Customer Service Reader

Customer Service and the Pursuit of Happiness

Does happiness at work matter? Most of your life is spent going to work, being at work, going from work, thinking about work, and talking about work after work. If you work in customer service, and are not happy with your job, you have the wrong job. You should find the calling that makes you happy. When you are happy at work, you’ll never have to work another day.

Most people don’t expect to find happiness, working a customer service job. But customer service, by its very nature, presents unique opportunities for the pursuit of happiness, not only for individuals, but for society as a whole.

Researchers in the field of Subjective Well-being (happiness) have found that there are certain characteristics that happy people have in common. Happy people:

• Have self-control
• Are grateful
• Have good social relationships, supportive friends and family
• Have an adequate income
• Have respectable jobs, and
• Have a philosophy that provides meaning to their lives.

Using this framework, can we, as providers, find happiness through customer service?

Self-control

The consistent practice of outstanding customer service behaviors requires an extraordinary amount of self-control. It starts with the realization that YOU are in control.

• You choose your attitude
• You choose your response
• You choose to set aside your personal problems
• You choose to give others a better day

When we take control, we refuse to be victims of circumstance, or of our own personal weaknesses. We take charge of our lives and of the situations that we face. This is a principal requirement of a life in service and, as it turns out, a principal requirement for a happy life.

Gratitude

"Thank you" is perhaps that the second most important customer service phrase. We use it (or ought to use it) dozens of times a day (thank you for calling, thank you for bringing that to my attention, thank-you-come-again). When we use these phrases authentically - i.e. when we mean what we say - we develop a habit of thankfulness. In Akumal III, Dr Bob Emmons reported research which showed that "people high in gratitude are more satisfied with life, have more vitality, more happiness, more optimism, hope, positive affect, lower psychological symptoms, more prosocial behaviors, and are higher on empathy".

Good social relationships

When you consistently practice customer service values and skills, such as kindness, listening, empathy, gratitude, responsibility, and persuasion, you develop habits that will stay with you for the rest of your life, and that can be applied to all other aspects of your life. You'll be able to make friends more easily, and will be better skilled at strengthening your relationships with your friends and family. They in turn will tend to reciprocate. People who are happy have strong relationships with friends and family. This is both a characteristic of happy people, and a consequence of their behavior.

Adequate income

There is a premium in the labor market for outstanding customer service providers. More important, we have the opportunity to constantly increase both our short-term and long-term income by applying our customer service skills. As Henry Ford once said, one who is “absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.”

Respectable jobs

This has two components. There’s the respect that you get for how you do your job, and there’s the respect you get for having that job. It’s not easy to provide outstanding customer service to every customer, on every transaction, every minute of the day. If you can do that, that’s something you can truly be proud of, and it’s certainly deserving of respect. Chances are you already stand out, and are duly rewarded.

The second component, respect for the job itself, depends less on the individual, and more on the team as a whole. When everyone in your organization or location provides outstanding service, people tend to talk about you, and you're likely to be known and respected for the service that you provide. It's a source of pride just to be part of such a team. The hard part is that it does depend on everyone. All it takes is one bad player to ruin the whole game.

A philosophy that provides meaning to their lives

The principles at the root of outstanding customer service are simple enough to say:

• Our lives have more meaning when we serve others
• Customer service is, first and foremost, a form of service
• To serve each other and each customer is to serve humanity

As customer service providers, we touch millions of people each year. Each contact is an opportunity to make each life we touch a little better each day. And when we make people happy, they tend to pay it forward. Through the phenomenon psychologists call the “emotional contagion”, we can be carriers of an epidemic of kindness. We can be weapons of mass construction.

I'll end with some thoughts from some people who are a lot smarter than me:

Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. Martin Luther King Jr

Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service. Leo Tolstoy

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive. Only a life lived for others is a life worth living. Albert Einstein

Every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make, not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large. Mohandas  K Gandhi

See also: Q&A with Dr Ed Diener

The Solution

An organization’s success at the consistent delivery of outstanding service is merely the cumulative result of the contribution of each of its members. Outstanding service is just the consequence of each individual’s choice to be great at service. That’s our decision, as individual providers, to make. It’s our responsibility. And it’s our gain.

Notes from Chapter 3, The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey

Most of the great cultural shifts started with the choice of one person. Sometimes it was the formal leader; most of the time, it was not.

These agents of change first changed themselves, then inspired and lifted others. They possessed an anchored sense of identity, discovered their strengths and talents, and used them to produce results.

