Customer Service Training Games

Good For

This is a really useful training activity for looking at dealing with customer complaints.

It is also helpful for looking at assertiveness and persuasion and influencing skills.

It's also great because you don't need any equipment or preparation

Length

The exercise itself should run for five minutes, before reversing the roles.

The debrief afterwards can be very rich, so allow between 10 and 20 minutes after the activity to pull out the key learning points relevant to the group

You will need

That's the beauty of this exercise: you only need the participants

Instructions

Allocate your participants into pairs.

Give each person a letter A or B

Ask all the A's to clench their fists ( or the appropriate action from the list below**)

** sit down

** stand up

Instruct the B's that they should try and persuade the A's to carry out one of the following

• unclench their fists
• stand up
• sit down
• takes their shoes off
• put a jacket on
• write their name
• sing
• recite a poem

Reverse the roles after a few ( 3 - 5 ) minutes.

After both A and B have tried to persuade their partner, lead a discussion with the whole group, to ascertain to what worked and what didn't, and why it worked.

You'll be able to lead a discussion around:-

• asking versus telling
• telling versus persuading
• building rapport
• body language
• choice of words
• what worked and why it worked
• what didn't work and why it didn't

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.

A variation of this exercise is to split the group into 3's and ask the third person ( the C's ) to observe what is attempted, and how the B's responded to what the A's were saying and doing.

Variation

As the trainer, sit in a chair, and ask each participant in the training to try to get you to stand up.

Review each attempt with the whole group so that you can help them to shape and work out what will persuade and why.

You'll be able to discuss:-

• asking versus telling
• telling versus persuading
• building rapport
• body language
• choice of words
• what worked and why it worked
• what didn't work and why it didn't