7 Questions to Help You Interact More Effectively

“…in most jobs that involve a customer, [emotional labor] is all you are getting paid for." -Seth Godin

 If a job or task can be done by a robot or computer, it likely already is or will be.   People who do jobs that don’t require some emotional element are easily replaced.

 Emotional labor is the work that makes you feel tired even though you’ve been sitting in a chair all day.  

 Emotional labor is the work of connecting.  

 Your primary function could be receiving and giving information, it could be taking a photograph, or it could be handing out a soda and sandwich.   If you make a connection with the customer…that’s emotional labor.  It may not your primary function, but it is the reason you have a job. It’s work that depends solely up that which makes you unique.

Why is that important?

 In the case of customer service, the information the customer needs can often be provided by an electronic means, either by Internet or by voice response unit (the computer on the telephone).   With all that information available, why do people keep calling?

• Lack of ability to use the technology,
• Lack of trust in the technology, or
• Need for an emotional connection to the company.

The lack of ability to use technology is less of a barrier every year.  Sure, my mother can’t use a computer and doesn’t want to…but she’s a bit of a hold-out among her peers. 

The lack of trust in technology seems may take longer to solve than the lack of ability to use technology.

Meeting the need for an emotional connection by technological means is much more difficult problem.  That connection goes to the essence of why businesses attract loyal followers and why customer service exists.  According to recent studies, customers react to their preferred brands with the same parts of their brains that are activated by religious symbols and expressions.* That’s an emotional response.  Every customer interaction is an emotional brand experience for the customer.  If you interact with customers, you are paid to do primarily emotional work. 

A Different View of Work

Work requires additional competencies when viewed as primarily emotional.  Some questions that can help be a more effective emotional artist are:

1. How do you feel about other people? (like, dislike, enjoy, tolerate, etc.)
2. How’s your emotional health?
3. How emotionally rested are you?
4. How’s your stress level?
5. How aware are you of your emotional state?
6. How well do you pick up on others’ emotional states?
7. How well do you meet your customers’ emotional needs?

 What’s in it for me?

Here are a few possible benefits of paying attention to the emotional part of the work that you do:

•  You can become more conscious of your emotional health.
• You can have fewer draining interactions with your customers.
• You can be one of the artists that make it a joy to do business with your company.

 What does that get me?

 It makes you indispensable.  That means you – the emotional interaction artist – are a key element of your company’s connection with the people who keep it alive:  customers. 

 * Lindstrom, Martin. Buy-ology: truth and lies about why we buy, Doubleday, 2008.