Sometimes I Get to Do Cool Things
Sometimes I get to do cool things or meet cool people because of my role. During a casual conversation, I was once asked what I envision my role is within the company I work for. I described the core function: “I show our customers the value of our product and ensure that they see their vision through our product(s). I work with them around strategy and best practices. Together, we build a relationship.”
We Build a Relationship
The moment those words left my lips, I paused and thought about what I just said. We both seemed intrigued by my response. I decided to elaborate.
When you work in Customer Success, or any CX role really, you’re there to perform a series of tasks to get your customer where they need to go. The biggest of all those tasks is to build a relationship. That alone should be at the top of any job description. Why?
No relationship = no connection
When you’re hiring someone to work with customers, you want that person to build a bridge where one might not exist. If a bridge does exist and your employee is good at building relationships, the bridge that was there before will be made stronger. Keeping the same analogy, imagine having a customer with no relationship. How are you going to work with them if there’s no bridge? If there’s a rickety bridge and you attempt to cross and apply too much stress, pressure, or weight, the bridge will collapse (think: up-selling, expansion, renewal).
Now imagine a CX professional who came along and built a relationship, created a strong bridge between their company and the customer. It’s so much easier to cross the bridge more confidently on both sides because of a strongly built foundation.
Relationship building isn’t for everyone. When you’re hiring, it might be easier to look at technical skill versus interpersonal awareness. Challenge the status quo and stop looking for technical skill first. Why? You can train someone how to do the technical things. You can’t train someone to genuinely care about your customers. People who don’t genuinely care about others are poor fits for customer-facing roles. Don’t hire people lacking empathy for roles that are meant to build relationships with customers.
Empathy: Don’t Just Show It, Mean It
Seems pretty obvious, right? You actually have to mean it. Genuine empathy is powerful, and a customer can tell when you actually care about them. If you’re just following a prompt that tells you what to say, and there isn’t heart behind your words, your customer will hear it and the bridge you think you’re building will crumble.
Definition of Empathy
em·pa·thy
/ˈempəTHē/
noun
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.
It bears repeating: you have to have the ability to understand AND share the feelings of another. When building a relationship with a customer, if you attempt to empathize with them but it’s clear that you don’t actually understand and share the feeling, you’re lying. Is it ever appropriate to lie, especially when building a relationship?
However, if you’re able to empathize with the customer and you actually mean it, you’ve suddenly found common ground. You can share an experience, you align with each other, and that budding relationship gets a little bit stronger.
Think of a time when you called a support line. You were frustrated that the item you purchased wasn’t working. The CX rep on the other end suddenly chimed in: “I know exactly what you’re talking about. My device did the exact same thing and I was just as frustrated as you are. You’re right to be upset and I know the feeling.” Not only did that CX rep perform that cool thing I wrote about called Find the Yes, but I bet you as the customer suddenly felt heard. Your issue wasn’t an experience that you had alone. Someone knew what was happening.
I’m willing to bet that your frustration level deescalated a bit once you experienced true empathy from the CX rep. Now imagine if you’d sensed a disingenuous CX rep tell you they also experienced the exact same thing. It happens, quite a bit. Your frustration as the customer just became amplified. Your trust in the CX rep and the company is now being tested, and the bridge that was once there is falling apart.
What Now?
If you’re a CX professional, I challenge you to think about what you do in your day-to-day role that builds relationships. Do you even consider yourself a relationship builder? Have you always meant the empathy you’ve shown?
Take a few moments to reflect on this and ask a colleague if they think they’re a relationship builder. I’m willing to bet the conversation that follows could be just as intriguing.
