I have been asked to conduct a one-hour customer service training activity for our administrative assts for my community college. I would like to try to do something that is interactive and FUN!!! This will be part of an all-day meeting--after lunch--so some energy is needed. Any suggestions??

Surely you have some ideas in your head that you're playing with... I'll make a deal with you -- if you throw some of the ideas up on the wall, I'll help you think of ways to make them really energizing. Here's a hint to get you started -- we've ALL got customer service stories.

We use a couple of different fun videos that you might find helpful.

* Give em the Pickle
* FISH!

Sorry, I don't have contact info, but Google should be able to help. Best wishes!

CCE, let me add my vote for "Give 'em the Pickle." It's a great 23 min video, and is an outstanding springboard for small group discussion and sharing of results from those discussions. You can pose the question, "What pickles should we be giving away?" You'll understand more when you view the video, but know that it's an excellent resource.

I actually use it in my Effective Presentations course, where I make the case that our students are our customers, and we should be focused on customer service skills along with facilitating learning and presenting professionally.

Give it a whirl.

Regards,

Del Laughery
President, Instructional Dynamics

I concur on the use of the FISH video for making customer service training fun. FISH is a a high-energy, fun way of demonstrating how having fun at work and a passion for serving customers (in your case students)directly translates into better customer service. You can find FISH at the Charthouse Learning website.

An activity I use in customer service training is to begin by having participants identify characteristics of best and worst customer service experiences they have had and then moving into a best practices brainstorm to identify what are critical components of customer service related to their industry (in your case, admissions on a college campus). While it doesn't sound like a barrel of fun, you would be suprised how much energy is created in allowing audiences to identify these characteristics from their own best and worst experiences.