Exercise Instructions

While it is important to pay attention to customers, mistakes happen! Maybe one of your colleagues trips on the way back to their desk and you miss what the customer said or there is lots of static and you accidentally interrupt the customer. These mistakes may make it seem as though you are not listening and make the customer upset. Let’s use the active listening techniques in the reading and tap into our empathy to reassure the customer and make sure that they stay a loyal customer.

The Persona

Throughout this course, you will encounter personas. Personas are not based on real people, but are case studies that emulate real people. Personas are used in many customer-facing industries to inform discussions and help teams come to decisions. We will use them in this course to help guide discussions around customer service. For this exericse, your customer is an 86 year-old woman named Agatha. She is calling in because she was reviewing last month’s bank statement and found a charge that she doesn’t recall. She has one child who is involved in her care named Paul. Paul cannot remember that charge and convinced that his mother may have been scammed, encouraged her to call in and get the charge reversed. Agatha is convinced that Paul is overreacting, but does agree that she should call and find out more information about the charge so she can get it reversed if it was a scam.

Time to Take the Call!

Divide into pairs (or a group of three if you have an odd number). Each pair will review a mistake made during the call that made Agatha think you were not listening to her. Considering that Paul is in the room with her during the call and the mysterious charge, Agatha gets flustered and upset when she thinks you haven’t been paying attention. Within your pair, discuss how Agatha might get the impression that you were not listening and how you can use the skills learned in the reading to reassure her and get the conversation back on track. During your discussion, make sure to review specific phrasing. If you find it helpful, put together a skit to help illustrate how your conversation with Agatha might go. You can also add more information about Agatha, Paul, or the mysterious charge if it helps inform the discussion between yourself and your teammate. The key thing to remember about personas is that while Agatha and Paul may remind you of people that you know, you need to think of them as totally different people. Your past interactions with people similar to Agatha and Paul may help guide your discussion, but it should not be the be all and end all.

Here are the moments that caused Agatha to think that you were not listening to her.

  1. A colleague tripped over a wire near your desk. You stood up to check that they were okay and missed out on what Agatha just said.
  2. The phone line is full of static and you are finding that it is hard to hear Agatha so your answer to one of her questions is not correct.
  3. There is a lot of chatter between colleagues around your desk and you have to keep asking Agatha to repeat herself.
  4. Agatha is having some respiratory issues and her coughing is making it difficult to understand what she is saying.

Presentation

At the end of your discussion, you and your partner should be prepared to present to the group what happened to derail the call and how active listening techniques and empathy can be used to reassure Agatha and Paul and ensure that they remain customers of your company. Please spend no more than 10 minutes presenting and make sure to be specific about what phrasing you would use.