Beware of Service Fatigue Before You Actually Cripple Your Team

We hear about it in healthcare. Doctors and nurses are exhausted. And after 2 years of COVID for people having to adjust both to their personal and their business lives, service fatigue has become a very real thing. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode. This is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up core skill sets to help them create the jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Service Expert and Master of Experiences Marc Haine. It is so great to have you here. My guest for this episode is Customer Service Expert Lori Guest. We will be uncovering 3 action steps you and your team can take to combat the fatigue that we are all feeling in our workplaces. And we'll get to that in just a minute. In the meantime, feel free to go ahead and subscribe to this program. I'd love to make absolutely sure that you get notified whenever I drop some fresh new content for you each and every week. Wrong button. It used to be that there were 2 things you didn't talk about when with the people that you served. 2 topics that you had to stay away from no matter what business you were in, no matter who you were serving, you had to stay away from politics and religion. Now, I don't know about you. But over the last 2 years, it feels so much like humanity is so divided. And as service providers, people dealing with other people with things like the COVID restrictions, politics, vaccine mandates, Gun legislation and the new Supreme Court ruling about abortions. Not only do we constantly have to be on guard with everyone we deal with, the changing conditions of our workplace and those expectations have led to a different sort of pandemic. And that is fatigue, which brings us to our Question of the Day. So, as a business operator, manager, or entrepreneur, how have you adapted to the needs of your people in the last year? And how have you adapted yourself to how you've been feeling? I'd love for you to share your response in the comment box. And please hashtag your response with #ExperienceLeadership. That way, we make sure that we're all part of this conversation together. As I mentioned, my guest today is customer service expert Laurie Guest. Laurie is an award-winning columnist and the author of 2 books. With her latest book, The 10-Cent Decision: How Small Change Pays Off Big, Laurie presents her most sought-after and impactful strategies to find and retain the best staff and high-quality members while delivering exceptional guest experiences. Laurie is a certified speaking professional and a member of the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, an honor held by less than 1% of all speakers worldwide. Lori, welcome to the show. It's great to have you.

Thanks for having me, Marc.

It's so great to have you. Hey, congratulations on being inducted into the Speaker Hall of Fame. Wow, that's so great!

Thank you very much. It was quite an honor.

Before we get into today's topic, could you just dig a little bit deeper to what you do for your clients?

Sure. I'm a customer experience expert. I'm similar to you. And I bring over 25 years of healthcare experience to the platform. So, even though I speak in other industries other than healthcare, it's where the culture and where I was raised in the early stages of my career that really brought the techniques and the tools forward that apply in all industries. Wherever there are people, there is service that we can do better. So, that's how it became my expertise. And I've been speaking for about 27 years. 36 years on the topic in a variety of industries. So, I love it. Anything that has to do with service.

Love it. And as long as, like you said, as long as we have people, we're gonna have to have service. So, we're talking today about service fatigue. Why is this an important topic for leaders to be aware of today?

Well, what's interesting is a lot of people are talking about, do we have an increase in service fatigue in a post-pandemic environment? And as you said in the opening remarks, We just feel weighted down by things that are going on around us. So, is service fatigue new? And my answer is yes and no. My yes answer is that I believe that everything is magnified in our post-pandemic environment. And I think that we are noticing a little bit less civility in the customers that we're taking care of. We're noticing tolerance is a little less. So, we've got these social issues that are going on that's changing the way people are interacting. Feels like it's a new problem. But I honestly believe that service fatigue has been a problem for years, even before the pandemic. And so, I was already talking about this before. But everything became magnified. And I found that my clients, they got very excited when I would say, these are the 3 things I like to talk about. And the service fatigue was the 3rd thing I would mention. And right away, they'd light up and be like, yes, that is what we need. And that's how I realized really over the last year that it's become so magnified in providing those tools to our people. I like to say, armor them up. Let's protect the people in the workplace regardless of your industry so that they know how to take care of those customers, clients, patients, patrons. My last name is Guest. So, we just call them all a guest and it covers them all.

That's so great. It's so nice that you were born with a blessing. And so, that's so great.

I'll interrupt. I'm married into a blessing.

Oh, you married into a blessing.

Okay. I was seeking a man whose last name represented all that I wanted to be as a guest speaker. That was perfect. I'd been looking for Tom Skinny but I couldn't find him. So, I went with Tom Guest and that was the next best thing I could do. So, there we are.

Well, my last name is French for hate, which is really ironic for somebody who's in an industry full of love.

Yes, yes, that's funny.

The names we have. The names we have, right? Prior to COVID, the workplace was entirely different. I talk in past episodes. I talk about what it was like to enter the workforce in 1977 as a teenager. And then, how we were treated. What happened. It really didn't seem like nobody cared if you were having a bad day way back when. Since then though, it just seems like we have had a huge acceleration of kind of this human dynamic aspect. What do you think has changed over the last few decades?

Well, I definitely think that generations in the workplace have changed. And although that is not my area of expertise, I've got some colleagues that that is exactly what they spend all their time studying. My feeling is that things have changed by who is doing the business and who's receiving the service. So in other words, when my parents used to go in to see the doctor, they would patiently wait and almost bow at the feet of the doctor. That was the mindset. But now, as we go into the next generation and I have a 26-year-old, my oldest is 26. There is no way that he's going to sit in a doctor's office and wait an hour to be called back to the exam room. He'll just walk right up to the desk and say, this is ridiculous. I've got an appointment to get to. I'm leaving. And so, his tolerance of poor service is much lower than I feel the generation before me. Does that make sense?

Yeah, yeah. No, it does. So, it is changing expectations as well then. As we've evolved through the different generations, each generation has different expectations of what we have. And to your point, dealing with my mom, my father was a good one. Like if the doctor said anything, it was absolute gold. It's like you don't push back on people who are above you in status or whatever. And that's how we were as a baby boomer. That's how I was brought up.

That's right.

This idea now that we're pushing back is different.

Now, let's look at it the reverse side. When you and I came into the workplace, we were born of a generation where you showed up on time. You did as you were asked to do. You probably stayed longer term, like retiring with a gold watch after 50 years is a badge of honor, right? That's our generation, or at least close to it. And now, this next generation, they're constantly saying, well, I can just get a job somewhere else. And now, I'm making some very generalized statements here. I don't want anybody listening to go, well, how dare she think that's not how I am. Sure. Generalizations. But in general, there are more opportunities. We're aware of opportunities because of all the internet access. And so, all of a sudden, I can say today, I don't really like my job as the barista at Starbucks. And so, I'm going to hop online. I'm going to find something else to do. And I think that we have a lot of movement in the workplace. If I don't like— in fact, I know of someone who is a very young person, about 21, who She is thinking about leaving her job because they won't let her make personal calls and use her cell phone and social media while she's on the clock. And she's just completely aghast that she can't do that. While I'm listening to her thinking, well, if I was paying her paycheck, I would want her to be engaged in the job and put the cell phone in her pocket. So, we have all these dynamics. To get right to the chase, I think we have a shifting dynamics of priorities, cultures, values, both as the customer and as the person delivering the service.

Which brings up an interesting concept. Growing up in the service industry, like I said, I entered the workforce in 1977. The customer was always right.

Right.

Has that changed now with the new generations coming on board? I know my 20-year-old daughter just started working at a restaurant. And so, I'm always keeping my ear out on what are the stories she's talking about that frustrates her, that gets her wired. Have you seen a values shift within the service industry?

I have. And I think the old adage of the customer is always right. There's still a slice of that is true where I think the boundary is sometimes they're asking for things just to see what they can get, right? Can I complain and get something free? How far can I push people? Like again, I keep coming back to the word dynamics. But that's kind of top of mind As I'm talking to you right now is where in this situation do they overstep the boundary as a customer and they're really expecting too much. So, let's switch to hospitality. Right now, airlines are really, really struggling, right?

Hmm.

They don't have the manpower they need to fly the planes and to have the service staff that we need on board to protect us and to take care of us. And yet, we have such rude customers. Both in the airport, on the plane, and they're just completely fatigued because they're doing the very best they can. And yet, we're just constantly— we, the customer is constantly beating them up for every little tiny thing. I just flew a few weeks ago and there was a guy just furious because they didn't have his kind of whiskey in first class.

Okay.

And the guy on the other side of the aisle said, well, at least they have some kind of whiskey. He was trying to point out to him that we've gone a long time where there have not been beverages available at all on the plane. And so, here's this guy By beating up, verbally beating up the amazing flight attendant because they don't have his brand of whiskey. I just get so discouraged about that. I get fatigued as a fatigued speaker when I watch people being treated that way. So, we have to armor them up. What can we do to help that flight attendant get through yet another shift where she's being treated this way? And that's where my focus is at.

That's brilliant. We have done episodes on this show about civility in the workplace. And how that affects people all around us. As we get into this topic today, how do you think leaders are faring with this idea of recognizing and dealing with service fatigue?

I think that there is a ways to go. And as a leader, their priorities are different. The priority of a leader is, right? I'm assuming here. Number one is going to be profitability. We've got to make sure that this organization is continuing to function the way that it should. So, that's number one. Number 2 is going to be delivering the products and goods to our guests that we said we were going to. So, I find most leaders are really focused on product and they say they're focused on service. But not to the depth that I want them to be. So, in other words, they don't necessarily set the rules and enforce the rules. And then, a distant The third becomes, how are we serving the needs of the people who work here? So, the way I would answer this the shortest way possible is the organizations I see doing really well, growing and thriving are spending as much time paying attention to meeting the needs of their team as they are meeting the needs of their guests. It's a balancing act. And if we're only paying attention to one part of the triad, the triad being the boss, the customer, and the staff. If we're only paying attention to one leg of that, we get a tip, right? We need equal weight on each part of that triad to get a nice balance going. And that's what I see is missing with some leaders that I work with is they aren't focused enough on the team.

Right. And it's so interesting that you say that because it is a balancing act. And part of it is I'm wondering if the people who are tuned into this understand exactly what we're talking about when we talk about service fatigue. Can we talk a little bit about some of the symptoms that we're seeing in the workplace? It's not just people yawning at their desk. There's something deeper here, isn't there?

No, that's a really good point. I'm glad you brought that up because we have physical fatigue, which as you said, that's yawning and droopy eyes and I'm exhausted, right? That's physical fatigue. And I'm talking more about an emotional fatigue. And some of the symptoms that I think, and I'm doing a lot of interviews right now because my third book is I'm working on right now called Bust Out of Service Fatigue. So, you can tell this is top of mind with me right now. And what I'm finding in these early interviews when I say to someone, are you suffering from service fatigue? There is always an inhale-exhale associated with it. It looks like this.

Oh yeah!

And then, as the exhale comes, they start to say many of the same things. And here they are. You can already predict them, Marc, because this is your area of expertise too. But in fact, let's turn this around. Let me quiz you. What would be your guess when I'm interviewing people suffering from service fatigue regardless of the industry? What do you think are some of the common denominators I'm finding in those who are tired of serving? What is your guess?

The number one thing I see is people complaining about their customers. I'm constantly saying, and I'm seeing this even with my daughter who I mentioned just started her first serving job. And she'll have good days. But then, when she has bad days, I mean, it's all about that energy of her going face to face with it. So, she's complaining more about the people. It's her meeting up with somebody. Yeah, yeah.

She's going into, and I use this word lightly, but I really think it's a great metaphor. They're going into combat every day, right? They're going into combat. And if we have not geared them up, armored them up is what I like to say, with some tools to help somebody like your daughter get through the day, I can't change the customer. who's ever showing up at that place where she serves. It's a restaurant you said. Is that right, Marc?

Yeah.

Yeah. So, wherever she works, I can't control who's showing up at that restaurant. And I certainly can't change up the way they're treating her. But I can give her tools to armor her up to deal with it. And I bet you're interested in hearing a few of those.

Yes, I am. And we'll get to that just a little bit later. Because right now, this idea of understanding what the symptoms look like. Ultimately, we're seeing things like The Great Resignation now that people are talking about, is that the only consequence of service fatigue?

Well, that is a consequence except I think that this Great Resignation, there's a lot of people talking about this right now. Is it really a Great Resignation or are people shifting around, doing something different? Your daughter still needs to earn her income. So, even if she were to leave that restaurant today, she's going somewhere else to get a job. She's not resigning at the young age that she's at and going into early retirement.

Right.

She's too young for that. She might want to, but right. But the other symptoms that we're seeing is just the lack of caring. It's the, I gotta drag myself to work today and I can't believe I have to face this. See how my body language is even sagging? The shoulders go down. The voice goes down. The energy. Again, I'm separating it from physical fatigue but it has many of those same symptoms. It's like that big exhale like, ugh, and it's got a groan with it. And I've got to Get myself ready to go and I have to just get through it. There's a lot of get through it words. And that saddens me because first of all, I have always loved to work no matter what work I did. I started making donuts in a deli at 16 and I loved going to work. I had a blast at work. And when I moved from that to healthcare, there were very few days that I dragged myself to work. And then becoming an entrepreneur, we generally love our jobs because we get to control it a little more. But each one of those phases of my adult careers, There was joy in the job. And if we don't have joy in the job, then we start presenting with some of these symptoms that we're talking about. And it becomes just a job. And there's a big difference between joy in the job and just a job. And I think it's the gap between the two where the fatigue sets in.

As you were saying that, I can imagine. I know that there's a lot of pre-baby boomers and early baby boomers who would be listening to something like that. And they'll be like, I've been in the workplace for 40 years. That's the way life is. Get over it!

It's a generational thing at work again, right?

It absolutely is. But when you're thinking about that we have Baby Boomers, we have Gen Xs in the workplace who are leading the Gen Zs now. How are they supposed to adapt to the changing expectations of their workforce?

Well, I really think that the secret to a lot of this is ownership of your fatigue. So no matter what generation you're born in, no matter what position you have, no matter what your home life is that's contributing, your circumstances that contributes to your fatigue, we take all of that and jumble it up, right, into a 10-bean chili here, right? We have all these beans thrown in together. What is the common thing amongst them all? is that the only thing we can do is control our own level of fatigue.

Right.

And how are we going to do that? Because the causes of them are many. But in simplistic terms, it's we can't control what's coming at us.

Right.

Right? So, we have all these different things. Maybe we have demands from the boss. We have demands from the customer. We have demands at home. So, I'm getting pulled in all these different directions. And I feel like there's no time left for me. Yet, I'm supposed to get up every day, rinse and repeat, and bring that same smile or service to the platform day after day after day. A metaphor that I use really often is that of an actor, right? Because when they do a stage play, like I'm a big fan of Hamilton. I've seen Hamilton 3 times. And each time, it's with a different cast. So, the script might be the same. The experience is pretty close to the same. But the energy is different by the audience, the particular theater it's in, Who's up on the stage. But here's what's interesting. How many times have they done that play? And how many times do they drag themselves out of bed to go, okay, I gotta go do this job again. But when the lights go on and the curtain opens, it's showtime, go time. And they come out and they are ready to perform so that you and I who just spent hundreds of dollars for these seats, we get to experience the passion and the beauty of this for the first time. I do not think that's how somebody's thinking when they're serving coffee.

Yeah.

They're just filling up the cup. They're just— they're not thinking about the show that can go with this. And I don't mean that they're entertaining us. But they are bringing the very best to the job that they can and rinse and repeat. You have to find the joy in that or it's very hard to get past this.

It really is. And I mean, my book is on the shelf and you're talking my language, Laurie. It couldn't have been a better metaphor. But even being up on stage, I can tell you that every performance is different. The audience is different. They laugh at different things. If you're doing a comedy, they laugh at different things on different nights. Energy levels of the audience is different. But yet, as an actor, you have to be up on that stage and you have to deliver 100% of the time, every single time. And so, my premise for the book was just that.

Right, right. And you and I on stage, Marc, are giving people different energy. So, if I'm coming to work and I'm just like, I am on fire tonight, you're gonna feel that. And we as a unit, as a team are going to provide a better experience for those who are enjoying the show with us. And that is true if you and I were waiting tables together too.

Absolutely, absolutely every single time. This is resonating a lot, Laurie. And I'd like to get into some of your strategies that leaders can take to combat this service fatigue. And we'll get to that. Right after this.

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Welcome back! I am speaking with my soul sister, the author of The 10-Cent Decision, Laurie Guest. Laurie, tell us a little bit about this book that you have, The 10-Cent Decision.

All right. Well, I took everything I had to say about customer service and put it in one place. But I designed it a little bit different. If you are a team member, you read it from the front cover to the middle. And wait for it— if you're a leader, you read it from the back cover to the middle. There's no duplication of content. It's different stories on each side, and they're short, anecdotal, with action steps to each chapter. And I focus around the idea that a thin dime doesn't have a lot of value. But if we take dimes and we stack them on top of each other, roll them up, throw them in a pillowcase, you know what? They become a weapon. And customer service is the same way. Most people understand customer service. But are they really doing it? So yes, we can smile. We can greet a person. We can use their name. Customer Service 101. Those are just thin dimes. But when we start stacking them and we add more and more low-cost, no-cost ideas, that are unique, all of a sudden, we become a weapon that's hard for our competition to beat. And so, that's what the book is all about. It's The 10-Cent Decision: How Small Change Can Pay Off Big.

Nice! I love it. I love the metaphor as well as change being a dime. I think that's great. And so, you are working on your next book now. What was it called?

I am. The working title is Bust Out of Service Fatigue. So, I don't know what the sub— I don't know what the caption or what is it, the subhead. I don't know what that is yet. But that's the idea because so many people were asking me to speak on this. And that's how we know if there's a book in the making. If people keep saying, do you have anything on— people are just burnt out. They're tired. And my stuff is a little different than burnout. But it is a cousin to it. They're very similar. How do we get people excited about work again?

So why, I mean, for a customer service expert, why is this such a passion for you?

Well, I think that it falls under the umbrella of service is that how can I ask You to deliver great service to our guests. If you don't have that fire in your belly anymore to even come to work and to do this job, it's kind of a tall ask to send you to this book if there isn't a core that's ready to deliver the service. So, I almost feel like they're in reverse. I gotta get the core solidified before I can ask you to do some of the ideas in this book. So, that's how it ended up being something I wanted to At first, I wasn't exactly sure because I don't know what the answers are. I'd like to say that I don't have your answers. But I do have the right questions. And that's what I'm working on right now is trying to decide what are the right questions and who out there does have a solution. So, I'm gathering those. So hey, anybody listening that has an amazing idea on how to break service fatigue, my contact info is going to be in the show notes. I'd love to hear from you and find out because there are so many great ideas out there with companies we may have never even heard of before.

Yep. And you don't have to be a Google, or a Facebook, or Microsoft to make those ideas come to the forefront. Everybody who is on the front lines of providing service to customers, I think, has some tools in their toolbox to make this happen. Laurie, let's talk a little bit about leadership awareness. I was just reading something recently. According to the leading measure of burnout, they have the Maslach Burnout Inventory. And burnout is most often triggered by 6 key drivers. And that's the things like workload, perceived control, lack of reward and recognition, poor relationships in the workplace, lack of fairness. And I think the last one was mismatch of values.

Hmm. How do you find that when it comes to this service fatigue component, how aware are leaders around those Well, I find that that's the big struggle is because, and I think we alluded to it early on, sometimes leaders develop a box of, this is what it takes to work here. Fit inside this box or there isn't a place for you. Well, here's where the problem is. I don't think there are too many leaders that can really enforce that right now because we need the warm bodies. We need the working team. And so, it's real easy to get lippy about, hey Marc, if you don't like this, take a hike. When I have 35 resumes on my desk of qualified good people that want your position. But I'm not in that situation right now. I might have one app on my desk and it's not somebody as good as you are at the job. And so, I'm going to instead change my enforcement of some of the values and what I like to call the boundaries. I'm going to be changing that a little bit to keep you as happy as I can. Because again, I don't want you shifting and going off somewhere else. So, we have a lot of moving parts for leaders right now.

Yeah, it's interesting because the more you talk about it, again, growing up as a baby boomer, when I applied, my very first job was McDonald's. And there were so many people applying to a job at McDonald's that when I got in, it was like, woohoo! I scored a touchdown. It's like, this is so— because the unemployment rate was so high. And you were blessed. And it gave the employers a certain amount of power when unemployment rates are very high because it's like, you know what? You're a dime a dozen. And now, like to your point, now we have to be very specific. But at the same token, doesn't it create challenges in the workplace where all of a sudden, you have preferential treatment because now I want to keep this one particular thing, person?

Absolutely.

And when you're looking at the team dynamics, that might skew a few things.

Well, sure. Because if all of a sudden, I've got 15 people working here at this establishment and I'm treating you differently You're getting some kind of special treatment. And the guy who's working the station next to you, as you just listed off those 5 or 6 different things, he sees that as unfair. And as soon as that's unfair, he becomes disgruntled, right? You can imagine the dominoes that flow. Let's just say that you're allowed to keep showing up for work late. And it gets a little later and a little later and you've got lame excuses why. And he's covering you on the opening duties because you keep coming in later and later. Pretty soon, he's going to say, forget this. I'll go somewhere else where I'm appreciated, where it's being recognized. So, your original question to me is about the leaders. Is it more challenging for the leaders? And I think there are 2 things at play here. One, they need to look at that list you just rattled off and really pay attention to how we're treating the staff. And is it consistent? And is it the right thing, that balancing thing between what we're delivering to our customers And how we are serving our staff. So, I'll give you a brief example. Just last weekend, we were up in Wisconsin and we went to a restaurant where they open at 5 PM. And they unlock the doors right at 5 PM. And everybody knows that. And there's about 6 or 7 of us standing outside. And the lady in front of me at about 5 to 5 tried the door and it opened. They had unlocked it a few minutes early. And a staff person came over and very rudely said, We don't open till 5. And she pulled the door shut and locked it. So, there's only 5 minutes to go. But the image they have now given out with one exchange is this isn't going to be the best experience. Now, she had all these— I'm big into word swaps. She had all these other options that she could have done. She could have simply said, oh, we unlocked 5 minutes early but we're not quite ready for you yet. Right? Wouldn't that have come across better? Well, here I am judging this person thinking we've got a staff person who needs some additional training.

Right.

And I'm always watching for those ideas. And then, after we got inside and got seated, I found out that the person who did that is the manager of the restaurant. It isn't a staff person who needs more training. It's a manager who is probably so service fatigued that she can't stand the idea that we already have another rush of customers coming in, as opposed to all the other ways she could have handled that entire exchange. She also became the example for the 3 staff people who were standing behind her. They saw how she treated that lady. And that becomes their example, right? Now, we're a copy of a copy. Not good. However, when we got to our seats, our server was spectacular. She was spot on. And if we would have met her first, my expectation of this particular restaurant would have been much, much higher. And instead, I went in kind of going, oh my gosh! I was doing the groaning in that example.

Yeah, it's so amazing. And what's interesting about this is it is like a domino because at some point, the leader who put up with the tardiness of a particular employee because if I bring this up, if I shake the tree, I might lose that employee. The difficulty with that is at some point for the leader, it's going to become unbearable. And then, you're now going to have to pull that person in and say, hey, you've been tardy all this time. And now, we have to do something about it. And the employee is going to look and go, it's been fine for 6 months. Why are you coming down on me now? Likewise, Exactly. the employee who witnesses the manager's behavior of this kind of service is when they start adapting that behavior, the managers are like, we have to be more customer service oriented. We have to behave properly in front of customers. And it's like, hmm, a little bit of a double standard.

Yes, exactly. A lot of people don't really like this metaphor. But I really believe this. It is a lot like parenting, right? We set the rules. We explain what the consequence is for not following the rules. And then, we consistently administer that punishment. The second that you make a threat that you can't back up on or you don't want to back up on, you have lost your power.

Yes.

And so, this culture then dominoes in ways that you don't want. So, getting that fresh start and re-establishing your culture I think is one of the most painful things that a leader can do. But on the backside, you're reaping the benefits. There's also seasonal that's on my mind right now. Seasonal employment. We get a whole new group of people coming in. for this particular season. So, we get to start fresh every season if we want to. That's not true of many of the businesses I work with. It's the same team all around. But in this particular example I just gave, there's a whole new crew that's coming in next summer. And this manager can start all over if she wants to establish what the culture should be like at this particular location.

Absolutely true. But it takes intentionality. And so, one of the questions that I toy with is Is where does emotional intelligence come into play for leaders when it comes to this idea of mitigating service fatigue?

Well, it's certainly very high. And I think that there's a lot of leaders that probably grew into their job that may have never spent the time studying some of these things that you and I make a living studying. So, we've already talked about generational issues. I think that the social IQ, the social intelligence is really important to understand. And then, the thing I like to talk about is the whole diet, idea of words. Words is where the power is because I can say the same thing 2 different ways and give you 2 very different experiences in dealing with me. So, if we focused on the word swaps, take these words out and put these words in, I can still give you bad news but I can do it in a much better service way. Now, how does that tie into service fatigue is that if I can keep delivering to you as the customer what you need, I'm going to get less blowback from you. That's another form of armoring myself up is having these right words to be able to give you.

Love it!

This is so brilliant. Laurie, I bet the people are tuning into this podcast and thinking, how do I get hold of Miss Laurie Guest? How could people get hold of you if they find this interesting?

Well, it's really easy to find Yeah. It's myname.com. So I spell it L-A-U-R-I-E and then G-U-E-S-T. I'm sure you're going to have that in the show notes so people can just click to find it. But on that site, there is a very healthy blog that has all kinds of videos in it. And I actually did a 5-part series on service fatigue that we're going to make sure that people have access to, that they can dig a little deeper because we can only go so far in our short time together. So, we'll make sure they have those resources. And my store is also on there. So, that's where the book is and some of the other goodies that we have available are there.

And like you said, it's all in the show notes. So, feel free to tap into Laurie's expertise and her brilliance. Go to her website. Laurie, with everything going on, what actions do you think those tuning in could take now to combat the service fatigue? They're recognizing they have a problem. What are the steps?

Yeah, well, I've got lots of them. But I'm going to give you 3 today.

Okay.

So, there are 3 things that I really want people to zero in on. They happen to be the 3 things I have the most passion for. As I sat down to start writing this book, I'm like, oh, this is where I'm starting. So, I can tell that's where the passion is. So, number 1 is to establish boundaries. Those boundaries are with your own time and even the boundaries with inside your organization. So, let's say for a moment that we're— let's pick a different kind of industry. We've talked restaurants. We've talked healthcare. What kind of industry do you and I want to be working in, Marc, to give my example? I work for you. What do we do? What's our industry?

Retail. Retail is a big one.

Perfect, yeah, perfect. That's a great one. Okay, so you own the store and I work for you in this. We'll call it a clothing store, right? And so, my hours, I work 5 days a week and I am done working at 5 PM. So, I have a 9 to 5 workday, let's say. At 5 PM, you are the type of leader who has been smart and created boundaries that say, Laurie, when you punch out at 5 o'clock, You are off the clock. That is a boundary I'm going to respect unless the place is on fire. We urgently need something. You should not expect to receive a text message from me. You certainly don't need to be checking email. If there is something really urgent, which I don't expect, then I will call you. Then, I as the staff person need to— what did I say? Take ownership of the fatigue. If I am going to be checking for emails from you, my boss, at 11 o'clock at night right before I go to bed, guess what? I broke the boundary. I've added a drip to my own service fatigue at my own self-inflicted boundary breaking, right? I want to repeat that. Self-inflicted boundary breaking. I am finding that a lot. And the reason that people do it, the one that's in my shoes, the reason they do it is because they think it keeps them out of trouble. They believe it keeps them on top of things. It's— they think that it's extra credit. Like, I will I will do better, be better, grow farther in my job if I show how diligent I am. Nobody can ever say that I dropped the ball. So, I see a lot of self-preservation. Can you hear that? And the excuses people are giving. You can't be mad at me, Marc, as my boss because I was in touch the whole time I was away. Does that make sense?

It does, absolutely.

And I'm not helping you by coming to work aggravated that I have this job. When I come to work Thursday morning, And I'm aggravated because I spent Wednesday night staying connected when you didn't ask me to stay connected. So, boundaries is the first thing that I want people thinking about and digging into that a little deeper. And certainly listening to the segment I did on that with the free resources we're giving. We dig a lot deeper into what I mean by boundaries. So, that's the first one. The second one is allow the joy. See, I think people miss out on the little wins. So again, we'll go back to our retail example. I have a lady come in who's looking for something and she's struggling. She's got a special event. She's not feeling that great about herself. She doesn't think she looks good in the dress. But she tries it on and I do this amazing job of making her feel good and look good and feel valued. And she leaves not only buying that dress but the heels and the jewelry to match. Everybody wins. I brought joy to the lady. I brought joy to you because we're more profitable that day. And I feel valued. Didn't you have that, Marc, in your list of the 5 or 6 6 things valued. If this day in our shop is better because I totally rocked in this job, then we're going to share in that joy. And you're going to recognize that. Let's say you were in on that day and you watched me do that. Afterwards, you're coming over and you're giving me praise and appreciation. You go, girl! Look at what you did! And that lady is so much happier because of you. That's something else leaders can be doing is catching people in the moment, doing it right, and recognizing them for it. And then, my third one. And then, I'll go back and answer questions if you have them. But the third one is you've got to make time for rest. And there's a variety of rest categories. Certainly, sleeping is the form of rest that we think of first. But you know, there's a lot of other kinds of rest. So, one of the rests that I'm taking right now is a social rest. So, what I mean by that is I'm saying yes Yes. Far less often to coffee dates and getaway weekends with friends and jumping on Zoom calls with colleagues and helping them figure something out. I'm taking the summer to focus more on me, my family, and the writing of this book. So while I'm not being rude in protecting my time, I'm giving myself a social rest. That also means I'm not on social media as often. I think that's a good thing for me personally right now because there is so much unrest and conflict. I don't want that coming into my happy bubble and impacting my joy. So, while I don't want to be ignorant about what's going on, I also don't need to bathe in it. I don't need to be sitting in it all the time because that impacts my level of fatigue for the work I have ahead. So, boundaries, allow the joy, make time for all the different kinds of rest. Those are my top 3 things that I would want listeners to start. And the good news is it doesn't cost them anything to dive into those 3 things.

Yes. Oh, brilliant! And what's interesting about that is this is just— you're just getting started. I thoroughly expect that once your book comes out, we'll post the link onto this episode. So, people keep an eye out. When do you think that book is going to come out?

Well, if I could get every listener to write a chapter, we could have it done by August.

There you go. There's the challenge. Reach out to Laurie and give her your stories.

Yeah, be the ghostwriter and get it done. I'll tell you, anybody who has not tried to write a book before, I don't think people realize how hard it is because you're constantly thinking about who am I writing it for. So you asked me when's it going to be done. I'm really— I'd like to have it done by the end of fall. We'll call it October 31st. But I had a rough week of writing this week. I was not making much progress. So right now there is not a deadline. The answer is whenever it's good enough for sharing.

Yes.

And right now I'm still gathering a lot of data. And certainly by the first of the year, I would hope it would be out there somewhere. And the reason is Right. Is because it doesn't have to be perfect to be done. We need to get information out there and we need to do it quickly because I do think this is its own form of an epidemic. And when people are tired all— I mean, and I know we're kind of kidding back and forth about a few things and we do want an interview to be fun. The serious side of this is that this is the start of dominoes that leads to a lot of trouble. The mental health side of it, the ability to keep a job, to pay the bills. All of that stuff, I take very seriously. So, while we want to have fun in our examples, I really do think that this is a crisis that needs to be taken on. So, I'm hoping I can get it out of me sooner rather than later.

And it's interesting that you said that because I talked to one restaurateur just recently and I said, he was telling me everything that he's had to recoup with since the pandemic has come back in. He's still trying to adapt and trying to shift. into this new era. And I asked him what his work-life balance was like. And he said, it's completely non-existent.

Yes.

And to everybody who's out there, like to your point, putting policies together that tells people that you're not supposed to answer emails and then follow up on it. If you find that your employee after you say, we don't want you sending emails after 5 o'clock, you should be addressing the fact that at 11:15, when you got that email in your inbox. You should be addressing that with your employees. And not necessarily doing it in a rah-rah rewarding kind of way. But in a, here's what our expectations are kind of way. I'd love to get into, for the people who are watching this, I'd love to get into some considerations and some cautionaries. And we'll do that right after this.

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We are talking with Laurie Guest, Customer Service Expert Extraordinaire. And Laurie, I imagine that dealing with service fatigue, when people are saying, yeah, I'm seeing some of these symptoms. I'm seeing some of these consequences of it. This is bigger than just a band-aid policy. What should people be cautious of as they try to address this issue?

Well, I think we need to be cautious of not doing Yeah. Too much at one time. Remember earlier in the interview, I gave the parenting example. If all of a sudden today, I have 2 teens, you know, they've been in the family for 16 years. And all of a sudden, I'm saying, okay, from now on, the rules are like this. And I change everything. What's going to happen? There's going to be a lot of unrest. There's going to be stress for them. They're not going to adapt very well to the change. So, I want people to be thinking about The space between so much change that we give stress because people don't like change and a drip, drip, drip of change is a torture in its own right. So, we need to figure out what is the balance between those 2 things. And I think that getting people involved in how we can create the culture we want, a we culture rather than a here's how you're going to do it. I think your original question to me is what— how did you word that? What was your original question?

How do we face the cautionaries? Yeah.

Yeah, the cautionaries. I haven't really thought about that before. That's really— I might write about that today. I think that doing too much at one time when we've already established the way it is, we have a mold. Everywhere you work, there is already the mold that was set maybe by generations of people who came before you in that particular place. So, I think being careful. Caution is not too much at one time. Another The caution is not to get so flexible that the tail wags the dog, right? All of a sudden, it's like, hey, you want to set your own hours? Go ahead and set your own hours. Well, that's cautionary tale, right? Because again, we still have to be thinking about how are we serving the customers? How are we getting the work done? Especially those people who are in industries where flexibility, it just isn't there the way it might be for you and I. You and I can decide right now that we want to take this afternoon off. And if we don't have anything on our calendar, our businesses are going to be just fine even though we took the afternoon off. Well, not if you and I are running that retail store or that restaurant where people thought we were going to be open this afternoon. We can't become inconsistent in that. And so, I think what's hard when we talk in generalities is how does each industry— how does— what do I want to say? What are the kind of the boundaries for this particular group that we're talking to. So, when I do my work, it's very customized. I find out what is your industry. Where can we push these boundaries? Where do we not have flexibility? Those are the types of things that I'll find out before I even make suggestions to you. But I think that's where I'd start as caution is not too much at one time.

It's interesting because the adaptation when people want to make the change, we have to also understand that we are being driven by certain sets of values. And so, I suggest that people get together and sit down and do some sort of a values assessment between themselves and their staff to try to figure out how did we fall off this bandwagon. Are there, when it comes down to wanting to instigate this change aside, you've given 2 things. One is don't do too much too quickly and include— make sure that you include your team. Is there something else that we should be As we're shaking this tree of change, something else that we should be aware of?

