Home > News > September 2007 > 07 September 2007

Council uses drama for customer service training

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets has used drama-based training to deliver customer service training to its staff. The training was designed to promote best practice in areas such as dealing with challenging customers and preventing or defusing awkward situations.

Training company Steps Drama delivered the afternoon sessions at three conference training days which the council ran for the 150 employees who deal with customers either on the telephone, in a contact centre, or face-to-face in one of the council's four one-stop shops.

Claire Symonds, customer access service head at the council, said: "We already provide a high standard of customer care but we have restructured our customer service teams and we wanted to get people together to reinforce the message that each customer is an individual.

Held outside the work environment, at the 'Museum in Docklands' near Canary Wharf, the conference events set out to highlight the council's future plans for developing its customer service and reinforce its published standards for customer care.

Tower Hamlets Council has developed a Customer Promise; a contract between the council and its customers which sets standards for dealing with visits to council reception areas, replies to letters, telephone enquires, fax and email that aims to ensure all are dealt with courteously, fairly and within set time limits.

"Prior to the events, Steps interviewed staff in our contact centre and one-stop shops and they used this information to develop some very impressive drama scenarios which they acted out at the conferences," said Claire Symonds. "These scenarios provided practical demonstrations of customer service skills. They were very realistic and they highlighted some challenging situations."

The scenarios sought to portray learning points such as the need to put the customer first; treating customers as individuals and not numbers; taking responsibility; having empathy; listening, not taking things personally; staying professional; being respectful and sensitive; getting the facts; presenting solutions and knowing the council's policies and services.

"The Steps actor-facilitators involved the staff and drew out different approaches to the issues presented," said Claire Symonds. "The scenarios were very engaging and they brought key learning points to life, for example by showing how to deal with stress and manage your own emotions. It was a very entertaining way of using the experience of the staff to develop best practice customer service."

Steps also arranged a separate voice training workshop at each of the conferences, designed to help the council's customer service staff enhance the clarity and energy of their vocal communications. The hour-long workshop covered aspects such as posture/alignment, breathing and articulation.

"We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the conference days," said Claire Symonds. "The drama sessions highlighted best practice in customer care and we believe this will have a positive impact in further enhancing the professionalism and effectiveness of our teams. This is important because our customer service staff are the faces and voices of the council and if they give a good impression, it reflects back on the council as a whole."

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