Increase productivity with this one counterintuitive trick

It started as a typical, busy Wednesday. Then a miracle happened.

A half-day event got cancelled. Another meeting was rescheduled for a different day. My calendar was suddenly wide-open.

It was tempting to fill that found time with more work. I took my dog to the beach instead.

We had a lot of fun. I was present, and didn't look at my phone, except to take a picture of my dog, Dublin, enjoying herself.

I came back refreshed. Smiling. Happy. Helpful insights jumped into my brain while I wasn't even thinking about them.

It took just a couple of hours. When I returned, Dublin was worn out and spent the afternoon napping. I was recharged and was amazingly productive for the rest of the day.

Taking time off in the middle of the day really works. Even shorter breaks can work wonders. It's something I've known about for years, and should do more often. It's a struggle.

Here's why we need breaks, how breaks work, and why it's so difficult to take them.

How fatigue affects customer service

Fatigue makes customer service difficult. Tired employees find it hard to build rapport with a customer. Listening skills become degraded. Exhausted employees struggle to focus.

All that makes it hard to solve customer problems and retain their business, which is the primary job of most customer service teams.

One customer support team measured the impact of fatigue through its customer effort scores. This is a type of survey that measures of how easy it is for customers to get their help they need. Survey scores were eight percent lower in the afternoons, when employees were tired.

Customer service employees frequently experience three types of fatigue.

1. Empathy fatigue, or compassion fatigue, occurs when employees reach a state of physical and mental exhaustion from caring for others. They slowly stop caring as a result.

2. Emotional labor is a close relative to empathy fatigue. It represents the difference between the emotions you outwardly display and how you really feel. Like other types of labor, you get tired the more you exert and find it difficult to display positive emotions like friendliness and warmth.

3. Directed attention fatigue comes from constantly focusing your attention and blocking out distractions, which is common in customer service environments. This type of fatigue makes it really difficult to focus and can lead to irritability.

When combined, employees find it difficult to care, pretend to care, or focus. That's a bad combination for service.

How breaks improve productivity

Breaks can help employees recover from the various types of fatigue that slow them down. It restores their ability to concentrate, display positive emotions, and make good decisions.

Data released in 2018 by DeskTime, a company that makes productivity tracking software, revealed a counterintuitive strategy used by the most productive employees. People who got the most done worked for an average of 52 fully-focused minutes, followed by a 17-minute break.

Two big things stand out.

First, fully-focused means just that. Productive employees were able to block out distractions and concentrate on their work without being constantly interrupted.

Second, breaks were real breaks, not checking email, Slack, social media, etc. Productive employees took a walk, got a cup of coffee, or socialized with coworkers.

These breaks allowed employees' brains to rest so they could quickly go back to fully-focused work.

While this 52 minutes on, 17 minutes off format might not be realistic for many customer service teams, there are still some lessons we can apply.

  • Alternate fully-focused time with less intensive tasks.

  • Block out distractions as much as possible during focused time.

  • Give employees a place to fully decompress on breaks, such as a quiet room.

Why it’s so hard to take good breaks

Employees struggle to take good breaks for a lot of reasons. Some bosses don't provide adequate time, but a lot of employees' break challenges are surprisingly self-imposed.

I once worked two blocks from San Diego's Balboa Park. If you've never been, it's a large, beautiful park that's home to many museums and the San Diego Zoo. There are acres of grass and miles of trails.

At first, I had dreams of taking my lunch to the park. Perhaps I'd have a picnic or stroll to the Zoo, where I had a membership. I had control over my work and schedule, so this should have been easy.

In reality, I went to the park only a handful of times in four years.

The reasons were all self-imposed. I often felt the urge to power through an important project. My work was interesting, so I often got distracted. I failed to block off adequate time on my schedule. There was also unspoken social pressure from coworkers who rarely took breaks themselves.

Many employees experience the same struggles.

  • Telling themselves they can't take a break. (Even if they can.)

  • Immediately checking their phones on break instead of relaxing.

  • Taking breaks at their desk instead of going outside.

It's not easy.

I started my own business in 2005. My work schedule is up to me, yet I still struggle to make sure I'm taking good breaks.

Conclusion

Breaks are an essential, but overlooked part of keeping employees ready to serve. Customer service leaders should set a positive example by taking breaks themselves and encouraging employees to do the same.

The pay-off is a team of well-rested employees who are more productive, create stronger connections with customers, and can ultimately retain more business.

