John, not his real name, rolls out of bed around 4 am. After shaking out the cobwebs, he begins his morning routine. A round of affirmations, 30 minutes of spiritual meditation and reading, journaling, and being thankful. After another hour that includes exercise, personal care, breakfast, ensuring his kids are off to school, and his spouse is set up for success, John begins his workday. Every day, John’s daily practices are instrumental to his personal success, but what does John do for professional success?
Ten professional practices that John, or real people in Customer Experience, should consider doing each day.
1. Take time to learn
Every day, work on learning something new. This could be something about your craft that helps make you better at what you do and how you do it. Or it could be an upskill that you may use in a future engagement or career path. Find topics of interest or areas where you’d like to improve, identify training platforms or mentors that might help you accomplish your goal, and set aside time to learn and grow.
2. Take time to review
We all have skills that we have mastered through years of activity. However, some of these previously mastered skills are mostly untapped during the work week. Review the list of skills that you need for your role and responsibilities. Identify areas that you need to improve or practice, and make a plan to address these in the future.
3. Take time to get organized
Every day in Customer Experience will be a little bit different than the day or days before. While you can typically count on having a customer call or case, you cannot always predict how long that case will take or all the tasks that need to be done. A great way to kick off the day and be prepared for its variability is to get organized. Review existing cases and their statuses. Review newly opened cases. Establish a plan and identify the tasks needed to handle existing and newly assigned cases.
4. Take time to help someone on your team
When your plate is full, it can be hard to remember that helping someone else on the team should be a part of your daily activities. While it might feel impossible, especially when the cases are high, helping your team is a mutually beneficial process. As you help your teammate, you experience the dopamine rush and benefits of giving, as well as other intangible benefits related to collaboration. When you help your teammate with their cases and their workload, or with the things that they have on their plate, the team’s productivity tends to improve. Consider helping your team learn a new skill or improve a skill that they have been developing.
5. Take time to help your organization
We often think in customer experience that it is just about helping the customer solve the customer’s problem or the customer’s pain, or it’s just about our team and our particular silo. Working in Customer Experience goes deeper than the external customers, internal customers, or members of your team. Be sure to carve out time each day to help the organization. This includes taking the information and content that you received from every case and looking to see if there are actionable things the business can do. Look at customer cases and see if there’s something that would be an opportunity for sales. Look and see if there’s an improvement needed for your product. See if a customer has asked a question that might give you an inroad to a new solution or product offering. You have a treasure trove of information within customer experience and customer support. Take time each day to see if you can help the business by mining that information and using it to produce results that grow the business and increase revenue.
6. Take time to experience joy
Do something every day that gives you a sense of joy and purpose. Yes, we are all working hard, and for many of us, our jobs have become something that is exciting, something that we enjoy, but also make time to do something that brings us joy outside of work. These could be physical, spiritual, or mental activities that refresh and recharge your battery. It could be a hobby, like pottery making or cooking, or time with your spouse or your partner or your children or other family members, or a group activity such as basketball. Be sure to do something that brings you a sense of joy outside of work, to balance things out.
7. Take time to regroup between cases
Be sure to take time to regroup between cases. Taking this time helps you finalize the case notes of the previous issue, identifying critical items, successfully capturing actions, and next steps. It also helps you to mentally prepare to go into the next issue. I can remember closing out one call at 9:59 am, but failing to take a break before jumping onto the next one right at 10 o’clock. As the call began, I noticed that I missed the first few minutes of introductions because I was completely distracted by the notes that I knew I needed to capture and finalize from the first call. Even when case activity is high, be sure to finalize notes and action items before jumping into the next call or case. Taking time to regroup will improve your next case, and your customers will appreciate it.
8. Take time to rest
While giving yourself a break between calls, even a short 1 – 3 minutes can be highly effective, don’t forget to give yourself a real time to rest. Give yourself a break throughout the day so that you can refresh and recharge your batteries, but also take real rest. This could include taking a day off for vacation, putting your phone and laptop down at the end of the day, and, of course, getting adequate sleep.
9. Take time to be grateful
Take time to look over the day and look for things that you can be grateful for. Practicing gratitude helps improve attitudes, perspective, and resiliency. For example:
- For blessings and opportunities
- For simple gifts, like sunrises and sunsets
- For friends
- For the help from teammates
- For things you learned
- For kind words and encouragement
10. Take time to thank someone on your team, organization, or someone that you encountered during the day.
If you are wondering what I would be able to thank someone for, consider any of the following:
- Kind words
- Kindness
- Encouragement
- Being on time
- Good effort
- Help or support
- Friendliness
10. Take time to practice encouragement and appreciation.
Take time to encourage yourself and encourage someone else. Take time to look back over your day, notice things that you did well, and appreciate what you accomplished. Do the same for your peers, look at things that you can appreciate and share kudos with. Appreciate their skills, work ethic, kindness, success in cases, and work with customers.
Every customer success person should want to do at least a few of these things each day.