Cus­tomer ser­vice games can add spice to a train­ing pro­gram. I ought to know, I wrote the book! Unfor­tu­nately, I've seen too many games used just because–well, I'm not sure why. The game was fun, but didn't increase learn­ing or help par­tic­i­pants per­form bet­ter on the job.

Cus­tomer ser­vice games are fun, moti­va­tional activ­i­ties. The key is to use them in con­junc­tion with skill learn­ing and skill use. When rel­e­vant to par­tic­i­pants and their jobs, the games build con­fi­dence, lift morale, spark enthu­si­asm, stim­u­late cre­ativ­ity, and ulti­mately achieve results.

Games can be quick, fun ener­giz­ers that raise par­tic­i­pants' aware­ness of cus­tomer ser­vice issues. Games can also be full-scale activ­i­ties that teach a skill and offer par­tic­i­pants the oppor­tu­nity to prac­tice the skill in an infor­mal, onthreat­en­ing environment.

There are a num­ber of ways you can use cus­tomer ser­vice games: as stand-alone train­ing activ­i­ties, as warm-ups to a more inten­sive train­ing ses­sion, or in com­bi­na­tion with one another to con­sti­tute a seg­ments of a com­pre­hen­sive cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing event.

Fol­low­ing are some resources for cus­tomer ser­vice game:

• The Big Book of Cus­tomer Ser­vice Train­ing Games
• Train­ing Games by Thiagi
• Cus­tomer Ser­vice Train­ing Helper
• Train­ing Games, Inc.

And if you need to plan a more com­pre­hen­sive train­ing event, check out one of these:

• Cus­tomer ser­vice training
• Cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing for tech­ni­cal sup­port professionals
• Cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing for field ser­vice engineers

Peggy Car­law is the founder of Impact Learn­ing Sys­tems, a lead­ing train­ing com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in improv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions between front-line employ­ees and cus­tomers. Peggy is co-author of sev­eral books pub­lished by McGraw-Hill, includ­ing Man­ag­ing and Moti­vat­ing Con­tact Cen­ter Employ­ees and The Big Book of Cus­tomer Ser­vice Train­ing Games.

Peggy Carlaw

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