How to get back-of-house employees to be customer-focused

Before the pandemic began, I had just started volunteering to do trail maintenance at Mission Trails Regional Park in San Diego. (The pandemic has shut that down for now.)

Mission Trails is a large, open-space park with miles of hiking and mountain biking trails. Trail maintenance volunteers clear brush, control erosion, and otherwise make trails safer and more enjoyable to use.

I'll never meet most of the people who hike on the trails I helped maintain, but I met a few while I was working. People inevitably said "hello" or "thank you" as they passed by. 

Those interactions helped me feel the impact of my efforts.

They also revealed a way to get back-of-house (BOH) employees to be more customer-focused. Here's how to do it.

View of downtown San Diego from Kwaay Paay peak in Mission Trails Regional Park.

View of downtown San Diego from Kwaay Paay peak in Mission Trails Regional Park.

Who is a back-of-house employee?

BOH employees typically work behind the scenes to serve customers, but don't often have direct customer contact. The term is often used for certain positions in restaurants, hotels, and other hospitality industries:

  • Hotel housekeepers

  • Restaurant cooks

  • Dishwashers

E-commerce has its own group of BOH employees, even though that term isn't typically used for these workers:

  • Order pickers

  • Order packers

  • Delivery drivers

In the airline industry, employees who handle baggage, fuel planes, and cater flights are known as "below wing."

Here are a few other terms used for BOH employees in different industries:

  • Administrative employees

  • Support staff

  • Internal partners

Why BOH employees need customer contact

BOH employees impact the customer experience even though direct customer contact is rare. For instance, you'll notice if you order something online and receive the wrong item. Someone you’ll never meet made that error.

Several studies show business results improve when employees who don't traditionally have direct customer contact can see, meet, or learn about the people they serve.

Researchers at the University of Michigan found that fundraisers increased alumni donations by 171 percent after they met with a scholarship recipient. The fundraisers learned that the student's scholarship was made possible by the alumni donations they were soliciting.

Another study found that diner’s satisfaction with their food improved by an average of 10 percent when cooks could see diners from the kitchen via a one-way video feed. Satisfaction with the food went up 17.3 percent when diners and cooks could see each other.

BOH employees can easily dehumanize their customers if they never see them. Putting them into contact helps them better understand the impact of their work, just like the hikers I met while clearing brush on the trail.

How to connect BOH employees with customers

There are a number of ways to give BOH employees more customer contact. It typically takes just a pinch of intentionality.

Customer service software provider, Help Scout, runs a program called Whole Company Support where employees outside the support team spend time responding to customer emails. I interviewed Help Scout's Katie Thompson who gave me the low-down on how the program runs.

A medical device manufacturer I worked with had posters of patients hung throughout its offices. Employees would also get to meet patients who visited as part of regular public relations tours.

I profiled Clio, a company that makes legal practice management software, in The Service Culture Handbook. Clio ran a program where everyone in the company interviewed a customer to learn more about them and their needs.

You don't need a formal program to help BOH employees meet customers. Just make it part of their job responsibilities to occasionally meet the people they serve.

Here are a few examples I've seen:

  • Hotel housekeepers greet guests they see in the hallway.

  • Restaurant cooks bring food to guests when it’s slow.

  • Airline baggage handlers greet passengers who check luggage at the gate.

The important thing is giving employees the opportunity to understand the true impact of the work they do.

Take action

It's easy to help BOH employees become more customer-focused.

  1. Make a list of BOH employees you work with.

  2. Determine ways to give them direct customer contact.

That's it! Try running a pilot program to see what changes you can achieve. I'll be curious to know how it goes, so please drop me a line to share your story.

How to rapidly improve your service culture

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Tell me if this sounds familiar.

The CEO announces a service culture initiative. Anxious to comply with the CEO's mandate, the executive team launches into a flurry of activity. Committees, surveys, and more committees produce slogans, banners, and more committees.

A year later, nothing substantial has been accomplished.

The CEO loses interest and announces a customer experience initiative. Never mind that nobody quite knows where service culture ends and customer experience begins.

It ends badly. Your organization can't be customer-focused if your leaders can't focus.

Not every organization is this way.

A few leaders broke the cycle and did it right. They got results and sustained them. The organization, or at least their individual team, became intensely customer-focused in a short time.

Their secret to moving fast is both obvious and counterintuitive.

A business leader facilitates a team discussion in a conference room.

