WHO IS THE CUSTOMER, ANYWAY?

In the airline industry, many people get frustrated when traveling. Even when the weather is to blame, and passengers take out their frustrations on the frontline agents. While customer service should be #1 on their list, these agents have tolerated increased stress from attrition in the industry and difficulty in receiving operational support. Such circumstances make for a turbulent experience.

For the last several years, I worked with a major global airline managing a program around the customer experience for their passenger services teams in North America. The customer centric initiative was based on several specific behaviors and was inspired by collective practices found in the hotel industry where “true hospitality” is enhancing the customer interaction from a service to a positive unforgettable moment.

Several years ago, I also became an EQ practitioner and professional coach. EQ means “emotional intelligence.” Companies have come to the realization that a person’s EQ is just as important, if not more so, than one’s IQ.

So… why mention this?

The objective I had with customer service teams was, through the demonstration and training in emotional intelligence and empathy, for people to work in tune with each other – in tune with each other’s thoughts (what to do) and their emotions (why to do it).

The goal? To strengthen staff’s abilities to demonstrate passion, commitment, and deeper concern for customers and their colleagues while also building relationships with them where they feel recognized, relaxed, and delighted following the interaction.

Who is the customer, anyway? Notice the inclusion of “their colleagues” in the focus of building relationships. Simon Sinek says, “Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.” In any customer service training or professional development, it is crucial to address one’s “internal customer” as well as the external customer. Not additionally, but literally, as well. The employee experience should mirror that of the customer experience.

In previous years, I have interfaced heavily with the customer service and hospitality industry, from working with corporate businesses to entertainers to hotels, venues, and event production professionals. A mindset strongly held or the mantra often repeated by many has been that “customer service is an attitude.”

To that end, emotional intelligence is self-awareness and empathic understanding. Through self-mastery, individuals can create attuned relationships and drive their emotions in the right direction. By including EQ in customer service training, the ambition is to provide support and enrichment for everyone.

Every individual will be able to cultivate skills and practices that make their stressful roles easier by becoming more self-aware of what their emotions are, improving their social skills, and detecting more of what motivates them. Customer service becomes innate, because it is based on what truly drives them as individuals and as customers themselves.

In defining what makes a customer experience a good one or a bad one, based on their own experiences and feelings, this helps the customer service professional to better relate to a customer who may be experiencing stress or is not receiving the kind of response that they need. If they were in the same position, what would they need at that time? This realization will steer their response to the customer.

However, this is not to be confused with the golden rule expectation of “do unto others as you want done unto you.” What you expect and what you need can manifest quite differently, and it cannot be absent of empathy. Customers expect quick answers and being addressed promptly with sensitivity to their feelings. However, an expected quick answer can be a policy rattled off by a frontline employee, which can be insensitive and that does not address the actual problem the customer needs resolved.

During and post-pandemic, operational challenges have been heightened by a more intense focus on quality of life and the human side of things. This is not just in customer demands for further attention, but also in retention issues with employees.

The customer journey and the employee journey run side by side. Companies who help their staff to be selfaware and assist them in mastering interpersonal relationships and their stress tolerance have recognized their frontline service professionals as internal customers.

This approach helps them to enjoy self-satisfaction acting in their roles resulting in interactions that lead to the same end - delight for their customers.

Stacy James, CX/EX Coaching Specialist: www.coachstacyjames.com

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