CEX Education
By Sandra Thompson, CX Educator | 9 min read
When Clare Muscutt asked me to join her on the Women in CX podcast and invited me to write a cheeky little blog I felt like I had just won the last of the five Willy Wonka golden tickets. Thank you, Clare and hello WICX readers….
I describe myself on LinkedIn as a CX educator. When Clare and I were discussing this recently I was brimming with examples of how I formally teach in London and more recently online for an international school. I described how I use emotional intelligence knowledge and techniques to coach students and clients and I informally influence the CX people I meet by offering them snippets of articles and book recommendations on top of the consultancy advice I give them.
With education in mind, I thought I would share three things I am thinking about at the moment in the hope that these points might provoke discussion or debate with some of you and further learning opportunities:
Lesson #1
While my science teacher at school would repeatedly give me detentions for being disruptive in his class, I grew to love science in a big way and I fundamentally believe that there needs to be more of it in CX literature. I was introduced to some jaw-dropping neuroscience about three years ago [check out Lisa Feldman Barrett] which made me think completely differently about the influence we have as CX professionals on the emotional responses we receive from our customers. I, along with a number of other voices in CX are trying to raise the profile of behavioural science, psychology and neuroscience in our field with the belief that when we understand how humans are wired —I’m talking chemically and electrically— we stand a better chance of building emotional connections with our colleagues and customers. So, I’m taking more ‘science related courses’ and applying what I have learned to some of the reoccurring issues in CX. And, I’m getting some very interesting insights!
Lesson #2
What needs to happen for us all to respond more, rather than react. Don’t get me wrong, there is always a place for reaction. It’s a survival technique and as a species we need it when we are crossing the road, climbing, running and jumping (out of aircraft) for example, but we don’t need to react as much in our work lives. We would communicate better, make better decisions and have better relationships if we chose to take a moment to respond. As CX professionals we would influence more effectively and we’d also be looking after ourselves better if we pick respond over react.
When I was a student of the Dr. Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence coaching faculty, I learned about Viktor Frankl and his quote:
“between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
I wonder what you think of this quote and how you might consider taking a moment to respond, rather than react, over the next few days. I invite the people I coach to try this approach for a short while and observe any differences in how they feel and how the people around them feel as a consequence of the choice they have made to respond. Try it. I believe this could help fuel our ability to build trusted relationships and emotional connections, do you?
Lesson #3
I’m curious to know how the CX discipline could adopt some of the skills, attitudes and behaviours naturally found in established remote workers. This is a theme will I explore in my TEDx talk at Pearson College London on 9th October 2020.
In recent months I have been exploring the success of organisations such as BaseCamp and Automattic, both fully remote organisations with people working for them from anywhere in the world. They recruit talent wherever it can be found across the globe and they provide incredible support to their staff. Staff have high degrees of accountability and autonomy. Leaders are in service of their teams working flexibly and they achieve outstanding results. Automattic for example looks after 48% of all websites in the world.
Imagine if you had a ‘communications charter’ with your boss. The charter outlined how you would like to work, how you most like to be communicated with, by which channel and how often. This happens with proper remote working companies, like Automattic.
What I am describing is not the ‘emergency work from your kitchen or dining table’ scenario we recognise from the Covid-19 pandemic, but purposefully designed, flexible working from anywhere. Remote workers are happier, more productive and they have more emotional intelligence skills than most of the people we find in traditional office environments as they have to communicate more effectively to be successful in the remote space.
Of course the act of remote working is impossible for service roles when staff have to be physically present in a specific location but it’s still possible for businesses to take on some of the behavioural characteristics of distributed workforces. They are, after all, more emotionally intelligent than the ‘typical office based worker’ and we know that EI creates stronger emotional connections between staff and customers and these connections equate to loyalty and loyalty has been proven to drive profitability. I think it’s worth a try. What do you think?
Thank you. I’m so proud to be part of the Women in CX movement and I’m grateful for the opportunity to share these random thoughts with you. There are so many remarkable women working in our sector and there are so many supportive men out there who hear our voice and want to amplify our ideas for the greater good of better experiences for humans, not just customers or employees. My closing comment is one of encouragement – keep doing what you’re doing ladies, keep curious, restless and exploring. Let’s be the type of women the next generations of women think we are.
Sandra Thompson
Sandra is a published consultant, lecturer, course leader and trainer in the field of customer experience and emotional intelligence. Her company, Exceed all Expectatios has worked with brands like Waitrose, Arsenal Football Club, Aldermore Bank, Network Rail and Vodafone.
Sandra published an academic paper on Emotional Intelligence and Customer Experience and is the UK’s first Emotional Intelligence Coach trained by Dr. Daniel Goleman and his faculty.
Sandra lectures part-time in the topics of people management and leadership, professional behaviours and customer management at Pearson Business School. Sandra now leads a certificated postgraduate course in Applied Customer Experience which blends scientific fact and insight from practitioners and will launch her first Emotional Intelligence and Customer Experience online training programme this autumn.