customer service training activities
Welcome to a selection of customer service training activities to help you reinforce key learning points on your customer service training courses. 1. Body LanguageThis training activity helps people to understand the power of body language. It only takes a few minutes, and you don't need to prepare anything, just remember the sequence of the actions below.You need to be slick doing this, if you hesitate then people will not follow you so easily
Explain that you are going to give a series of instructions which you'd like everyone to follow.
As you state the actions, make sure you do them too:
-touch your nose
You'll see that the group will follow your non verbal cue over your verbal instruction.
This links nicely to first impressions work and body language when dealing face to face with customers 2. FistsThis is a really useful training activity for looking at dealing with customer complaints, and makes lots of learning points around assertiveness and persuasion and influencing skill.It's also great because you don't need any equipment or preparation. Get people into pairs, and ask one of the pair to clench their fists. The other person in the pair now needs to persuade the other person to open their fist. Neither party should touch the other person. Reverse the roles after a few minutes. Then lead a dicussion in plenary, to ascertain what worked and what didn't, and why it worked. The interesting thing about this exercise is that you can't script what will work in every case. The "persuader" has to tune into the other person, which has good parallels for customer service. * This doesn't have to be fists, it could be persuading someone to sit down, or stand up, the choices are endless
3 AlphabetThis is a simple training actvity which requires little planning, or materials. On a flipchart list out the alphabet soA Ask the group(s) to come up with something related to customer service or great customer service for everyletter of the alphabet. Set a timelimit ( usually 10 minutes )to the exercise, it should be pacy to get energy into the training room. If you have competing teams award a small prize to the best, or the team that gets the most. 4 Just a minuteThis training activity is a derivative of the great BBC radio panel game.Great for Energising the group Repetition of key messages Focusing attention Participation and focus Listening skills You understanding the points they are learning. You can use this training activity as an energiser or to get people to summarise their learning after a session or an exercise. If you are working with good sized groups (say 6 – 12 people ), you can split them into two teams, as there is an element of competition which encourages participation and focus. You will need Stop watch Whistle for you to signal the end of one minute Whiteboard to keep score Optional Something for the participants to make noises this – rattles, whistles, bells ( you could just ask them to shout their name, or clap ) How it works You explain that the objective is to speak for one minute on a topic which you will give them, without deviation ( going away from the point ) hesitation ( um’s, er’s, pauses )or repetition ( of any word ). If people on the opposing team observe a deviation, a hesitation, or a repetition they challenge by blowing their whistles, or shouting their names out. You must stop the clock when a challenge takes place. You will need to keep score, one point is awarded for a correct challenge, and the person challenging ( if they are correct ) takes over and continues to speak without deviation, hesitation or repetition. This continues until the minute is up. If the challenge is incorrect, you award a point to the speaker, and they are allowed to carry on. It’s often worth having a practice round before you start scoring, start on something simple for people to get the gist of it. Something like, “where I live” Then give them subjects related to customer service, such as • the customer is always right This can put real energy in the training room, if you run it after each input or exercise, so that the teams compete with each other. It focuses people’s attention during exercises because they know they will be playing for their team. You can get them to play for prizes, individually or as a team.
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