Strategic Customer Service

The success of any organization depends on high-quality customer service. But for companies that strategically align customer service with their overall corporate strategy, it can transcend typical good business to become a profitable word-of-mouth machine that will transform the bottom line. This book challenges aspects of conventional wisdom. As you know all too well, common differences among people—age, gender, race, ethnicity—can prevent even the most talented and dedicated employees from working together. Today, the success of nearly every business depends on overcoming generation gaps, gender biases, and multicultural misunderstandings. How can you effectively deal with these sensitive issues without reinforcing stereotypes and further alienating your diverse employees? You’ll find the answer—in fact, an array of answers—in The Diversity Training Activity Book. This user-friendly guide presents a collection of 50 exercises, developed by two respected diversity trainers and tested on hundreds of workshop participants throughout the United States and Canada. From icebreakers, like “Name That Feeling,” to mini-case studies, role plays, and group games, these short and simple activities confront diversity challenges in a highly engaging, non-confrontational way. Participants will not only examine their assumptions and expectations about other cultures, but also become more aware of their own cultural values, beliefs, styles, habits, and attitudes. While learning with coworkers from wide-ranging backgrounds and perspectives, they’ll grow in empathy and master the critical skills to: • Minimize miscommunication and misinterpretation. • Understand differences in dress, demeanor, and social customs. • Respect different senses of space and time-consciousness. • Maximize the unique resources of female and older workers. • Manage a culturally diverse and changing workforce. • Identify intercultural incidents and resolve intercultural conflicts. Every exercise comes with complete trainer instructions. You’ll also get materials you can easily modify for use as handouts or PowerPoint presentations. With The Diversity Training Activity Book, you can design a lunch-hour seminar or a weekend retreat that will make a positive difference in your diverse workplace. Before long, you’ll break down barriers and open minds to working together productively and harmoniously. Jonamay Lambert is Founder and President of Lambert & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in diversity, leadership, and change management training. She has designed and implemented training programs for Fortune 100 companies and a wide variety of private and public organizations. She lives in Chicago, Illinois. Selma Myers has brought intercultural training to universities, hospitals, government agencies, and the Olympics. A professional mediator, she is also the co-author of Conflict Resolution Across Cultures. She lives in LaJolla, California. Together, Ms. Lambert and Ms. Myers have written 13 trainer’s guides in the Diversity at Work series. The success of any organization depends on high-quality customer service. But for companies that strategically align customer service with their overall corporate strategy, it can transcend typical good business to become a profitable word-of-mouth machine that will transform the bottom line. The Author draws on over thirty years of research for companies such as 3M, American Express, Chik-Fil-A, USAA, Coca-Cola, FedEx, GE, Cisco Systems, Neiman Marcus, and Toyota. Filled with proven strategies and eye-opening case studies, this book challenges many aspects of conventional wisdom using hard data and reveals how any organization can earn more loyalty, win more customers...and improve their financial bottom line.