Singer Tina Turner made that phrase very popular not so long ago. But I want to ask the question in the context of what you do for a living. Do you love what you do for a living?

If you don't love what you do, your language, the tone of your voice, your actions, and your behaviour will reflect that. And no amount of "corporate training" or even "corporate modelling" will change that. Last month I talked about how happy employees ultimately produce happy customers. This month I want to focus on the fact that it is your personal responsibility to find, and do, the things you love. It starts with knowing and understanding yourself. It's a process...

If you don't like dealing with customers
Don't put yourself into a position where you have to deal with customers if you really don't like to do that. Ultimately it reflects poorly on you and the company that you are working for. You won't feel happy or fulfilled and you'll tarnish the reputation of the company. It's a lose-lose situation and it's unfair to you and the company. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try anything new. And I'm not saying that you should pass up an opportunity because you're not sure if you'll like it. We've all got to stretch and grow. We've all got to try new things.

Know your strengths
What I am saying is that you need to be realistic with yourself. Know who you are, what you are capable of, and what you love to do. If you find yourself in a position that is not a good fit, do something about it. Don't complain. And please don't expect your boss to "fix" it for you. Take action.

If you love helping people
If you really love people, and you love helping them even more, make sure that you choose an occupation that allows you to do that. Often we begin our careers doing something we love and because we excel at it we get promoted. But that's when the problems start. We stop doing the things we love. The lure of more money, more responsibility, and more status take hold and before we know it, we're stressed out, unhappy, and unfulfilled because we don't like what we're doing. But you have the power to change that. You've always had the power.

What's that got to do with customer experience?
We know that our attitudes, tone of voice and even the words we choose affect the emotions of the people that we are dealing with. We know that people buy on emotion. If you make your customers unhappy and affect their emotions in a negative way because you're not happy, you'll be successful at creating negative customer experiences. We are responsible for our own performance. Companies set standards and styles but individuals perform.

Personal development is the secret sauce
Know yourself. Take responsibility for your own personal development. It's your secret sauce. Don't expect your employer to do it for you. Do what you love. You'll ultimately affect or interact with customers and when you do you'll automatically create the right experience.

We've got an exciting newsletter for you this month. It's filled with customer experience nuggets. We begin with an article about how you can gather more accurate and meaningful survey data. Then Ruth-Anne talks about what you can do to make your Web site stickier. Finally, we'll learn how Riça Night's customer experience story ends...there are lessons to be learned here.

Feedback only takes a minute. Click here to tell us what you think about this month's newsletter.

When you're conducting a survey or doing some other research does it matter whether your participants have actually done the very thing you're asking about? You bet it does. Check out this month's column about creating surveys and learn how you can gather more accurate and meaningful information.

Your Web site is a key part of your marketing strategy. You can make it work harder for your company and use it to win more business. But how do you do that? Read this article to learn about 10 things that you can do to ensure that visitors love coming to your Web site and they want to come back again and again.

Riça Night had an extraordinary customer experience with a small Canadian-owned fitness store. Join her as she tells the second part of her customer experience story and reviews what this company did right to earn not only her praise and loyalty but a virtual guarantee of more sales in the future. You may be able to pick up some tips that you can use at your company.

This Month's Poll What is the key metric your company uses to measure the success of your customer experience initiatives? Sales Retention Referrals We don't measure Results

Thank you, Riça, for sharing your story with our readers.