How rushing hurts customer-focus

My neighbor was in a hurry to get to work one day. It was trash day, and his trash bins were lined up in front of his driveway. The trash truck was at the house next door, leaving just a narrow window for my neighbor to back his car out.

He raced to slip through the narrow space and promptly knocked over one of his bins.

Now he had to stop.

Get out of the car.

Right his trash bin for the approaching trash truck.

Wait as the trash truck blocked his driveway while it emptied his bins.

He could have saved time if he had just backed out of his driveway a little slower to avoid knocking over his bins.

Executives struggle with the same challenge. They’re impatient and don’t take time to set a clear direction or carefully chart a course to get there. Employees get confused and aren’t sure what to do.

There’s a rush of activity, but nothing gets done.

How going slow improves speed

The desert canyon had no clear path. There were several enticing side canyons, and I came to a fork several times. It would be easy to take the wrong turn and get lost.

I was in the wilderness with no cell reception, so getting lost would be bad.

Going slow kept me safe. I stopped each time I was unsure of the right direction. I checked my map, my compass, and the vague trail description I was following. Only when I was sure of the right direction did I begin to move forward again.

View of a remote desert canyon.

Each pause took extra time, but it saved a lot more because I stayed on course.

The executives who build fanatical, customer-focused cultures are methodical about staying on the trail, just like I was that day in the desert.

That's not to be confused with plodding. They still move fast. But these leaders maintain a laser focus on carefully doing what's most important while eliminating unnecessary activity.

One company I worked with, Clio, rapidly grew its service culture with a methodical approach. Their customer-focused culture is profiled in The Service Culture Handbook.

In 2014, I worked with Clio's then director of support, Catherine Hillier, to complete a customer service assessment. The assessment identified specific steps for continued culture growth. 

Rather than attempt to boil the ocean, Clio focused on completing one step at a time.

Some progress came quickly. For example, customer satisfaction jumped from 85 to 93 percent in two months, while increasing customer satisfaction survey responses by 600 percent. (Read more here.)

Other accomplishments came over time.

What hasn't changed over the years is Clio continues its relentless customer-focus.


Take Action

The biggest step towards becoming customer-focused is to provide clear direction. You can't be focused if you don't know where you're going. Likewise, it’s far easier to chart a clear course if you have a destination in mind.

This is true for organizations, teams, or individual contributors.

If you're a business leader, start by creating a customer experience vision for your organization or the team you lead. You can use this step-by-step guide.

If you're an individual contributor, you can create your personal customer service vision by taking the Thank You Letter Challenge. It's a short, three-week exercise that can rapidly improve your customer service results.

You'll find more steps and answers in The Service Culture Handbook.

And if you get stuck along the way, you can always contact me for assistance. I'm happy to be your guide as you develop a customer-focused culture.

How to make your vision focus on customers

The Service Culture Handbook helped popularize the concept of a customer service or customer experience vision.

A customer service vision is a shared definition of outstanding customer service that gets everyone on the same page. You can read more about that definition here.

One of the most common challenges when writing a vision is the final statement is too generic. Even worse, it doesn't focus on customers. Here are a few examples:

  • "We build trust with our customers through caring and prompt service."

  • "Fast, reliable, and knowledgeable customer service."

  • "World's best customer service team."

Notice these examples use generic words, such as "prompt," "fast," and "world's best." What they don't do is focus on the results they are trying to achieve for the customer or how the customer benefits.

Many leaders whose teams write these statements know something isn't quite right, but they can't put their finger on it. This post will clarify what went wrong, and help you avoid making the same mistakes.

A group of colleagues putting their hands together to signal commitment and focus.

How to write a customer service vision statement

It's helpful to see an overview of the vision writing process before diving into what can go wrong. I won't go into too much detail in this post, so here are some links if you want to learn more:

There are three key steps in the process:

  1. Survey all employees to get their input

  2. Gather a cross-functional group of 7-10 people to write the statement

  3. Check the statement with key stakeholders

I frequently see a problem at each stage in this process that can cause a vision statement to lack customer-focus. Let's explore each one in detail, and I'll explain how to solve each one.

service culture 3d_LI.jpg

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Mistake #1: Misinterpreting the survey results

The first step when writing a customer service vision statement is to survey all employees who will be covered by the statement. This could be a group of 10, 100, or even thousands of people.

The survey gives everyone a chance to provide some input that will later be used to guide the work of the small team writing the vision. Participants are asked to respond to one question:

“What do you want our customers to think of when they think of the service we provide?”

