Smiling practice (1)-Watch out! Smile is contagious!

In my last blog, I talked about the ‘smiling practice’ with the team and why smile was one of the most important factors to create a good customer experience. In this blog, I am going to show you how I implemented this strategy at work. The interesting fact was that my best sales representatives who had killing smiles with best customer service, were really happy to participate the smiling practice. Why is this practice important? How does smile affect the people around us and the working environment? It is really important that you understand why smile can change the team atmosphere and how it can affect their performance before you practice with your team.

Smile is contagious. It helps you to build good team vibes.

Do you know children smile about 400 times a day…and adults only manage around 20 smiles? Before I talk about my experience, please check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RZfZ3qpAMk

What was your first expression when you see the baby giggling in front of the camera… I bet you were actually smiling while watching the video. Think about another scenario, when you walk on the street and smile at people, do they smile back? In most cases the answer is YES! “When you see a facial expression and you want to know what it means, you recreate that expression in your brain” Adrienne Wood , a postdoctoral researcher in the Social Systems Lab at Dartmouth College said.

This info graphic explains the research behind how you know what people are feeling just by looking at their faces.

Resource: Smiling Really Is Contagious, And Here’s Why

Another study shows that people tend to smile more when people around them are smiling. Contagious smiling comes from a subconscious tendency to match other people’s emotions. By realizing this, you then need to start with yourself to spread the message. Simply just smile to everyone!

Why do we need to ‘practice’ smile?

When you smile, four hormones are released in your brain . These hormones relieve stress, lower heart rate, increase productivity and reduce anxiety, making us feeling happy! Smiling not only helps generate positive emotions but also decrease the stress too.

However, smile is not easy for everyone. We all experienced one of those days where you just want to punch the wall and feel unmotivated, it can seem like the last thing you would feel like doing. In retail, we are the first face for customers. Concealing our emotions is one of the most difficult part of our job. That’s why I designed this exercise to help them quickly reduce stress and increase their energy level in order to provide good customer service. Instead of showing negative emotions, it is key to stay positive. I still remember the expression on their face when I proposed this idea to the team…Phoebe is being silly again by asking us to do the practice! (I ask my team to think outside of the box ) In fact, they felt better after the practice and it definitely boost sales as well as the team vibes!

Four Steps team smiling practice

1. Let go the emotions

It is very important. Ask them to be quiet for the first one minute. Focus on themselves, ask them what’s their emotion now. After one minute, let them talk about how they feel, and why they feel that way? Let them open up to you, especially the negative emotions.

2. Imagine a pleasure experience

After the discussion, you then ask everyone to recall something that brought them joy. It could be thinking of the highlight of the week or visualize someone they love deeply. It will help them to smile more genuinely. The difficult part is, sometimes they can’t come up with something immediately. Alternatively, you can ask someone to share a joke with everyone or even just start laughing without any reason! (It sounds really silly, but trust me, it always works!)

3. Take pictures while giving compliments

This is my favorite part of this practice! Who doesn’t like compliments? Ask them to talk to the person next to them by giving each other some positive and generous comments. In the meanwhile, take pictures while talking to each other! It could be ’I like your hair today’, ‘You look so beautiful today with your makeup’, …etc. You will find the magical moment in the room…everyone is smiling and laughing!

4. Memorize the moment

With the pictures they just took, ask them how did they feel when they had some good comments from someone else? Bring the feeling to the work place and smile to not only just customers, but also colleagues!

I usually do this practice with the team once a week during the weekly meeting. You can even try it with your family and friends, I found it’s really easy to apply and always worked! Have you ever tried any smiling practice? Share your smiling practice pictures or story with me! If you haven’t, don’t worry. In the next blog, I’m going to show you what smiling practice you can do by yourself to boost your positivity! Stay tuned and happy smiling😊

Featured Image resource: Pexels

My other blogs you don’t want to miss:

Stop ticking the box! Game on to create the best customer satisfaction!

Two Experiments you do not know yet about the Power of Positivity!