It is critical to consider the “anatomy” of an interaction in a Customer Experience. The sheer number of things that occur in an interaction at the same time can seem astonishing. Understanding what happens when your team interacts with a customer and why it is an essential element to taking your Customer Experience to the next level. The Anatomy of a Customer Interaction can make or break your Customer Experience.

I’ve been flying major airlines for a long time, and like everyone else, I’ve noticed the changes – and not in a good way. The checked baggage fees. The snacks we don’t get anymore. Exorbitant fees to change an itinerary and seats that are way too cramped.

At one point, carriers said these changes were necessary to stay afloat amid skyrocketing fuel prices. But these days, there’s a different, and more troubling, reason that flying isn’t as pleasant as it used to be.

A couple of years ago, Millennials surpassed Generation X for workers in the U.S. and Canadian workforce. They are also the least engaged at their jobs and the most likely to job-hop. Unfortunately, none of this is good news for your Customer Experience.

A much-maligned generation, Millennials have been the subject of many viral work videos. Like this one:

When we’re in the UK, I complain about the chilly, dreary weather. And when we’re at our home in Florida, my wife Lorraine complains about the dreadful heat. Our complaining is all in good fun – we actually enjoy both locales. But as this article explains, complaining can become a nasty habit that makes our lives seem worse than they really are.

Complaining can also affect your business. We witness it all the time in our customer experience consultancy. We see complainers among front-facing employees when we use customer mirrors to analyze the experience from the customer’s viewpoint. In management, we’ve seen how a complainer can prevent a company from following through with a customer experience initiative.

Trust in the four major global institutions, namely government, business, media and non-government organizations, has taken a massive knock in the last several months, to the point where rebuilding trust has not only become a nice-to-have, but an absolute imperative, if these institutions are to survive. This is according to the 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey which tells a pretty dire tale of the disintegrating trust people feel in established institutions.

One of the annoying things about business travel is that you tend to need things in your hotel room at the worst time. More shampoo when you’re still in your pajamas. A mending kit to repair a button in time for your dinner meeting.

The hotel staff, while generally helpful and accommodating, has other things to do. So you wait. It’s not the best customer experience, but if you travel often, you learn to live with it.