• People like this don’t get sucked in or pulled down by all the negative, demoralizing, insulting forces in the organization
• Their organizations are no better than most organizations
• All organizations are, to some degree, a mess
• Don’t wait for your boss or organization to change
• Be an island of excellence in a sea of mediocrity
• Be contagious
• Learn your true nature and gifts
• Use them to develop a vision of great things you want to accomplish
• Understand the needs and opportunities around you, and meet them
• Make a difference
• Find and use your voice
• Serve and inspire others
• Inspire others to find their voice
• All of us can decide to leave behind a life of mediocrity, and to live a life of greatness
• We all have the power to decide to live a great life
• No matter how long we’ve walked life’s pathway to mediocrity, we can always choose to switch paths

Good people make good service. Good service makes good people.

Listed below are competencies extracted from the Emotional Competence Framework of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. They are the competencies that matter most to the success of customer service providers. Conversely, when we practice service - whether on customers, family members, colleagues, or communities - we become better at these competencies. We become better people.

Outstanding customer service providers:

• Realize the links between their feelings and what they think, do, and say
• Have a guiding awareness of their values and goals
• Are reflective, learning from experience
• Are open to candid feedback, new perspectives, continuous learning, and self-development
• Are able to show a sense of humor and perspective about themselves
• Can voice views that are unpopular and go out on a limb for what is right
• Are decisive, able to make sound decisions despite uncertainties and pressures
• Manage their impulsive feelings and distressing emotions well
• Stay composed, positive, and unflappable even in trying moments
• Think clearly and stay focused under pressure
• Act ethically and are above reproach
• Build trust through their reliability and authenticity
• Admit their own mistakes
• Meet commitments and keep promises
• Hold themselves accountable for meeting their objectives
• Are organized and careful in their work
• Smoothly handle multiple demands, shifting priorities, and rapid change
• Adapt their responses and tactics to fit fluid circumstances
• Seek out fresh ideas from a wide variety of sources
• Entertain original solutions to problems
• Generate new ideas
• Are results-oriented, with a high drive to meet their objectives and standards
• Set challenging goals and take calculated risks
• Pursue information to reduce uncertainty and find ways to do better
• Learn how to improve their performance
• Readily make personal or group sacrifices to meet a larger organizational goal
• Find a sense of purpose in the larger mission
• Pursue goals beyond what’s required or expected of them
• Cut through red tape and bend the rules when necessary to get the job done
• Persist in seeking goals despite obstacles and setbacks
• Are attentive to emotional cues and listen well
• Show sensitivity and understand others’ perspectives
• Help out based on understanding other people’s needs and feelings
• Understand customers’ needs and match them to services or products
• Seek ways to increase customers’ satisfaction and loyalty
• Gladly offer appropriate assistance
• Grasp a customer’s perspective, acting as a trusted advisor
• Are skilled at persuasion
• Fine-tune presentations to appeal to the listener
• Are effective in give-and-take, registering emotional cues in attuning their message
• Deal with difficult issues straightforwardly
• Handle difficult people and tense situations with diplomacy and tact
• Orchestrate win-win solutions

In addition, outstanding customer service leaders:

• Acknowledge and reward people’s strengths, accomplishments, and development
• Offer useful feedback and identify people’s needs for development
• Mentor, give timely coaching, and offer assignments that challenge and grow a person’s skill.
• Understand the forces that shape views and actions of clients, customers, or competitors
• Accurately read situations and organizational and external realities
• Use complex strategies like indirect influence to build consensus and support
• Listen well and seek mutual understanding
• Welcome sharing of information fully
• Foster open communication and stay receptive to bad news as well as good
• Articulate and arouse enthusiasm for a shared vision and mission
• Step forward to lead as needed, regardless of position
• Guide the performance of others while holding them accountable
• Lead by example
• Recognize the need for change and remove barriers
• Challenge the status quo to acknowledge the need for change
• Champion the change and enlist others in its pursuit
• Model the change expected of others
• Spot potential conflict, bring disagreements into the open, and help deescalate
• Encourage debate and open discussion
• Build rapport and keep others in the loop
• Make and maintain personal friendships among work associates
• Balance a focus on task with attention to relationships
• Collaborate, sharing plans, information, and resources
• Promote a friendly, cooperative climate
• Model team qualities like respect, helpfulness, and cooperation
• Draw all members into active and enthusiastic participation
• Build team identity, esprit de corps, and commitment
• Protect the group and its reputation
• Share credit

See also this article which codes the whole EC Framework according to customer service requirements: basic competencies, higher-level competencies, and competencies for customer service leaders.

Because it feels good

Excerpts from Dazzle Me! By the editors at Dartnell. Writer: David Dee

“Providing great customer service is a triple win,” says Paul Timm, a professor at the Marriott School of Management at Brigham Young University. “Your customers feel good, your organization prospers, and you feel good.”