The survey answers are freeform. Responses can be used to generate a word cloud, which visually depicts which words are used most often.

A challenge occurs when the survey results are misinterpreted.

Here's an example from a team called the Clean Vehicle Rebate Project (CVRP). They were part of a larger nonprofit, but this particular team helped customers who purchased hybrid or "green" vehicles get rebates from the state that were designed to incentivize consumers to buy these types of vehicles.

The word cloud represents the responses from our employee survey:

Word cloud representing the output from an internal customer service vision survey.

You can see many generic words right there in bold, such as "friendly," "like," and "helpful." Vision writing teams are often tempted to put these words directly into the vision statement, so it might turn out like this:

We provide friendly and helpful service that customers like.

Yikes! That's a pretty generic statement that's uninspiring and definitely not focused on customers. It seems to be focused on getting customers to like the team, which should be a by-product of doing a great job.

The solution to this challenge is to go one level deeper. Go past the generic words that are large and bold and look at some of the secondary words that come out in the survey.

In this case, look at the words under the large "customers" on the left side of the word cloud. Here are a few that stand out:

  • Easy

  • Process

  • Resolve

  • Contact

  • Rebate

These words are more focused on what the team actually does—helping hybrid vehicle buyers get rebates. Now we have some additional insight to share in the vision writing meeting.

Mistake #2: Avoiding the good vision criteria

A good customer service vision statement should meet three tests. During the vision writing meeting, it's essential for the facilitator to use these tests to guide the group's work.

The three criteria for a good vision statement are:

  1. It's simple and easily understood.

  2. It's focused on customers.

  3. It reflects both who you are now, and who you aspire to be in the future.

These criteria should be a failsafe against writing generic statements. For instance, let's imagine we completely whiffed on interpreting the CVRP's word cloud and came up with this generic first draft:

We provide friendly and helpful service that customers like.

Now let’s apply the three criteria to evaluate this draft:

#1 Is it simple and easily understood? No, the statement is overly generic. People who worked for this organization cared deeply about the environment. They saw the green vehicle rebate program as a way to get more people onboard with environmental issues, but the statement above doesn’t capture this.

#2 Is it focused on customers? Not really. The CVRP team truly wanted to get more customers driving "green" vehicles and knew the rebate program they supported was a way to do that.

#3 Does it reflect who we are now and our aspirations for the future? No, it does not. I like to ask teams to imagine the results they're achieving for their customers on a good day, when everything is going well. The vision statement should focus on doing more of that. A good day for the CVRP team would be getting more customers to invest in “green” vehicles.

It can sometimes required a skilled facilitator to bring out these issues in a vision writing meeting. This can be a compelling reason to hire an external professional.

Mistake #3: Ignoring your gut instinct

Customer service leaders often tell me they aren't happy with these generic vision statements that don't focus on customers. They getting a nagging feeling that something's not right.

The final mistake is ignoring that feeling and rolling out the vision anyway.

Part of the vision writing process is a final gut check. The idea is to share the finished statement with key stakeholders who did not help write it. These stakeholders can include executives, middle managers, and influential frontline employees.

A good vision statement will elicit an overwhelmingly positive reaction.

There are times when a draft statement doesn't get that reaction. Some organizational cultures discourage open criticism, but you can still tell there's a problem when people aren't effusive in their praise.

"It's okay," really means it's not okay.

As a facilitator, I like to ask probing questions to get to the heart of that feeling.

One group I worked with was a group of maintenance professionals who created a vision statement that read "We help you get it fixed."

The gut check didn't go so well. There was something about the statement that didn't sit well with stakeholders.

I asked them to share more about their reaction. Was it a particular word, for example?

It took a few questions to get to the heart of the issue, but finally someone spotted it. The word "you" in "We help you get it fixed" felt to employees as if they were putting too much responsibility on the customer.

The solution was taking out the word "you" so the statement became "We help get it fixed." The team loved it.

Don't be afraid to lean in if you write a vision statement that stakeholders don't love. Ask them to help pinpoint what they don't love about it and why. In my experience, it's usually just a word or two that needs changing.

Additional Resources

The CVRP team ultimately came up with a customer service vision statement that met all three criteria and everyone was passionate about.

Make it easy to join the clean vehicle movement.

They recognized that their customers might not be as passionate as they were, so the only way to get the masses to invest in clean vehicles was if the process was easy. So they re-focused their efforts on removing friction.

