How to Get Your Customers Swearing by You, Not at You: Telephone Doctor's Guide to Customer Service Training

Role Playing:So You Want to Be in Movies!

Through the years, we’ve found that role playing—though many attendees do not enjoy the thought of doing it—is one of the more successful techniques in customer service training. After all, in customer service role playing, attendees can act out real-world situations they are likely to encounter.

The process involves the facilitator presenting the role play scenario and asking for volunteers to play the roles (not always an easy task). The facilitator provides the ground rules, behaviors, reactions, and the like. Then the role players act out the scenario, and the entire class analyzes the role play.

Here are two approaches for role playing.

The first approach allows players to think, speak, and behave ...