Q: In 50 Powerful ideas, you say “the best reason to give good service is that it makes you feel better.” What do you mean?

A: If customers expect that they’re going to be treated poorly, they become defensive and begin treating you, the employee, poorly. Very few people can put up with the day-to-day barrage of unhappy customers who expect to be treated poorly.

Q: What’s the alternative?

A: Choose to provide outstanding customer service instead. No one can force another person to give good service beyond the most rudimentary mechanical levels. But when we choose to give of ourselves – to apply the power of customer service - we feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction. Then, a job can be fun and rewarding.

Q: A cynic might say that most customer service jobs don’t pay enough for all that extra effort.

A: But there are other rewards. Like the satisfaction you feel for acting professionally on the job. And providing good customer service is really teaching you how to get along with people. Those skills are widely applicable to all the relationships in our lives, personal and professional.

Q: You’ve said that providing good service can be fun. How’s that?

A: For most people, true fun is equated with satisfaction. It’s fun to feel good about something you’ve accomplished. It’s fun to know you have the power to give of yourself to achieve team success. It’s fun to grow as a person and develop new skills and abilities, and to know you’re increasing in value every day through your experience and learning.

Q&A with Dr Ed Diener

Can customer service providers find happiness? To answer that question, it may help to gain a better understanding of what happiness is. Ed Diener is Alumni Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois. He is the Founding Editor of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the American Psychological Society. Dr Diener is past-president of the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, and of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. He won the 2000 Distinguished Researcher Award from the International Society of Quality of Life Studies, and has more than 200 publications, around 150 of which are in the area of well-being.

Excerpts from Frequently Asked Questions About Subjective Well-Being
Ed Diener, Alumni Professor of Psychology, University of Illinois

What is subjective well-being(SWB)?

• Subjective well-being is the scientific name for how people evaluate their lives. People can evaluate their lives in terms of a global judgment (such as life satisfaction or feelings of fulfillment), in terms of evaluating the domains of their lives (such as marriage or work), or in terms of their ongoing emotional feelings about what is happening to them (feeling pleasant emotions, which arise from positive evaluations of one's experiences, and low levels of unpleasant feelings, which arise from negative evaluations of one's experiences).
• The English word "happiness" means several different things (e.g., joy, satisfaction), and therefore many scientists prefer the term "subjective well-being." However, subjective well-being is an umbrella term that includes the various types of evaluation of one's life one might make - it can include self-esteem, joy, feelings of fulfillment, and so forth.
• The key is that the person himself/herself is making the evaluation of life - not experts, philosophers, or others. Thus, the person herself or himself is the expert here: Is my life going well, according to the standards that I choose to use?

Is SWB important?

• Happiness is important in and of itself because it is how people evaluate their own lives. Certainly, it is hard to imagine a good society in which we think people are living in a desirable way, but they are all unhappy and dissatisfied. Thus, SWB seems absolutely necessary for the "good society," although is not sufficient for that society because there are other things we also value and would want in such a place. Thus, it can be said that high SWB is necessary, but not sufficient, for the good life.
• When we ask people, they say that SWB is extremely important. For example, college students the world over rated happiness and life satisfaction as very important or extremely important in the 41 nations we surveyed. In fact, in only one country did students rate money as more important than life satisfaction, and happiness was rated as more important than money in every single country.
• SWB is desirable for another reason - because it seems to lead to many good outcomes. Happy people (those high in long-term average positive emotions) seem to be more sociable and creative, they live longer, make more money and are better "citizens" in their workplace. A host of good outcomes (e.g., marital satisfaction) often follow from happiness. Thus, there are many reasons to suggest that high SWB is extremely desirable.

OK, so people think happiness is important. But is it really desirable? If we are happy, might we achieve less, be bad citizens, or be just plain dumb?

It turns out that, at least in western culture where the studies have been conducted, that SWB (high levels of positive affect, in particular) produces good outcomes in many areas. For example:

1. Happy people on average have stronger immune systems, and there is some evidence that they live longer.
2. Happy people are more creative, at least in the laboratory.
3. Happy people are better citizens at work - they tend to help others more, skip work less, etc.
4. Happy people are more successful - they earn more income, have better marriages, get job interviews more, etc.
5. Happy people do better in social relationships. They are more sociable to begin with, and other people like them more.
6. They seem to be more successful in leadership work positions.
7. Happy people are better able to cope with difficult situations.
8. Happy people like themselves and other people more, and others like them in return. They are also more helpful and altruistic, on average.
9. In judgment and decision making, happy people act efficiently, and spend more effort only when it is truly required (on important problems, and ones where old solutions are not working).
10. Happy people can perform well if they are cued that motivation is required and that the task might not be an easy one.
11. Happy people can dual task and complete complex tasks better because they will use heuristics for parts of the task, or for one of the tasks, thus allowing more computational power for other parts of the task.

