lessons from customer service
A few lessons in supply and demand, the people-first philosophy, and building an audience of “raving fans.”
Dear reader,
Happy Sunday! I hope you’ve had a great week. I’ve had a lot to think about this week, and this week’s letter has become a thought-experiment-journal-entry to reflect that. This time last week, I was in the car on the way to the first of my graduate school auditions. I’m planning to write a full reflection of this experience once the audition cycle has wrapped up (I still have a few weeks to go!), so stay tuned for that! I will spoil that letter a little to tell you that I walked away from the experience having learned a few things about the way I want to approach the coming auditions, though.
Auditioning has always been hard for me. I know that it will play a big part in my career as a musician, but there are all sorts of mental games that the audition process brings up for me. I wrote about something similar in my essay about competition, which you can find here. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s something I enjoy, I do find that I learn a lot each time I audition, and I do what I can to apply these lessons in my larger practice.
I’m often looking for the silver lining of lessons, whether through a tough audition process or the mundane parts of my daily life. A recent source of some interesting lessons has been my day job in customer service. I truly can’t complain about this job; I’ve been with the company for over two years, and have some wonderful friends and coworkers there. I started as a cashier at nights during my junior year of my undergrad, and now work with management, at the service desk, and in planning store-wide events and projects. I have been offered generous flexibility in scheduling, and opportunities to express my creativity and learn about myself in leadership.
There are times, though, that it does feel less interesting than my work in music. At the end of the day, it’s closer to a fulfilling way to help pay my bills and cover the many expenses of pursing an education and career in music than a deep passion. I can’t always bring myself to be deeply invested in selling trash tags and cleaning the bottle and can redemption area of the store everyday.
Each year, there is a lull in business around the start of the new year. The holidays have passed, the students from the two large colleges in Ithaca are still home on break, and the store is, in many ways, resetting. This is a time for management to reassess merchandising, undertake renovation projects, and focus back in on training and the excellence of the employees. As part of this refocusing, I read a couple of customer service training books. While the books themselves were interesting reads, I was more inspired to begin to think about my work as a musician through some of their teachings. It struck me that, in a loose sense, performance and art are simply forms of service.
I think there are many reasons that we might perform. Some performers are drawn to the art as a way of expressing a story or deep emotion, and feel relief by taking it from their heads and hearts and sharing it with the world. Some performers have a pull to the stage because of a deep love for a particular genre or composer, and a desire to continue or create a legacy for it. And some are lead to perform as a service for those listening.
I believe that the greatest power of music, and especially vocal music, is its ability to transform a listener. Music has the potential to help a listener liberate or process emotions, connect with a story, or be represented in new ways. Performers can use their voices and instruments to share the gift of human connection with listeners, or to guide them to consider the things they hear in a new light.
When I’m working at my day job, most of my job is to listen to the questions and needs of customers or fellow employees and to offer answers or solutions. This can be simple, like pointing out the display of batteries on the register in front of us, but this can often require some more creative thinking. At times, I have been presented with questions that I have never heard before, and have had to ask others or reference outside resources to figure out the best option for those involved.
One of the important lessons of customer service is just this: recognizing a need or desire in your customer, and finding a way to meet that need. This involves a couple of things: listening well to understand what a customer is asking for, and being empowered to use your resources to find the right solution. The first part isn’t always easy; often, people will come up to share a complaint or problem, and they might not even know how they would like it to remedied. In other cases, they might not be satisfied with the solution that you are able to offer, or need to hear more extensive explanation as to why you choose to do a certain thing.
This same principle can exist in performance. If we think about the audience as the customer, we can understand that they have needs. People often turn to music to express difficult emotions or seek solutions or answers from situations in their lives. Without even thinking about it, music can become the customer service desk of human experiences.
This asks a lot of us as musicians. People are used to turning to music to answer a complaint or fill an emotional need, and we have the difficult job of hearing their need, understanding the possibilities of our solutions, and connecting them with it. And this is not always possible. It can’t be the case that we are able to meet every audience member exactly where they are every day, or even match our intended work with their musical needs throughout a season or year.
I do believe, however, that we can do a lot to tailor our efforts to connect with the needs of our audience communities. This happens naturally in some situations; musicians hired to perform at weddings and funerals will make specific programming choices that will match the emotional demands of the occasion. I can’t exactly articulate how, but I believe it is the responsibility of artistic leadership to understand the state of the world and communities around them, and to consider their needs when considering programs and projects.
