Recommended Customer Skills Lear

Recommended Managerial Skills Learning Agenda for Customer-Focused Organizations

Managers & Supervisors

Each of the following topics is an independent seminar and it can be used in a sequence as shown or taught in a single 1.5 - 2.5 hrs. session.

1	Listening & Communicating Principles
2	Customer Sensitivity
3	Telephone Professionalism, Part I
4	Successful People Relationships Principles
5	Controlling Destructive Emotions
6	Dealing with Customer Problems, Complaints & Conflict
7	Principles of Persuasion
8	Negotiating with Customers
9	The Powerful Process of Tactical Probing
10	Personal Appearance Disciplines
11	Priority Management For High Achievers
12	Ethics & Excellence at Work
13	Principles of Preparing and Executing a Presentation

Topical details:

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Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Listening & Communicating Principles Back up	How about a fun-filled interactive learning exercise to improve listening efficiency & reduce costly communicating errors. Class Topics - Self-Analysis of your listening efficiency - Consequences of poor listening - Benefits of good listening disciplines - Listening barriers & overcoming them - 3 active listening skills & their use - How to listen for substance - How to encourage your audience to listen	To enjoy life & occupation via learning to listen selectively, empathetically & responsively and to increase personal communicating effectiveness via utilization of active listening skills in daily interactions. Reduce misunderstandings, enhance your professional image & communicate accurately & impressively.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Customer Sensitivity Back up	An interactive research-based classroom experience designed to aid understanding customers with diverse needs & predispositions and to respond & serve each in an unconditionally professional manner. Class Topics - Business environment - customer wants - How to manage customer perceptions - Customer predispositions, emotions & attitudes - The discipline of courtesy - tough customers - Roles customers play & how to respond - Personal self-esteem & assertiveness - How to handle feelings of rejection - How to develop sensitive customer interactions	To better position participants to recognize & properly respond to the customer's need for emotional support while working to respond to their business needs.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Telephone Professionalism, Part I Back up	An involved learning classroom exercise to discuss & experience practical basics for effectively dealing with the stresses & routines inherent in customer-sensitive volume intensive call-service operations. Class Topics - Phone professionalism 101-avoid conflict - Predispositions of callers (research) - Personal maturity & discipline of courtesy - High-impact telephone greetings - How callers judge you-managing perception - Origin of conflict & complaints - Transactional analysis P-A-C Theory - Mirroring customer attitudes - Preparation for Part II	To enhance company image, improve telephone efficiency & communicating productivity while exceeding caller-customer expectations & lowering tension & stress levels.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Successful People Relationship Principles Back up	Participants will profile their own personal styles and will explore why customers & associates act and react the way we do, and how to understand ourselves and others better. Class Topics - The power of focused thought - Advantages of working together - Defining & refreshing relationship skills - Positive relationship building phrases - Individual perspectives & how others see you - Understanding ourselves & others - Personal profiles (class exercise) - Personal style summary & evaluations - Accentuate your strengths - Personal achievement guidelines - Guiding principles of personal power - What motivates you & others - Dealing with and learning from rejection - Self-esteem and its impact on productivity - Sources of adult self-esteem - Suggestions enhancing self-esteem - Benefits of proactive assertiveness - Thoughts on being a considerate working partner	Learning is focused on the importance of being professional, patient, tolerant & sensitive to customers and associates, and how to work more effectively together.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Controlling Destructive Emotions Stress, depression, fear, anger Back up	Participants will review and discuss practical ways to effectively deal with tension, stress, fear, anger and negative behavior. Class Topics - Stress indicators – stress perspectives - Examining and defining stress – signs of harmful stress - How stress affects you - Stressful job ranking (top 10) - Personality factors that increase stress - Stress & productivity - Personal stress evaluation (exercise) - Ten causes of stress - Negative responses to stress - Positive ways to manage & cope with stress - Workplace breaks and relaxation methods - Depression, the common cold of mental stress - Dealing with logical, emotional & irrational fears - The upside of failure & pessimism - Suggestions for controlling anger & hostility - Behavior control for a healthier life - The effects of alcohol abuse - Personal behavior action plan	Learning will focus on ways to reduce stress, defeat irrational fears and be more relaxed, effective and productive.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Dealing With Customer Problems, Complaints & Conflicts Back up	Participants review and practice professional techniques for preserving customer relationships in problematic situations Class Topics - Self-inflicted wounds – most common customer complaints - How to reduce or avoid complaints - guidelines - Winning ways with others – our behavioral responsibility - How to give and take criticism - Dealing with complaints via phone - admonitions - Recognize opportunity and pan gold from complaints - Understand roles customers play – transactional analysis - The tough customer – exercise to diffuse customer hostility - Tactical problem solving – key to conflict resolution - What you can do when you don’t know what to do	To preserve customer relationships by way of disciplined behavior when dealing with tough customers. To review the importance of self-control and positive behavior in stressful interactions.