I am designing a refresher course for Bus Operators and would like to include a new eye-opening customer service exercise that would create empathy with the customers. Anybody got any ideas? Thanks I will share what I develop.

I'd bet the bus drivers have plenty of stories of their own. Ask them.

(If there are drivers who are demonstrating a decided lack of empathy, that is generally is more a one-to-one coaching issue.)

I agree with SSFN. Ask the drivers for some of their own experiences (good and bad). I bet you can get a lot out of that.

You might also like to try out our free training resourcesfor inspiration.

In particular you might find our training game, 'Ridiculous Complaints' useful.

I work for a transit company and have done a couple of exercises recently on customer service.

One with train operators -- brainstorm on this question - How can we reduce ridership? Then discuss which of the answers the operators have some control over.

One with supervisors - each supervisor got a card describing a passenger they spotted (i.e, kids, disabled, tourists, etc.). They read their card to the group and then discussed what could they do to help the passenger. This exercise helped with the empathy issue you asked about. Some passengers are looking for empathy, some are just trying to get to work and our employees need to be able to identify the difference.

I would be happy to chat more about this with you -- I am at swhitehead@metrostlouis.org