For most people, the first thing we might think of when considering the most overlooked skill in handling customer interactions is going to be empathy (or more precisely, one’s shortcomings of it). It is by far one of the most useful skills to have in achieving what every business sets out to do, which is to satisfy their customers. But, seeing as how most people think of it immediately when considering this topic, it becomes clear that it’s probably the least likely to be forgotten skill and perhaps not necessarily being overlooked but more so not being utilized properly. Hence, I propose that the most overlooked skill in handling customer interactions is discernment.
dis·cern·ment [/dəˈsərnmənt/]
noun — the ability to judge well.
“an astonishing lack of discernment”
I’m willing to bet that most everyone understands, to some extent and/or uses, their ability to empathize with a customer when dealing with their interactions with them. For some it’s subconscious habit while for others, who may be faced with a more difficult situation, for instance, may find it requires more careful consideration and thought when hoping to understand and react appropriately. But, ultimately the reaction itself is something that almost everyone who’s ever worked in a customer service position long enough would know very well, because they’re bombarded with lessons on what they should be doing and how they should be doing it, constantly.
While everyone has their different lengths of patience or experience in handling difficult interactions with customers, more often than not, we as human beings tend to address the issue based on our experience and what we’ve learned from the past and has worked for us. But unfortunately, it’s also what leads some employees to eventually be indifferent to when a customer is upset about something as to that employee, it’s the Nth time they’ve heard this complaint in their career and sometimes, they will have already had developed a routine in handling the expected interactions as if a one-size fit’s all solution was appropriate. Perhaps to get them out of the situation it was effective, but for the company, mileage will vary.
Throughout this entire process, the person is in fact empathizing but does so nearly robotically. Without noting the irony in all that, what I’d argue is that what is most overlooked then is the use of, or development of, one’s discernment ability and making the right decisions of what to say, how to react and what steps next to take; or as later mentioned, what steps should’ve been taken in advance.
Frank Bucaro writes in a LinkedIn post,
“Discernment is a unique discipline that takes practice, insight, committed and unrelenting follow through. Discernment is wisdom-based (and) not just knowledge-based.”
So, while empathy is an utterly important skill to have when dealing with customer interactions, it only reflects our capacity to understand or feel what another person has experienced. And, with training manuals with their streamlined processes of training, employees are more often taught on what to do and how to react rather than given the tools and critical thinking exercises to develop some level of discernment that might otherwise helped prevent issues from happening in the first place.
There is supporting evidence to this when say, an employee faces a situation that they’ve never dealt with before and in order to please the customers (or at least based on what they’ve perceived to be the only sensible solution) requires a level of authority they don’t possess and is immediately required to approach a superior with the situation to assist them in resolving it. In this case, did the employee overlook being empathetic? Probably not (unless they were arguing back with the guest or some other extreme case).
Some would argue that the employee would not have been capable of handling the situation from lack of authority while inferring the manager was, or presumably was, only able to handle the situation because they were able to make exceptions to the existing rules or restrictions established by the company that otherwise prevented the employee from handling it themselves. Consequently, this solidifies that it wasn’t a matter of failing to empathize with the guest rather, it was a matter of failing to interact with the guest in a way that would've addressed the matter before the issue even arose.
Any customer service professional will tell you: the best time to address an issue is before it arises.
To be able to recognize a person’s needs and desires before they themselves realize they need it, or to have such a keen sense of awareness for what motivates a person to be upset while also concurrently being able to recognize what makes them happy, requires a sense of wisdom and understanding beyond simply knowledge. Then, before that customer would even realize having had the opportunity of a negative experience it would’ve been averted thanks to one’s discernment, forward-looking outlook, judgement call, and early call to action leading to those preemptive measures that were taken. But more often than not, that’s rarely the case and why I’d consider discernment, as one of the most overlooked skills when handling customer interactions.
The takeaway from all this: train your employees on how to effectively recognize and server your customers’ needs and what they can do to exceed expectations, but to achieve even far greater beyond that and retain a customer for life, will require you allow them the opportunity to gain the experience needed to develop a skill that can only come through evaluated experiences.
Just wait, that’s not even the hard part of it yet. But as always, stay prepared.