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Principles Of Persuasion Back up	We will study persuasion techniques necessary for supporting profit principles in pursuit of “Win/Win” outcomes in daily business discussions. Class Topics - “Win/Win” interactions – ethical guideline- - Relationship strategies – positive or destructive? - Never take your own side in a dispute – why & how - Persuasion vs. logic – what’s the difference - Modern methods of mass persuasion - Pre requisites of personal persuasion - Process for persuading others - Forms of persuasion - Application model for persuasion	To learn and practice the application of psychological relationship principles for use in resolving customer disputes and disagreements and to prevent arguments.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Negotiating With Customers Protecting profits, commissions & sales policies Back up	An interactive review of practical skills & principles of negotiating for use in daily business & interpersonal interactions. Class Topics - 3 stages of any negotiation - 7 principles for negotiating - 3 crucible negotiating variables - 7 rules for making concessions - 7 do’s & dont’s of equitable negotiating - Negotiating tactics	To prepare sales professionals systematically & equitably to deal with customer negotiating issues while protecting priorities, policies, principles & profits.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
The Powerful Process of Tactical Probing Back up	An involved learning classroom experience for formulating & using questions to understand needs, diagnose problems & determine the best solutions. Know the foundation, source & impact of using probes in interactions with customers, associates & friends to diagnose & solve problems and uncover needs. Class Topics - A question is more powerful than a statement! - Various probes with specific tactical purposes - Types of probing & purposes - How to formulate questions - What questions to ask and when	To improve understanding of the principles & techniques of using questions tactically to communicate clearly and improve efficiency in all interactions, solve problems & build better personal relationships while reducing costly communicating errors.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Personal Appearance Disciplines Back up	Class Topics - Head to toe grooming - self rating - First impressions can kill! - Professional presence for women - Professional presence for men - Power look tips for professional attire - Clothing care - colors, style, fabrics, fit - Hedge words & power robbers - Eye contact-greeting-handshake-gestures	To demonstrate visible competence, confidence & credibility; to optimize your image as an asset for your continuing success.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Priority Management For High Achievers How to improve your personal effectiveness Back up	This involved learning program starts with identifying your purposes & mission in life & setting personal goals based on what you value most. Class Topics - Self-Analysis - what’s important to you? - Criteria for your mission - purpose statement - Personal effectiveness - self profile - Process of setting goals aligned with your values - 6 steps to crisis-free scheduling - Prioritization & measuring of objectives - Ways to change patterns & habits - Top 10 timewasters & how to negate them - How to protect personal & family priorities - How to improve your planning	To optimize personal effectiveness, improve priority management & promote daily discipline of working on highest-priority projects
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Ethics & Excellence At Work Excellence, profitability & job security Back up	Establishes clear ethical guidelines for the contemporary workplace and marketplace. You will learn absolute standards of ethical conduct in pursuit of your mission. Class Topics - The lost sense of ethical direction - The high & low roads of ethical behavior - Personal principles & code of ethical conduct - Business survival - ethical motivation - 10 principles of ethical decisions & actions - Case studies - typical & generic	To equip each individual with an awareness of the critical importance of ethical workplace actions & how absolute ethics enhance quality productivity, profitability & job security.
Topic	Overview & Content	Objective
Principles Of Preparing And Executing A Presentation Speaking professionally Back up	Highly participative. Participants will learn, review, and apply the principles of planning, preparing and executing an effective presentation; will share in peer critique and helpful feedback. Class Topics - Defeating the fears of public speaking - Professional rewards and recognition of effective presentation - Organizational patterns and forms of support - The first sixty seconds - Six steps to success in speaking - Introductions that arouse and stimulate - Segmenting the presentation - Selecting and using visual aids - Twelve suggestions for effective delivery - Using gestures for emphasis and vitality - Rules for eye contact foundation of communication - 12 common problems in public speaking & how to avoid them - Five ways to focus an audience - Conclusions that ask for action! - Principles of voice use (sound/tone/rate/inflection/breathing) - Ways to avoid language confusion - Guidelines for appropriate use of humor	To review and practice principles for preparing and executing a high-impact professional presentation.