Is there a "key" to SWB; a secret to happiness?

• So many popular writers seem to search for the "key," and sometimes even offer what they think is THE key to happiness. But our research indicates that there is no single key.
• Some things seem to be necessary for high SWB (e.g., solid mental health, good social relationships), but they are not sufficient for happiness (some unhappy people possess these, too). So a variety of things appear to be necessary for happiness even though we have not found any characteristic that is sufficient for happiness.
• The above findings suggest a better analogy than a key - a recipe. Most good recipes call for quite a few ingredients. Some of these ingredients are absolutely essential, and other ingredients are merely helpful. But there is no single key ingredient that by itself gives you the good food. You need to have multiple ingredients put together in the right way. This is like SWB - you need several important and necessary ingredients, but no single one of them by itself produces a happy person.

What is your advice to those who want to be happy?

I have no simple, easy answer that will make everyone happy. Some people with serious problems need to see a therapist and get professional help. And many of us have such deep-grained habits that it won't be easy to change overnight. Plus, we all have our temperaments that will put some limits on how easy it for us to be happy. So there is no magic elixir. Having said this, I think there are some steps people can take to insure that they are as happy as they can be (although nothing will make us happy every moment, fortunately).

• First, we need good friends and family, and we may need to sacrifice to some extent to insure that we have intimate, loving relationships - people who care about us, and about whom we care deeply.
• Second, we need to involve ourselves in activities - work, for example - that we enjoy and value. We are likely to be best at things we value and think are interesting.
• Finally, we need to control how we look at the world. We need to train ourselves not to make a big deal of trivial little hassles, to learn to focus on the process of working toward our goals (not waiting to be happy until we achieve them), and to think about our blessings (making a habit of noticing the good things in our lives).

Can we make ourselves happier?

This is a 64,000 dollar question, about which we have surprisingly little direct evidence. We know that cognitive style correlates with SWB. We also have some studies where cognitive style is altered, and people become happier (or less depressed). So it seems as though people can change their level of SWB with persistent work, but we need much more data.

Michael Fordyce has conducted a few controlled studies to try to raise people's happiness, and finds that a multimodal intervention (get more friends, think positively, don't worry so much, etc.) can increase people's reports of SWB, but these studies too are in their infancy.

What role do values play in SWB?

• People's values influence the goals that they set for themselves. For example, people who place a high value on the environment might set a goal of recycling and composting. People who set goals for themselves that are consistent with their values will experience fewer internal conflicts.
• As people work for their goals, and achieve them, they experience subjective well-being. Thus, SWB can be achieved by seeking those things that one values. Values (including helping others, hard work, contributing to society) are thus not inconsistent with SWB. Instead, people's SWB can be enhanced to the degree that they work for goals that are consistent with their values, and are able to make progress toward those goals.
• Being happy is not just a hedonistic enterprise of "eat, drink, and be merry" - for most people, obtaining high SWB means working for important values. People might not enjoy specific activities that are necessary to achieving their goals. However, these activities in the long-run can lead to satisfaction. Thus, some activities might not produce pleasure or even positive affect at the moment, but might lead to longer-term life satisfaction. There is evidence, however, that people on average do tend to enjoy activities more if they are consistent with their values.
• It is important to understand that there is not a choice between other important values and SWB. If a person is socialized to desire values and goals that are positive, the person will achieve SWB by moving toward those values. Thus, achieving SWB is not a sort of search for hedonistic pleasures, but instead can be best achieved by working for the things that a person values. Being happy does not stand in contrast to basic values - the choice need not be between one or the other. Instead, SWB can derive from working for one's values.

What are the most important things scientists have learned about SWB?

