Whilst the officers received the relevant First Aid training to enable them to fulfil the statutory side of their role, our client’s concern was that they lacked the interpersonal skills required to deal with the emotions of the residents, resulting in a high number of complaints.
There was an urgent need to focus on how the officers dealt with sensitive situations, and this client’s resounding question was, how do we get the team to tune into our customers’ emotions? To answer that question, they recognised that they needed to bring in a specialist training partner who could equip their officers to deliver a strong message during emergencies, whilst demonstrating much needed emotional support to residents. That’s where CCF Training came in.
Our in-depth call analysis highlighted the specific areas in which the officers needed to be more supportive, and fleshed-out the situations where the team lost confidence on their calls and lacked the ability to deliver the right solutions with a calm, empathetic and authoritative approach.
The programme content included real call examples, which meant the officers could all immediately relate to the scenarios we designed.
The workshops centred around CCF’s “Learn then Do” method – highly practical, bitesize pieces of theory followed by activities and opportunities to put it into practice to ensure it related to their world.
The officers normally had very little face time with one another, and we took the opportunity within the workshops to encourage colleague collaboration and skill/knowledge sharing.
At the end of the workshop, each officer created an Action Plan – their own commitment to improving their personal customer service in a very specific way. We also equipped the managers with coaching tools so that they could hold the officers accountable to those Action Plans.
The online learning element of the programme allowed for the new behaviours to be fully embedded outside of the workshop, and included practical assignments, videos and articles that were all created with the residents in mind.
At the conclusion of the programme, our client fed back to us that the officers had new-found assertiveness and calm on the telephone, which was instilling more confidence in the residents during emergencies.
The practical tools we used in the workshops meant that it felt natural for the team to put them into practice straight away; they were now handling emergency calls with more sensitivity and support, and this was reflected immediately in resident feedback.
The stress management tools that we introduced to the team also meant that not only were they communicating more effectively, but they were also recovering from their difficult calls more quickly, leading to consistently high levels of service being delivered across the team and greater positivity.
Our client told us:
“We choose to work with you because you showed an expert understanding of this subject area and the training could be tailored to our requirements.
In designing the programme, your communication was excellent and you showed a complete understanding of what was required to make the programme work for us to meet our goals. The programme contained a lot of variety which was essential for our diverse team.
Within the workshops, your facilitator was clear, concise and had strong solutions for our service challenges. Since the programme took place, we have seen that the team are more confident and thoughtful on their calls, which was the result we wanted.
All of the staff gave very positive feedback and we are keen that the new behaviours remain through the additional learning resources we now have access to”.
We think it’s fair to say, we upped their customer game.