You can write a brilliant customer service vision statement, too. Here are a few resources to help.

You can also hear me describe the process in this short video. (You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription to view the entire course.)

Seven Simple Ways to Improve Your Customer Focus

Advertising disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Coins can be a mini customer service hassle.

Think about the last time you bought something with cash and needed to collect change. There's an awkward exchange as the cashier hands you the bills and then dumps the coins on top of it. It's tricky to hang on to everything.

A drive thru line is the worst place for this to happen. I've sometimes found myself too close to the wall of the building to open my car door and retrieve the lost change. There's an awkward dance that follows as you pull forward while gesturing to the driver behind you to stay put for a moment so you can collect your missing 17 cents.

There's a way to avoid this.

The cashier can put the coins in your palm first and then place the bills on top. It's much easier to control the coins that way.

That's just one example of a simple way to focus your service on your customer. Here are six more you can easily implement.

A cashier counting change out of a cash till.

Make the Effort to Follow-up

Some customer service situations require a follow-up contact. The big question is who should take responsibility?

Let's say a customer calls to check the status of an item she ordered. The customer service rep verifies the order is in production and is scheduled to ship the following day for a Friday delivery.

A transactional customer service rep might say, "Give me a call if it doesn't arrive by Friday and I'll track it down for you."

A customer-focused rep might say, "I'll monitor the status of your order and follow-up with you on Friday to make sure it arrived in good condition."

 

Use Clear Language

It's easy to fall into the trap of using unclear language. 

Imagine a customer is anxious to get a billing problem resolved. You want to keep him happy, so you tell him, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it right away!"

The problem with this word choice is "right away" might mean within one day to you, while the customer interprets "right away" as within the hour.

A more customer-focused is to use clear language to describe exactly when the error should be corrected. "You should see the correct amount on your account by 5pm tomorrow."

 

Do the Time Zone Math

Serving customers across multiple time zones can be tricky. 

For instance, if you're in Phoenix, should you say good morning when it's 9:30am your time but your customer is calling from Atlanta? (Trick question, it depends on the time of year since Phoenix does not participate in daylight savings time.)

Many of us become adept at time zone conversions after awhile. We can make things easier for our customers by working out the math so they don't have to. So if I'm in Phoenix and my customer is in Atlanta, I can tell her I'll call her at 11:30am her time without her having to worry what time that is where I am.

 

Anticipate Hidden Needs

My wife and I checked into a small inn not long ago and were about to head out to dinner. The front desk associate had recommended a restaurant just a few blocks away, so we decided to walk.

She handed us a pair of flashlights as we were about to leave. "Use these while you are walking," she said. "The road is dark and there is no sidewalk, so the flashlights will make it easier for cars to see you. You can never be too careful!"

That small act of kindness not only kept us safe, it made us feel as though the associate genuinely cared. 

You can create a similar feeling for your customers by anticipating needs your customers aren't yet aware of. Use your knowledge and experience to be on the lookout for opportunities to share proactive service.

 

Use the Pre-Emptive Acknowledgement

You can often defuse a customer's anger by acknowledging their frustration before they reach a boiling point.

It's probably happened to you. Let's say you go out to eat on a busy Friday night. You place your order and enjoy a nice conversation with friends or family. After awhile, you start feeling hungry and notice it's taken a long time for your food to arrive.

Just then, your serve arrives at your table, apologizes for the delay, assures you that your order is coming right out, and offers to refill your drinks.

That's the pre-emptive acknowledgement. You might have grown much more frustrated if your server had disappeared completely until your food arrived. But by showing up at your table to apologize for the wait, it becomes a non-event.

Look for opportunities to do the same thing for your customers. The trick is you have to spot situations where a customer is likely to get angry before their anger comes on too strong!

Here’s a more in-depth explanation:

 

Take the Thank You Letter Challenge

This one is the ultimate customer focus exercise.

Start by writing a thank you letter to yourself that you would hope to receive from a customer. The letter should describe how you helped the customer in some way.

Next, read the letter each day for 21 days and try to receive that same feedback from a real customer. I've created this daily email reminder to help you with this challenge.

 

Take Action!

Customer-focus is a powerful skill.

It helps you better understand your customers, which in turn makes it easier to meet and often exceed their expectations. I encourage you to try at least one of these exercises right now and see how they can make a difference!

Here are some additional resources to help you: