Several years ago, I was out to dinner in Orlando with a colleague. At the time, she was the director of training at a large resort and convention hotel located near Disney World.

Her hotel competed for group business head to head with Disney’s own hotels. If you have experienced Disney, then you know how difficult it is for another hotel to win business when competing with them—especially if the deciding factor is the anticipated quality of service that group members will receive as hotel guests.

When I asked Theresa about her approach to customer service training, given her formidable competition on the other side of Interstate 4, she said that a key ingredient was to involve hotel employees in clarifying the difference between their job functions and the essence of their jobs.

Consider the definition of each term:

func⋅tion [fuhngk-shuhn]: –noun The action for which a person or thing is particularly fitted or employed.

es⋅sence [es-uhns]: –noun The most important ingredient; the crucial element.

Depending on the employee’s job role, the functions performed will differ. For instance, the functions of a bellman (e.g., deliver luggage to and from guest rooms, provide information about the hotel outlets and services, etc.) will differ from the functions of a maintenance employee (e.g., perform preventative maintenance, execute repairs, etc.).

Theresa explained that, while employees’ job functions will differ, the essence of their roles was the same: To exceed the expectations of their hotel guests by consistently delivering product and service quality that will result in delighted customers.

Bain and Company, a consumer research firm, equates delighted customers with a category of customers called promoters. Promoters are those customers who are the least price-sensitive, have the highest repurchase rates, and are responsible for between 80 and 90 percent of positive referrals to a company or brand.

Now, Theresa had defined the essence of her employees’ job roles based on their highest priority: exceptional product and service quality. Other organizations may define the essence of their employees’ job roles differently. For instance, my neighbor is the executive director of a halfway house that provides housing for men who are in transition from incarceration to freedom. He told me that the essence of his employees’ job roles is to convey respect towards the clients, his term for the men who occupy the facility.

The challenge for employers is that, oftentimes, employees think that the functions and essence of their job roles are the same. When this happens, employees become transactional and process-focused, treating each customer like the last customer. A factory mentality ensues. In the short-term it may be highly efficient (employees do more things faster) but in the long-term it is ineffective (does not fulfill the organization’s highest priority).

Consider your own organization. Do the employees really know the difference between their job functions and the essence of their jobs? If you’re not sure, just ask. My hunch is that you will be met with blank stares…

This becomes an opportunity for you to have a meaningful conversation with your employees about the difference between the tasks they are responsible for executing and your organization’s highest priority.

Have you ever missed an opportunity to provide a compliment? Perhaps viewing it as optional? I have. And when I do, it’s usually my wife who points it out. Maybe I’ve overlooked her new haircut or the way she keeps a household of six on track. It’s easy to become complacent in this area and, instead of communicating appreciation, convey indifference or apathy.

We do the same with customers. One statistic I read suggested that 68 percent of customers quit doing business with a company due to perceived indifference towards them as customers.

The author Leo Buscaglia wrote, “Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.”

You may be thinking that “…have the potential to turn a life around” sounds a bit dramatic. If, for example, you work in the retail industry and miss an opportunity to compliment a customer on her choice of handbags, life goes on. But consider the field of healthcare and the positive effects that compliments have on patients.

Earlier today I was reading the book, Love Your Patients by Scott Louis Diering, M.D. and came across the following passage:

“One of the nicest gifts we can give anyone is a compliment. A compliment does not cost us anything, is easy to prepare, and shows our patients that we have taken the time to recognize them as special.

For example, when someone is in pain, it is nice to recognize their tolerance. We can say, “You must be very strong to tolerate that!” Or, “You are better than I am, I would be crying!” Or, “You could give lessons on how to manage pain!” Our compliments show our admiration for their pain tolerance.

We can compliment our patients for anything, but compliments about their own healthy behaviors are always good. For example, we can compliment them on their recall for their medical history, their blood sugar log, or their initiative to come in to see us.

Further, praising our patient’s healthy behaviors is a reinforcer for those behaviors. If we reinforce something, it is more likely to occur in the future. And, if we ignore their good behaviors, those good behaviors are less likely to occur again.”

Complimenting customers or patients will help to make the personal customer service you provide more memorable. But remember that co-workers are customers too. They deserve the same type of affirmation and recognition. For more on the topic of recognition, read this light-hearted post titled, Effective recognition is not pi in the sky!

So, while the opportunity to offer a sincere and specific compliment may not present itself during every customer service interaction, just be on the lookout for those opportunities to genuinely recognize the customers you serve.

They will feel better and so will you. As the author J.M. Barrie observed, “Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”

As a trainer or presenter, you are likely accustomed to receiving feedback from your audiences. There are always a couple of pieces of conflicting feedback I can count on: temperature of room (too hot for some, too cold for others); and length of session (too long for some, too short for others).

Other times, there are constructive pieces of feedback that make a lot of sense (e.g., “the discussion following the simulation seemed to drag,” or “I couldn’t see the screen clearly from where I was seated”). The idea is to use this constructive feedback to improve. For instance, during my next presentation I’ll make sure to watch the time and group’s body language during the discussion following the simulation. I’ll also be more attuned to the room set-up to ensure that everyone can clearly see the screen.

So far, so good but have you ever received – from multiple sources – feedback that truly left you perplexed? I recently received feedback from a training session that “more examples” would have been helpful. While I agree that examples are vital to assist participants in transferring theory to application, I was surprised to receive the feedback because (by my count) I had included 62 separate examples over the course of a two hour presentation – that’s an example every two minutes!

I later met with the group contact and shared my confusion with this particular piece of feedback. He reassured me by saying that it only represented the views of a couple attendees out of an auditorium full of people. Still, it’s important to recognize the legitimacy of every single perspective in the room.

That got me thinking about individual and unique learning styles. They’re referred to differently depending on the source you’re citing but generally they distinguish between a learner’s preference for theory or practice, fast or slow, people or things, etc. We all have our own set of highly-evolved, nuanced preferences and tend to operate out of these preferences by default – especially when stressed (as in speaking before a large group…).

My take away: This was a great reminder to me that, while I had prepared 62 examples in advance, every participant would filter these examples differently based on his or her own unique background and set of preferences (e.g., job role, learning style preference, etc.).

Many of the examples were contained in the PowerPoint presentation or workbook. Perhaps I could share more of them orally in the future? Most of the examples were prepared in advance. Maybe I could be more spontaneous next time? The great majority of examples were my own. It might be more effective to solicit the majority of examples from the group during my next presentation.

How about you? Do you have any examples (no pun intended) of perplexing feedback from your own presentations?