London Borough of Havering – Effective Customer Conversations
TCC’s research for the London Borough of Havering revealed low levels of trust in some parts of the borough, with many people not influenced by the council’s written communications. This means that residents’ interactions with staff are very important to their view of the council – but in some cases, staff do not feel able to deal with residents’ anger and misconceptions.
We designed a training programme for 900 frontline council staff which helps them use simple and emotionally intelligent communications techniques to deal with difficult conversations. Moving far beyond standard customer service training, our small group, interactive half day training sessions use professionally acted videos, interactive voting and group exercises. Delegates lean how to use active listening skills, how to sensitively deliver bad news, and how to challenge myths and negative perceptions without confrontation.
We are currently partway through the delivery of this programme. Evaluations of similar training by TCC in Barking and Dagenham in 2009 showed that 83 per cent of delegates were using techniques covered in the training three months after they attended.
Last Updated on Monday, 05 July 2010 10:50