We have learned some important things about SWB, but there is much that is still uncertain. Oftentimes people will ask us questions for which we simply have no good answer. But here are a few of the important things we have learned. Below I list my favorites:

1. We seem to be able to measure the components of SWB with some level of validity.
2. Temperament is an important predictor of a person's SWB, but conditions can matter too. Some conditions have long-lasting effects on SWB (e.g., unemployment, living in a very poor nation), and many situations can dramatically influence SWB in the short run.
3. Culture makes a difference to SWB; some cultures have higher levels of SWB than others. One reason for this seems to be that in some cultures happiness is valued more than in other cultures.
4. People in unstable and very poor societies avow lower levels of SWB.
5. The happiest people all seem to have good friends.
6. On average most people are at least slightly happy. But everyone has up and down moods - nobody is happy every moment. Even the happiest people sometimes get unhappy.
7. Negative and positive emotions are to some extent independent. Thus, one can have a lot of positive affect, but this does not tell us with certainty whether one is low on negative affect. Similarly, a person high in negative affect might also be high in positive affect. Thus, "happiness" cannot be simply understood as a single dimension, but is multidimensional.
8. There seems to be no single key to happiness - no one thing that guarantees high SWB once you possess it. Instead, there are many necessary conditions that together seem to contribute to high SWB.
9. High average positive affect is not a bad thing; instead, it seems to have desirable consequences (as outlined earlier). Furthermore, high SWB can follow from the values that people cherish, and is not simple hedonism.
10. Emotional intensity seems relatively independent of average happiness. Instead, happiness is based more squarely on the frequency of positive moods and emotions - on being in a good mood (even though not intense) most of the time.

Joy to the whirled

I read three more books on customer service over the past week, and still no material on how customer service benefits the providers. Beginning to think that I may just have to make stuff up.

One approach I want to take, although I suspect it's overreaching, is to link customer service to happiness. It's not much of a stretch to say that service to a higher cause - a religion, a movement, an ideal - does promote happiness, because it does provide meaning to people's lives. But customer service?

Since I don't have much credibility to lose, having expressed my belief that we can use customer service to make the world a better place, I may as well carry on.

So what is happiness? Tired of reading, I downloaded a broadcast on the subject of Joy, from Radio National's All In The Mind.  Some excerpts:

Happiness is fundamental

Dr Lea Williams, Brain Dynamics Centre, Westmead Hospital: The key thing that is driving human survival is that we need to try and minimise harm. And once that’s sorted out, hopefully find some pleasure in life. That’s a fundamental goal driving everyone. All of the decisions we make and even our long term goals are to some extent driven by that sense of minimising the negative experiences and maximising the positive.

Happiness & aging

Williams: The prefrontal brain, which regulates negative emotion, actually becomes better able to do that with older age and, in a sense, takes the brakes off the positive emotions. The shift goes from less experience of negative emotion and more ability to experience positive. As you age you bring your life experience to the way that your brain regulates your emotions, and become better at being more selective about the perhaps social experiences you have and so on, and are able to manage the negative emotion better, so that you have a more quality experience.

Sue Turk Charles, School of Social Ecology, University of Southern California: Older people have changed their priorities in life and their values and they focus more on the emotional value of the world. And as their perceptions of life change and how they really realise they are not going to live forever and they savour the moment. That they’re able to as we say, pick their battles, and are able to let go of what’s negative. Because frankly they don’t feel like they have time to do it and so why hold onto that.

Happiness & gender

Charles: The gender differences are smaller than the age differences. They do vary a little across the lifespan but the general pattern is that females tend to have more persistent responses to the negative emotions and males tend to have more transient responses. So males get over them more quickly, but females have a better ability to regulate them, so in a sense whilst they have these more persistent responses, they do seem to have a better ability to manage them.

Happiness & health

Charles: It is amazing how our perceptions form our wellbeing. It’s incredible the power over mind, and it is absolutely ‘how we perceive our stress’ - how we appraise the situation is very important and when we control for all those objective stressors, we find that the way people appraise the situation does play a powerful role in their health. Research on people injected with the flu virus found that people who developed the virus are people who report less social support and more inter-personal problems in their lives. The social support has a strong effect on their antibodies and their immune system. Wound healing – people who are under a lot of stress take longer to heal.

Happiness at work

Dr Charmin Hartel, Professor of Organisational Behaviour, Monash University: Emotions can be contagious, so you can be in a group and if the group is generally positive, enthusiastic, those emotions can be contagious. And if it’s a fairly cynical group that too can be contagious. Organisations are big social systems - they can create environments that facilitate and help people to increase their wellbeing or, they can decrease it. This, in turn, spreads back out into society.

Positive disobedience. There’s an old saying that if you took three people and you put them in a room and two of them were positive and one of them was negative, they’d all come out depressed. It’s a lot easier for the emotional tone of a place to go negative than it is for it to go in a positive way or create a positive environment. And similarly in organisations the norms in a place that are created are not always healthy or positive, and if we recognise that, then we understand that sometimes to disobey the norms, to challenge the norms is an extremely important thing that we require of people, not just in our organisations, but in our societies.

Hear the broadcast: The Emotional Brain: Part 4, Joy
Warning: It's in Australian, not English