While we are all looking for ways to improve processes and drive efficiencies, sometimes the most effective improvements come from an examination of oneself and a better understanding of the humans who comprise your team. Here are eight key lessons I have learned over the years as VP of Customer Experience:
1. Understand yourself
In order for you to provide excellence to your customers, thrive as a CX provider, or lead in customer experience, managers need to know themselves. Understand your skills, limitations, preferences, and abilities. Dig into your own background, learning, job experiences, and past customer cases to uncover your strengths, method of operation, weaknesses, and places for improvement. Think carefully about your communication and management style. Consider questions such as the following: Are you a creative thinker who poses provisional questions and encourages out-of-the-box thinking? Or are you a more process-oriented communicator who prefers to give specific, concrete, linear direction? Do you work well with team members with communication styles different from yours? What are your personal and professional goals? What motivates you? What are the elements of your job that you find most gratifying? Where do you need to improve? Where are your blind spots and areas of growth? How well do you handle pressure and conflict?
2. Understand your team
You will never meet your personal or professional goals alone. No one can be an expert at everything. Your team has everyday skills and abilities that have enabled them to serve, thrive, develop, learn, and grow. As a leader and as a member of the team, it is important to understand the unique personalities and abilities of the team so that everyone can work well together. By matching these abilities with the innate strengths of your team members, you can cover weaknesses, handle challenges, and create a culture of support and collaboration that is mutually beneficial to the team and organization.
3. Be prepared
From a Customer Experience perspective, a team can take many different paths to prepare. Teams might get together to discuss common customer issues and share strategies to mitigate them. There might be value in having knowledge-sharing sessions where team members can help prepare one another to face the challenges they see. Teams might leverage pre-recorded internal training, external experts and coaches, or a combination of sources for preparation. As a leader of such a team, you might work with team members to understand their working style so you can set up individuals for success when planning new projects. There are, of course, many other ways to get prepared – but don’t wait until a crisis. Start early, and stay diligent.
4. Be ready to adapt
Rarely will our plans in Customer Experience, whether on calls or within our teams, go as expected and without a hiccup. Well-laid and staged plans will encounter unexpected challenges and obstacles. The strategy that worked on the previous call or context may not work on a similar case or with a similar customer and context. Build good plans, be prepared before the case or call with a strategy, plans, and appropriate training, but also be ready to adapt when things don’t go as planned. When things don’t go as planned, being ready to act gracefully and think on your feet will help your team achieve better results both internally and when working externally with customers.
5. Apologize
Sometimes we will get it wrong in Customer Experience with our customers and team members. When our response to customers is incorrect, whether technically, strategically, or in some other way, we must apologize. When we hurt, harm, or fail to consider the needs and plans of our customers and team members, rather than burying our heads in the sand, we should apologize.
6. Forgive
Forgiveness is an important part of Customer Experience. Learning to forgive and to accept forgiveness go hand in hand with offering world-class customer service and with being on a team. Be sure to forgive yourself for any mistakes and missteps, and offer your team the same courtesy. Forgiveness is also important when dealing with and talking to customers. Sometimes, customers will have a bad day, a terrible moment, or an unfortunate attitude. Forgiving them will help you move towards a solution.
7. Rely on others for help.
Remember to rely on your team for help in customer and customer experience situations. Your team can provide insight and information from their own experiences, cases, and training. Relying on one’s team members helps create better outcomes for your organization and your customers. No one team member or leader can face the tasks presented to the team alone – know when to ask for help, and congratulate others who ask for help at the appropriate times to achieve success.
8. Learn to Encourage
Building and maintaining an excellent customer service team and customer experience is challenging work. Things won’t always go as planned. The best preparation may not be enough. Learning how to adapt, leverage the team, apologize, and forgive yourself and others is also essential. However, you must also learn how to encourage yourself and others. Your encouragement can help team members caught in difficult cases or hard personal situations. A kind word, a genuine compliment or kudos, or a well-timed word of inspiration can lead to breakthroughs and resilience. Be sure to also seek help from the team for encouragement as well.
Understanding yourself and your team, being prepared, and being adaptable are key skills that can help improve any team involved with customer success, customer service, and customer experience. Knowing how to ask for help, how to apologize, and how to forgive yourself and others are other key essentials to making and growing a successful customer experience team.