Murilo Couto’s Teachings: Extrapolating Personal Lessons to Customer Service

Ewerton Lopes
Notes for the future
2 min readJan 8, 2024

Murilo Couto, renowned Brazilian comedian, in his year-end stand-up special for Amazon Prime Video, shares personal experiences in a hilarious and captivating manner. Although not directly focused on customer service, his observations on personal situations can be surprisingly relevant when applied to the business world, especially in the context of customer service.

Prime Video

Analyzing Personal Lessons: A Business Perspective

Couto, with his sharp humor, addresses everyday situations and personal challenges. By extrapolating these situations to the business universe, we notice intriguing parallels. For example, his division between mature individuals who confront and resolve problems and the “lesos” who become accustomed to them can be applied to how businesses approach customer service.

Accommodation versus Resolution of Business Problems

One of Couto’s humorous stories highlights the human tendency to become accustomed to adverse situations instead of facing them head-on. Though he discusses this in a personal context, we can easily extrapolate it to the business scenario. A practical example would be a company that, instead of addressing the root causes of customer complaints, simply becomes accustomed to negative feedback.

Business Example: The Customer Service Queue Case

To illustrate this point, let’s imagine a customer service company that consistently receives complaints because people can see in the chat that there are long waiting queues. Instead of addressing the root of the problem, this company chooses to remove the information indicating the number of people in the queue. Thus, instead of resolving the issue of long waiting times, the company merely “gets used to” the situation, providing a temporary solution that does not address the underlying dissatisfaction of the customers.

Business Lesson: Facing Challenges and Resolving Problems

Applying these personal lessons to customer service emphasizes the importance of a proactive mindset. Instead of accommodating recurring issues, companies should adopt a mature approach, understanding, analyzing, and effectively resolving customer concerns.

Strategies to Adopt a Mature Mindset in Customer Service

  1. Deep Understanding: Just as in personal life, understanding the needs and concerns of customers is crucial.
  2. Reflective Analysis: Companies should delve deeply into issues raised by customers, identifying the roots of the problems.
  3. Effective Solutions: Implementing solutions that directly address the causes of problems, rather than temporary fixes, is essential.
  4. Transparent Communication: Maintaining open communication with customers, ensuring they feel heard and valued.

Conclusion: Embracing Couto’s Wisdom in the Business World

While Murilo Couto’s humor is centered on his personal life, his observations provide an interesting lens to examine business issues, especially in the field of customer service. By learning from his lessons on facing challenges and resolving problems, companies can create an organizational culture that values excellence in customer service, thereby building a solid and enduring reputation.

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