Start your day with a smile, and keep smiling, because a smile has the incomprehensible power to make someone’s day.
Customer Service With A Smile
Back when I used to work in call centers (“The Dark Times”), I didn’t know the power that a smile had to make someone’s day. It was just an annoying part of my job – we were always told to smile – and keep smiling – while we spoke to our customers. On the surface, that seemed ridiculous – our customers couldn’t see us through the phone. What would it matter? It’s not like we were in-store service agents having physical contact with these people! If I grimaced or gritted my teeth (a common side-effect of working in a call center) how was the person on the other end to know?
Even more preposterous, we were expected to always keep smiling while we communicated with customers in chat! Now and then, I would literally get a negative customer satisfaction survey that my manager would attribute to me having not smiled. “I read through your chat,” he would say, “and I detected no smiling at all.”
Are you detecting a smile right now?!
But the thing is, people can hear and feel you smile. It has an effect on the color and temperature of a simple phone conversation. And when you are smiling – strange as it may sound – it shows in what you’re sending through a chat message too, even if it’s just to the extent that what you are typing has a certain, jovial tone.
And that certain, jovial tone might be just what is needed to make someone’s day. Not only is that why a smile is beautiful, it’s just one of the many benefits of smiling.
The Power Of The Smile
A smile appears to have this strange, incomprehensible power. When you start your day with a smile, it’s hard to be down, angry, or overly stressed. Your mood almost immediately changes from gloomy to optimistic.
Even when you find yourself having to force it, smiling does wonders for your psyche. It lifts you up; it dissipates the fog of a groggy, weary morning; and it cracks your solid shell of melancholy, opening you up to the potential for Joy and laughter. Just another benefit of smiling.
In short, smiling changes the color – and outlook – of your day.
It can change someone else’s too!
Magnifying The Power Of The Smile
A smile is contagious. When you smile at someone else, its inherent power is magnified many times over – it not only makes that person smile, but it may be just the thing they needed to turn their day, their week, or their entire outlook around.
There are a trillion studies (give or take a few) about why this is, from the psychological to the sociological to the emotional. To me, however, it’s really simple. Even if smiling is not always, in and of itself, a representation of Joy (after all, you can fake it), I truly believe that it is a manifestation of Hope. It gives off the impression that today can be better.
And so can tomorrow.
It cracks the foundations of despair and allows that little sliver of space for light to shine through.
And the best part: it can go viral! So, maybe, when you start your day with a smile, and keep smiling, you’ll make someone’s day with that smile.
And, remember, if it’s viral, then a smile is contagious – you may be making many more days, too!
How Can You Make Someone’s Day With A Smile?
Here are some things you can try in order to make someone’s day with a smile:
- Is there someone you know has been down lately? How can you cheer him/her up? A simple gesture of acknowledgement will often do the trick.
- Are you the type of person others find funny? What does each find funny about you? Use that knowledge to your advantage.
- Do you have a friend or family member whose day you could completely make if you did just one little thing? Why not do it?
- As I said before, simply start your day with a smile. It will set the tone of your day, make it easier to keep smiling, and naturally brighten another person’s day as well.
- DO NOT use social media, text or other non-personal methods – connect in person!
This obviously is a very short list, so I’ve included some other articles that I’ve found that may help:
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What are some creative things you might suggest to make others smile? Has someone changed your day simply with a smile? Share your experience below!
Portions of this article were published in Operation Joy: 30 Daily Missions To Inspire Joy In Yourself & Others.