Updated: October 17, 2024

It's not easy to hide your feelings.

My friend Jenny Dempsey wrote a personal and poignant post about this on her blog. Her beloved dog, Miso, had died and she was finding it difficult to hide her grief at work. 

That's exactly what her job required her to do.

Jenny was a customer care manager at DMV.org. Her legendarily warm and bubbly customer service inspires songs from customers.

That's what makes her so good at her job where displaying warmth and friendliness towards customers is expected.

Suddenly, this was very difficult.

How do you bring a warm, bubbly personality to work when you don’t feel that way? As Jenny wrote, grief isn’t often welcome in customer service: “We’re expected to stuff those feelings down and get to work.”

Many customer service professionals do just that. They engage in surface acting, where they pretend to be happy and friendly even when they’re not.

This takes an incredible toll.

Surface acting can cause poor customer service, decreased job satisfaction, and burnout. Here's what you need to know and what you can do about it.

What is surface acting?

Surface acting is a technique where you display an emotion you don't actually feel. For example, smiling when you don’t feel happy.

Customer service employees are typically expected to display certain emotions such as happiness, friendliness, and warmth.

Those emotions might be displayed through smiling, a warm tone of voice, and smiling eyes.

Surface acting is when you don't feel happy but force yourself to smile anyway. The bigger the gap between how you feel and the emotions you put on display, the harder surface acting becomes.

Expending this kind of emotional labor is exhausting.

What is emotional labor?

Emotional labor is the effort required to engage in surface acting. The term emotional labor was first coined by Arlie Hochschild in her book, The Managed Heart.

Like any type of effort, exerting too much can be exhausting.

Think about a time when you were feeling ill at work. Perhaps you had a headache, congestion, or something else that made you feel miserable. Now, try to remember how hard it was to smile and act friendly with customers.

That effort is emotional labor.

 

Why aren’t customer service employees friendly?

A neighbor recently complained to me about poor customer service he experienced while dining with his niece in a restaurant. His server wasn't friendly. He and his niece thought the server should be fired.

My neighbor can be a bit surly. I can only imagine what a gem he must have been as a restaurant guest. It's a challenge to serve someone with a smile who treats you poorly.

Unsympathetic, demanding customers are a big drain on emotional labor, especially when people like this test our natural fight or flight instinct.

I have the luxury of politely ending the conversation with my neighbor when he gets too grumpy. A restaurant server must stick with it and act happy.

Customer service employees face other challenges, too.

You might be grieving, like my friend Jenny, or just be having a bad day. Perhaps you dislike your coworkers, your boss, or even your customers. You might be tired of defending a defective product or a dumb policy.

Many customer service professionals don’t get paid enough. While intellectual and physical skills are highly valued, studies show you don't make a lot of money just for being good at taking crap from other people. 

Unpredictable schedules can also make outside of work difficult.

This incredible New York Times article profiled a young single mother who tried to balance school and child care while dealing with a work schedule that could change from week-to-week or even day to day. 

It's no surprise that retailers came under investigation by several states for requiring employees to be on-call for work without getting paid.

 

How does emotional labor affect service?

There are many ways that emotional labor impact service. 

The obvious one is employees simply get tired. Expending too much emotional labor is one of the biggest reasons why customer service employee struggle to be friendly. 

Researcher Alicia Grandey at Penn State University discovered a strong link between surface acting and low job satisfaction. She also found a clear link to emotional exhaustion.

This may explain why my own study found that 59 percent of contact center agents are at risk of burnout. 

The tangible impact of all of these problems is lower customer satisfaction, lower employee engagement, and higher turnover. 

 

What Can You Do About It?

On a personal level, it's up to each employee to find his or her own happiness. One exercise you can try is called the Attitude Anchor. It can help you recover a good mood.

For customer service managers, the solution is counterintuitive. Don’t try motivational gimmicks like prizes or incentives. Your employees don’t need motivation.

The real challenge is preventing demotivation.

My book, Getting Service Right, explores obstacles that get in the way of great service. It can help you diagnose customer service issues and guide your team to rediscover their natural joy.