Bust out of Service Fatigue: Build Better Boundaries

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Let’s talk boundaries: what they are, why they’re important, and how they can help you and your team bust out of service fatigue once and for all.

Boundaries are a hot topic right now, as we all learn more about how effective they are to maintain peace of mind. It’s so important to your mental health and happiness to set—and enforce—effective boundaries with those who might otherwise
take advantage of you or overstay their welcome.

But what do boundaries have to do with service fatigue in the workplace? I absolutely do not recommend saying to your manager, team member, or customer, “I’m setting a boundary here and I can’t do that for you today.” That’s not at all what I mean by boundaries, as you’ll soon see.

When I refer to boundaries and how they can become a big factor in solving service fatigue, I’m talking about the way a lack of clear boundaries—those metaphorical ways we define where one limit ends and another begins—can negatively impact your work experience and compromise your customer service delivery. When there’s no clear definition of who is responsible for what or how certain circumstances are handled in the company, confusion ensues. Though you might think you’re helping by stepping up and working outside of your domain, it’s more likely you’re risking the excellent experience your customers expect and overextending yourself at the same time.

Reading that, you might think I’m encouraging you not to be helpful in situations that call for extra support or an all-hands-on-deck approach. You might think that, but you’d be wrong! Boundaries don’t prevent you from helping. In fact, they
do the exact opposite.

Learn more with the Bust Out of Service Fatigue Keynote and Frontline Toolkit

Meet Laurie Guest

Meet Laurie Guest

An entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author, Laurie Guest, CSP is a “go-to-resource” for customer service excellence. For more than two decades, she has shared her practical point of view on customer service and staff development with audiences and companies across the country, blending real-life examples and proven action steps for improvement. Her latest book, The 10¢ Decision: How Small Change Pays of Big, presents her most sought-after and impactful strategies to find and retain the best staff and highest-quality customers while delivering exceptional guest experiences.

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