Our Customer Service Related Training Services

Helping Organizations and Employees Work With Difficult People

While we work with all types of organizations, we specialize in helping government and charitable organizations meet the needs of their service users and stakeholders.

Since this is a customer service site, it makes sense to start there. We are best known for our work teaching people to work with angry, hostile, even desperate customers and clients. We've taught (in seminars ranging from an hour or two to two complete days) employees in government, industry, retail and virtually every context how to deal with customers who are demanding, abusive and insulting.

There are multiple purposes for preparing staff to deal with these situations, and purposes for all "players" in an organization. For example, we know that given imperfect customer service, companies that are able to respond to, and turn around disappointed or angry customers do better than those that do not. The first keeps the customer, while the latter loses that customer. It's good business to have prepared employees.

For managers, the advantages are also clear. A well prepared staff needs less supervision, and requires less intervention from managers. The result, managers spend more time doing what they are paid for rather than fixing other people's problems.

Employees on the line also gain. By learning to deal with difficult customers more quickly but still professionally, they gain more time, reduce their stress levels and feel more in control of tough situations (which they are).

There are many more reasons to invest in this kind of training, and I'd be glad to discuss them with you, if you'd care to contact us.

Customer Service Training Options

There is "enough to learn" about dealing with hostile and difficult customers, to warrant a two day seminar. This is also the best option to ensure learning takes place that will affect on the job behavior. However, more and more over the years, we've been asked to deliver dealing with difficult customers seminars in much shorter time windows, which makes sense in today's economy. We get it!

We feel that we can help our customers even if we only have three hours to teach the essential defusing difficult client skills they need, provided we can provide them with support and follow up material they can access in the future if they are interested. That's one reason we created our newest book, If It Wasn't For The Customers, I'd Really Like This Job. When coupled with a half day seminar we believe this package which also saves our clients significant money and time, works well taking into account all the real world concerns about time away from work.

So, while half day seminars don't make us as much money, they are probably the most common way to go with this kind of training. Half days fit into conference schedules, retreats, and don't completely destroy work schedules.

A few notes that separate us from other vendors:

• All training that we deliver is custom designed based on our discussions with you, and as needed, by surveying attendees in advance to identify priority learning needs.
• Training is not farmed out. You contract us, you get the boss, Robert, who's been doing this for twenty years, and has invented some of the techniques and tactics he teaches. Depth of understanding counts, and Robert's academic work and experience provides that.
• Our costs are based on the project, and not on how many attendees will be there. While there are limits on group size that have to do with learning effectiveness, we don't charge you more if you want to train 35 staff members as compared to 10 staff members.
• We have a flexible pricing policy because we want to accommodate charitable and government organizations that may have less ability to pay the costs of training.
• We offer our customers something that goes way beyond the typical "smile training" that is found in most canned customer service seminars and programs. We teach practical hands on techniques that tend to work with difficult people, and help employees get control over these situations so they can help in difficult situations. This isn't about smiling. It's fairly advances stuff, some of which people know already, but much of which they haven't been taught elsewhere.

Where To Start?

Just contact us. Email is best first, and then we'd need to talk on the phone. ceo@work911.com is the email address and (613) 764-0241 is the phone number.

Other Seminars

The other area in which we actively practice is performance management -- helping organizations manage their people resources for maximum output and workplace climate (ie. employee engagement). For more information about this topic and how we can help, once again, contact us.

If you have other needs and your needs fit our qualifications and interests, there might be a good fit. In the past I've done workshops on employee motivation, goal setting, team development, performance reviews, in addition to having done some work in organizational development.

Our promise is that we will not take on a seminar (or keynote or consulting) unless we feel we can do it very very well, and we feel a passion and commitment to both the topic and your business/organization.

Note: If you have experienced trainers or you are one who wishes to use our material to design or deliver training as described here, we can help.  We've outlined how you can use our books to achieve your goals so you are self-sufficient in terms of offering this type of training for customer service staff.