initiatives get started. There are many more project kick-off meetings in January than there are in December.

Like the surge of well-intentioned people at the lake near my home, history and science tell us most of these will stall out at some point in the year.

The Importance of Mastery

Let's say you want to add live chat to the mix of customer service channels you support in 2017. Your company already supports customers via phone, email, and self-service.

Before you implement a new channel, ask yourself this question first: Have you mastered the channels you support now?

You can transfer best practices and lessons learned to your new live chat channel if you're already delighting customers via phone, email, and self-service.

On the other hand, your failures will get multiplied if you're struggling with any of these channels now and you add a new one to the mix. Frustrated customers will become even more frustrated. Chaos will reign supreme.

(Side note: here are three questions to ask before adding a new service channel.)

The concept of mastery applies to any new initiative. There's no sense in adding a new idea, feature, concept, or plan to the mix if you haven't mastered what you're doing now.

It will only add confusion and complication. It will amplify frustration. And it will suck resources away from fixing what needs to be fixed.

An Alternative to New Year's Resolutions

Forget wiping the slate clean. Try incremental progress in 2017. 

One technique I've found helpful is to create what's called an Operational Direction Statement or ODS. Think of it like a theme that will guide your year.

My ODS for 2016 was "Content."

I had already been building my business to focus more on content like my customer service book, training videos, and free-lance writing.

The "Content" theme was about staying on the same trajectory, but doing even more and (hopefully) doing it in even better. So in 2016 I wrote a second customer service book (due out April 2017), created five new training videos on lynda.com, created some original research, and picked-up a few free-lance writing gigs. 

Better yet, I found ways to use content to serve my clients in new ways.

One longtime client saved money by using training videos like my Innovative Customer Service Techniques course for annual refresher training instead of flying me in. My new course, Customer Service Over the Phone, targeted contact centers who desperately needed affordable training. I added new tips to my Customer Service Tip of the Week email to offer fresh content to many who've subscribed for years. And my blog subscribers were rewarded with an exclusive workbook, 10 Customer Service Activities to Supercharge Your Team.

All of this centered around the Content theme. Looking back on 2016, it was a great choice. So great that "Content" is my theme for 2017 too.

You can do the same for your operation. Focus 2017 on mastering what you're already doing and grow incrementally.