Then, you get to be creative. Once we have an idea of who we’re performing for, and the questions and needs they have of the world around them, we get to find new ways to offer solutions to them.
This work is not always feasibly accomplished alone. As musicians, we are asked and trained to be collaborators. We must know how to communicate with our peers and how to express musical and artistic ideas in professional, yet empathetic, ways. In this area, though, I believe there is something we can learn from the philosophies of good business.
One of the books that I read this week talked in depth about the importance of building the right team, and of investing in the growth of that team first. It highlighted a few stories of companies that truly took the time to welcome each new employee to the company, to ensure they were introduced to their team members, and to implement continuous systems of building connection between and showing appreciation for employees.
This stuck with me, as I reflected on the fact that my most rewarding musical experiences have always been with the people who I have had the strongest bonds with. The first memory that comes to mind is of the final piece on my senior recital last spring. I was able to bring together seven of my good friends to perform Blake Morgan’s arrangement of Caledonia, and it was the perfect way to round out my farewell to the program and school at large. While I was lucky to have incredible singers by my side, I felt more honored at the true meaning and love they brought to each line of the text.
This memory is just one example of the greater effects a strong bond between performers can have on an audience. Another memory: this fall, at the competition mentioned earlier, I had the opportunity to perform with a piano collaborator who has become a close friend. While we each received kind feedback from the judges and other singers, the thing I heard most was that they could tell that we were good friends. There was a palpable connection on stage, which noticeably made our musical collaboration stronger.
These types of bonds don’t come easily, and are often facilitated by the closely-knit environment of a conservatory or extended program. I think they are something to strive for in each performance, though. It can be as simple as getting to know the people sitting around you in a rehearsal, even if it means coming early to be able to introduce yourself. In this process, there is a need for the utmost level of mutual respect, and a display of trust in the others’ musicianship and ability. While some of my best singing has happened in these positive environments, I can say that some of the singing I am the least proud of has been in rooms where I have felt under appreciated or even belittled by my supposed collaborators. I truly believe that nobody in a rehearsal space should be made to feel less-than, and that unfriendly environments and attitudes are also unfriendly to creativity and musical expression.
Our collaborators, the people around us, are worth the investment of kindness and community, and it will shine through our musical performance to our audiences.
The final concept that has stuck with my from customer service training is the idea of “raving fans,” coined by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles. The theory behind raving fans is that “merely satisfying customers is no longer enough.” Raving fans are “big advocates for you… and are highly engaged with everything your brand does.”
In business, these are the people who are consistently engaging with your brand, and who are willing to refer their friends and family to do the same. There are a few pillars to create these fans: offering an exceptional product or service, making it easy for them to keep coming back, and actively engaging their attention and opinions. The final element of this is to offer something different, even if it is something small. Find something that can make your brand stand out, embrace it, and allow it to be something that creates memories for your customers.
Again, we can draw comparisons between customers in business and our audiences. To build raving fans in your audience means to build connections with the people who are willing and able to keep coming back, to engage with your posts on social media, to bring friends and family to future performances. I think there is a lot of overlap in the process for developing these relationships with audiences and investing in them.
First, by investing in the collaborative relationships behind the scenes and meeting the needs of the community, we can create an excellent presentation of music and art. This is only amplified when there are unique elements to this presentation. I am still learning, after years of trying, that some of my strongest qualities as a musician are those that are different. And yet, the performances that I remember the most, and that I tell people about the most, are those that were different, and new, and unique. Then, there is the task of welcoming audiences to your performances in ways that are engaging, and that values their feedback and needs.
So, this isn’t easy. I’m not saying I have any of the answers for how to achieve these things, but I’ll probably be spending a good portion of the next few years thinking about it, and talking to the people who might. Hopefully these lessons from my customer service training will help you to think differently about your musicianship and the relationships you can build with collaborators and audiences. Let me know your thoughts in the comments on this post!
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Upcoming Performances:
January 28, 3pm; Broome County Forum Theatre, Binghamton: Mozart’s Requiem with Southern Tier Singers Collective and Binghamton Philharmonic Orchestra
February 24, 7:30pm; St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Binghamton: Arches in Sound with Southern Tier Singers Collective
Thank you for reading <3
Love,
Caitlin