Well, I also think looking to others outside your industry for great ideas you might not have thought of. I love to look at what some of the bigger names do. So, let me give you a brief example. REI, the outdoors company, they do something I think is brilliant that ties in with what we're talking about. They choose not to open on Black Friday each year. And they make a huge public announcement that this is a day reserved for their employees to get out to the outdoors, right? So, it still ties in with their brand because they're selling all outdoor stuff. But they come across as a company who cares about their people. Now, they're not doing the doorbuster thing at midnight, which actually Black Friday now keeps backing up so that organizations, retail stores are getting ready 2, 3, 4 days ahead of time by ramping up their staffing. So, we now have an exhaust And so, I think REI is a perfect example where they created a culture of a day off that probably cost them a lot of money. But in the end, it doesn't because they have staff that are refreshed and probably ready to tackle the December shopping month better than maybe their competition. That's an example of what I'm talking about is that you and I might work Or you might own this small retail store in downtown USA. But we could still use REI as our example.

Yes.

We were recently somewhere where there was a restaurant we wanted to go to. This was on the backside of the closed-down pandemic. And we went on a Tuesday night. But there was a big sign in the window that says, Thursdays, we will be closed for no other reason than to let our staff rest. And I thought, even if I'd showed up on Thursday night thinking I was going to have dinner there because I didn't know better, I would not have I would have been angry with them because what? The word swap. It didn't say, sorry, we're closed. Apologize for the inconvenience. It told me the why. And the why is something that made me go, cool. Like, right? I respect that decision. Way to give your people a break right before the weekend at this bar is going to get busy. And so, those are just 2 examples that pop in my head that you and I could do in our small business even though we may not be as big as a well-known company.

Sure. And it's so funny that you say that because one of the things I get from big companies is, oh, little companies have it all made. They can make decisions on the fly. And little companies are going, oh, big companies have it so well because they have budget and they can do— And it's like, no, no. We all have the power of being able to influence our little sphere of influence.

Yes, it's funny how the grass is always greener somewhere else. I know somebody who's super famous. And super duper famous, like you would know her. And she says, oh my gosh, you have it made. You can just sit in the backyard and enjoy without, you know, no paparazzi. You know, and I'm looking at her going, oh my gosh, look at everywhere you go, somebody's taking your picture, right? And so, it's like no matter what you have, you envy what somebody else has. But we can use it as an example. We can look at what somebody else is doing big or small and say, how does that apply to me? I think we could do more of that.

And the big question then becomes, and why do we value it so much? Right? Because once we understand why we value that, then we're on our way to be able to make that change. This has been a brilliant, brilliant conversation, Laurie. Do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

I do. As I'm interviewing people, here's my biggest surprise. You want to know that, right? Oh, we'll save that for next time. No, I'm kidding. My biggest The biggest surprise that I have found is the number of people making an excuse for their fatigue by putting it on, we pride ourselves in great customer service. Let me see if I can word that better. Instead of taking ownership for the actions they have that leaves them in service fatigue, they pride themselves with, we do whatever it takes to keep the customer happy. If that means staying open late, if it means You know, fill in the blank. If it means this, we will do it because our customers mean that much to us. And I'm starting to form the words for pushback on that. I don't know what it is yet. But I do have pushback because you think you're doing it for them. But in reality, you're just making it harder to consistently deliver great service. So, that's the aha that I'm going to be pulling the layers back in the coming weeks. And I'll get back to you when I know the answer.

That sounds brilliant. You know, I just published a blog post about because I've been hearing a lot of this component. And I thought to myself, because we're in customer service, we understand this dynamic of serving others. Well, what happens if we were to take that paradigm and apply it to our employees? What happens if we as leaders started looking at providing customer service to our employees?

For sure.

Yeah, we are. And again, I do believe we are in a new era now because I think if nothing else, COVID has sped up our evolution in the workplace. And so, it'll be— I'm really looking forward to that book.

Thanks.

So, I'm going to encourage everybody to get onto your list so that when it is released, that they'll be able to be first in on this brand new book. Could you just remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

Sure, absolutely. You can go to my website, which is myname.com, laurieguest.com, and after you've been on the website for about 10 seconds, you'll get up one of those pop-up blocks that asks you to put your email in there. If you want to do that, that will automatically put you on the list to get an infrequent update from us, but certainly one that tells you when the book is ready. If you don't want to get on that list, just click the X out and then dig around in there and find as many goodies as you can because we've loaded it with a lot of great resources that don't cost you a dime.

Laurie, this has been absolutely brilliant. I have so enjoyed this. And I hope that at some point, you'll come back again. Maybe when you're ready to launch the book, we'll come back and talk some more about it. It's been brilliant. Thank you so much for your generosity of sharing your knowledge, your experience, and of course, your passion with us today.

You're welcome.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book yourself on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. And as always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, why don't you go ahead and subscribe to this show? That'll give you first dibs whenever I bring you fresh new content to help you create that jaw-dropping, show-stopping experience that your employees and your customers deserve. My name is Marc Haine. I hope that you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. Thanks for joining us today.