Annie Tsai

The short answer is “Yes”. The long answer is something like this: often yes, sometimes not because customers reaching out to you are often consumed with their task at hand, but usually yes because your tone or lack of spark can be a dead giveaway.

The more relevant question is this: Does you feeling “bleh” impact your customer’s experience? It doesn’t have to.

If we explore the characteristics of a “satisfactory” or “exemplary” experience, you will often find phrases like these:

Satisfactory Experience:

• Got my answer
• Nothing went wrong when I tried to do what I wanted to do
• When something did go wrong, the expectations set upfront were met
• It generally “made sense”
• People I interacted with were nice and/or helpful

Exemplary Experience:

• All of the above, plus…
• Some sort of “excitement”, “warm fuzzy”, or “relationship” component
• The feeling of being “understood” and/or “cared for”
• That the people I interacted with had a “vested interest” in me
• When something went wrong, those who helped went beyond the expectations that were set upfront

To deliver on a satisfactory experience, the most important thing you can do is deliver on what you’ve promised. So even if you’re having a “bleh” sort of day, most customers will still understand. The piece that may be missing however is your ability to deliver on something exemplary. Is that extra cup of coffee to put the pep back in your step worth it? Maybe, maybe not.