{"id":397,"date":"2012-12-11T17:03:48","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T22:03:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/?p=397"},"modified":"2013-06-12T17:46:59","modified_gmt":"2013-06-12T21:46:59","slug":"talk-like-a-human-not-like-a-robot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/talk-like-a-human-not-like-a-robot\/397","title":{"rendered":"Talk like a human, not like a robot"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, a company rep told me, &#8220;&#8221;Customer satisfaction is our number one priority.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I laughed, because no human being actually talks like that, right? Clearly, he was badly coached. Stilted words guaranteed a clumsy delivery. This turned into an awkward, laugh-out-loud moment.<\/p>\n<p>Later this afternoon, I worked with another service.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Customer service is our top priority,&#8221; the customer service person squawked at me, stiffly.<\/p>\n<p>I <span class=\"GRcorrect\">didn&#8217;t laugh<\/span> this time. I felt alarmed. Twice in one day? Two different companies? What gives?<\/p>\n<p>When did training employees to talk like robots sneak back into fashion?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/robots.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-399\" title=\"robots\" alt=\"talk like a robot\" src=\"http:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/robots.png\" width=\"400\" height=\"279\" srcset=\"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/robots.png 400w, https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/robots-300x209.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The rise of social media taught us that robotic corporate scripts do little to help customers connect <span class=\"GRcorrect\">to<\/span> the brand. Instead of training employees to &#8216;speak to a script&#8217; &#8212; it&#8217;s far superior to learn <a href=\"http:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/how-are-you-using-improv-skills-to-build-credibility\/328\">business improvisational skills<\/a>.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How might a customer react to a certain situation? How might an employee respond?<\/li>\n<li>How might an employee initiate a conversation? How might a customer respond?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The answers to each set of questions are limitless. Limiting conversations to a small set of scripts dehumanizes the interaction. It&#8217;s a painful and humiliating experience for both the employee and the customer.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of scripting your business interactions, imagine a training session where employees present each other with a variety of customer-facing situations.\u00a0Employees can practice responding to the many moods and scenarios they encounter on a daily basis. Employees learn and practice empathy skills when they act as customers in each scenario.<\/p>\n<p>Why would anyone &#8216;stick to the script&#8217; when they can instead present an opportunity to make an authentic personal connection?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This morning, a company rep told me, &#8220;&#8221;Customer satisfaction is our number one priority.&#8221; I laughed, because no human being actually talks like that, right? Clearly, he was badly coached. Stilted words guaranteed a clumsy delivery. This turned into an awkward, laugh-out-loud moment. Later this afternoon, I worked with another service. &#8220;Customer service is our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":399,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coaching","category-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":405,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maniactive.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}