How The EMU Experience Works in Real Life: #1
Before we begin, let me ask you a question:
When was the last time a customer called you personally to say how much his or her employees LOVED your training course?
We'll come back to your answer shortly.
I recently had an opportunity to share the fundamentals of The EMU Experience with a couple of colleagues (I'll call them "Patty" and "Carney" because those are their real names), who would be conducting a series of 4-hr customer-service workshops the following week.
As Patty described their plan for the workshops, I started asking questions...stuff like:
How much content do you have?
How will you arrange the room and the seating?
How are you planning on introducing everyone?
Do you have specific phone-call scenarios that you want to discuss?
If so, what's your plan for doing that?
What do your slides look like?
Will you be playing actual phone calls to demonstrate both good and bad examples?
How will you close out the workshop?
As Patty answered each of my questions, I offered some specific suggestions:
Instead of having the participants introduce themselves, pair them up and have them introduce each other.
As part of those introductions, have them describe why that person is attending the workshop and the one big takeaway they want to leave the workshop with.
To find out all of this information about their classmates, post this introduction task on a slide and show it 10-15 minutes before the class begins. That way, you use the time BEFORE the class to get them talking to one another.
Arrange the room so that the students can be seated in groups of 3-5.
Create a list of the top phone-call scenarios that you want to discuss, then allow each small group sufficient time to discuss each scenario (e.g., what went right, what went wrong, what they would do differently, etc.).
By using my speed-dating technique in this exercise, Patty and Carney would have facilitators at each table to guide the discussions. A side benefit of the speed-dating technique is that you can effectively move through a number of scenarios in a short amount of time.
After the speed-dating rounds, Patty and Carney would then walk through each scenario and ask the groups to offer how they would have handled the scenario.
Each workshop would close by having everyone stand in a circle and state one thing they were going to do differently - based on what they learned - when they got back to the office.
Finally, while still in the circle, Patty and Carney would celebrate everyone's participation and the workshop would end with everyone clapping.
Yeah, let that last one sink in for a minute.
Instead of the usual "Any questions?" or "Thanks for coming!", Patty and Carney ended their workshops in a large circle, with everyone clapping and celebrating. That's how you make training memorable!
Did it work? Well, both instructors received Thank you emails from several of the participants. And referring back to my very first sentence in this post, they've even received Thank you phone calls from the business owners, restating how much their employees loved the workshop.
All of this is a total testament to Patty and Carney, who actually did the hard work. They could have taken my suggestions and easily said, "No thanks. I'm not really comfortable doing that." But they made their workshop "different" and it paid off.
So...when was the last time a customer called you personally to say how much his or her employees LOVED your training course?
By working together, I can help you have a similar experience. Contact me today: ken@theemuexperience.com.
