  We investigate the impact of a novel method called "virtual mirroring" to
promote employee self-reflection and impact customer satisfaction. The method
is based on measuring communication patterns, through social network and
semantic analysis, and mirroring them back to the individual. Our goal is to
demonstrate that self-reflection can trigger a change in communication
behaviors, which lead to increased customer satisfaction. We illustrate and
test our approach analyzing e-mails of a large global services company by
comparing changes in customer satisfaction associated with team leaders exposed
to virtual mirroring (the experimental group). We find an increase in customer
satisfaction in the experimental group and a decrease in the control group
(team leaders not involved in the virtual mirroring process). With regard to
the individual communication indicators, we find that customer satisfaction is
higher when employees are more responsive, use a simpler language, are embedded
in less centralized communication networks, and show more stable leadership
patterns.
