Improving Customer Care, 30 Practical Exercises

Customer care is critical to all companies and all companies have both internal and external customers. Customers are much more demanding these days – just think, when you are a customer, how high are your expectations? So equally, it is our responsibility to make sure our customers’ expectations are exceeded.  

List of Activities:

1. What is customer care?

What exactly is customer care? Who makes it happen? How can we ensure it’s a positive experience? This opening exercise requires participants to come up with a working definition of customer care and discuss the whole concept of this key area of business.

2. Great service

Participants discuss how it is possible to recognise good service and the positive feeling this creates for the customer. They use a worksheet to record their own recent examples of good customer service, then exchange ideas about how good service can be enhanced and bad service eliminated.

3. Not so good service

Individuals recall instances of poor customer care. They discuss what causes this to happen, and how it makes customers feel and behave. The group reaches consensus on what those offering service can do to improve their care.

4. Making an impression

This exercise allows participants to think about how others make a good impression on them, what they do and how they act. They then take what’s most positive from these impressions and work on them in creating their own impression.

5. First impression

In groups, participants discuss what they currently do to make a good first impression. They recount their approach to the whole group, which then offers feedback on the first impressions they give. Improvements are discussed, along with a commitment to make personal changes where needed.

6. Who’s responsible?

You might not think you are responsible for providing any kind of customer care or service, but this exercise may well prove you wrong. Participants establish areas of responsibility, then look at who their customers are – both internal and external.

7. Seize every opportunity

Participants are encouraged to list some occasions when they feel they gave good customer care at work. They consider the consequences of this care – even down to the fact that customers provide the funding for their wages!

8. Showing you care

Customers like to feel cared for. There’s a variety of ways in which this can be achieved, but are we aware of them? This exercise reveals any shortfall in participants’ knowledge and provides plenty of ideas for future use in the workplace.

9. Why withhold good service?

Salespeople and customer care providers have the power to withhold good service. But why might they do this? Participants complete a worksheet to give their own examples, which are then further explored by the whole group. This feedback and group discussion will help to establish a positive action plan for the future.

10. What competition?

This is a group or individual exercise in which participants plan a review of their competitors. They visit these organisations to establish service and customer care first-hand. The information they gain and the comparison with their own organisation helps to identify areas of personal improvement.

11. Mystery telephoning

Participants telephone a number of organisations to assess the response they get from those answering their calls. They use this information to establish good and poor practice, then agree best practice for answering the telephone in their workplace.

12. The visitor’s view

Groups of participants arrange visits to non-competitor organisations to evaluate customer care. A review of these visits allows them to consider their own approach and what they can do to improve it.

13. Returning goods

In pairs (one active and one observing), participants visit a number of stores to see what happens when they try to exchange goods without a receipt. This invaluable first-hand experience allows them to consider both the role of the customer and the salesperson/customer care employee.

14. Real improvements

This exercise encourages participants to reflect on areas of customer care in which they know they can make improvements. A worksheet allows them to identify these areas and gentle feedback encourages them to compile an action plan to help with these improvements.

15. Come to us

Groups complete a worksheet to identify three ways in which they can attract new customers to their business. These ideas are assessed for viability.

16. Who’s the customer?

Who are our customers? Have we thought that many of them might be internal? This exercise, suitable for groups or individuals, allows participants to think more laterally about whom they supply services to, why they should review this list and how they can avoid taking their customers for granted.

17. Service diary

A diary extract is shown to participants for them to highlight in it all contact with others and the points at which customer service could be affected. The group discusses how these examples relate to their own working days.

18. My event diary

Groups or individuals consider a typical diary extract written on a typical working day. They try to ascertain all points of human interface and why these are important.

19. Tell a story

This role-play exercise allows participants to experiment in a safe environment with a customer/employee relationship in which conflict could occur. A feedback session establishes actions that help and hinder, plus good and bad body language.

20. Face to face with the abusive customer

A fairly typical situation, in which a customer is totally frustrated by a sequence of events by the time they come face to face with a customer care employee, is role-played to allow participants to think about good and bad practice.

21. The abusive caller

Telephone role-plays give participants the opportunity to practise dealing with abusive callers. A whole-group discussion allows participants to think about positive
ways of dealing with this kind of call and establishing best practice.

22. Taking down call details

This exercise, in which telephone calls are role-played, underlines the importance to receivers of noting down facts accurately and quickly. A whole-group feedback establishes what went well during these role-plays and how improvements can be made.

23. Return with interest

Working in groups, participants role-play a face-to-face scenario that is sensitive and could potentially become difficult. They learn from their own and each other’s role-play, and discuss the issues that arise – which include developing customer loyalty, building rapport and reaching a satisfactory outcome.

24. Is this clear?

This role-play will show participants the importance of seeking clarification in customer/salesperson interfaces. One pair is recorded, with others later offering advice on what helped and hindered their interface.

25. The unsure customer

Participants learn the importance of continual summary during a customer/salesperson interface and the benefits of ending an interface on a positive note. They role-play a fairly typical scenario, which then receives feedback from the whole group. An option to video this role-play adds a further dimension to assessing the do's and don’ts.

26. The teapot dilemma

A face-to-face role-play gives participants experience in dealing with a customer who has a problem and a fixed solution in mind. A whole-group discussion identifies positive behaviours.

27. What do you want?

Do we ask the right questions when trying to establish what customers want? This quick role-play will reveal any gaps, and a whole-group discussion will provide an action plan for similar situations in the workplace.

28. The silent customer

Participants take part in a role-play in which a customer is overwhelmed by choice and simply can’t make up their mind. After the role-play, the whole group establishes improvement areas, positive actions and best practice for this kind of interface.

29. The meal

What happens when, as a customer, you are not happy about something but have no real reason for that reaction? This role-play allows participants to enact in a safe environment how customer service employees deal with this kind of scenario.

30. The angry customer

In groups of three (two role-playing and one observing), participants consider the scenario of a justifiably angry customer. They discuss ways to manage this situation and transfer useful learning to the workplace.