TUF: Thriving Under Fire
Dealing with difficult customers?
Do your employees need support and training?
You have come to the right place.
Angry and upset ratepayers are a high cost to any local body.
They lead to:
- higher staff turnover
- absenteeism
- loss of commitment
- low morale
- reduced quality of work
- Negative reports from unhappy ratepayers will also give your Council a bad reputation.
Our offer:
- 12 month blended learning programme
- Initial internet-based module
- Customised workshops
- Small groups
- Individual training and support
- Experienced, specialised and qualified facilitators
- Two half-day sessions (or one full day)
- Monthly follow-up web-based revision for one year
- Ongoing support through an on-line coaching blog
- Special deals for LGOL subscribers
TUF: Thriving Under Fire is a specialised training programme developed by professionally accredited training consultants to give your staff:
- the understanding
- the skills
- the attitudes
to deal effectively with upset ratepayers.
Staff remain calm so they can find a way forward for the ratepayer.
TUF: Thriving Under Fire gives an opportunity to acknowledge the difficulty of working with angry and aggressive ratepayers. It provides skills for responding to upset people and offers effective debriefing and de-stressing activities so that staff can return quickly to work after an upsetting incident and they don’t have to take their problems home.
The TUF Experience
- TUF training outcomes
- TUF Stories
- Local body staff groups we work with
- How we work with you
- Who we are
- LGOL Price breaks
TUF Training Outcomes
As a result of TUF: Thriving Under Fire training programme ratepayers have a better experience because staff:
- learn to stay engaged with all ratepayers
- can appreciate the ratepayer’s distress and respond appropriately
- can offer a wider range of solutions to ratepayers
- enjoy their work more
- create good will and a positive brand experience
- relate well to internal customers
Our evaluation results show continued improvement in staff confidence and ability in dealing with angry and upset customers.
“TUF: Thriving Under Fire is an excellent programme for call centre environments”
Clive, Call Centre Manager
TUF Stories
TUF Develops Empathy
An upset woman walked into a City Council office demanding a refund on a payment she had made. The staff member attending to her immediately felt defensive and judgemental about the customer. She did not understand why the customer was so upset. The group explored the customer’s ‘system’ by setting out all the elements that made up her world. Through this process the staff member came to realise that the customer’s distress was completely understandable. It was certainly different from what she had previously imagined. She said, “I can appreciate what the customer might have been worried about and will be very different next time someone like that comes in. Most of all I no longer take it personally”.
TUF Brings Immediate Results
Invariably participants or their manager will report at the beginning of the second session that “there haven’t been so many angry and upset people coming in over the past two weeks since our first session”. They pause a moment and say: “I guess the same people have been coming in, it’s just that I am different!”
TUF Helps Internal Customers
At a workshop for local body employees participants were invited to share with the group times when they have had difficulty responding to abusive or distressed customers. They immediately focused on internal customers and proceeded to give many examples of interactions with fellow workers which they found difficult. Together we were able to explore ways of responding and gaining confidence to deal effectively with many types of angry customers including ‘passive aggressive’ and outright rude colleagues.
TUF Brings Personal Benefits
Sharyn, who works in a call centre, came back to the second session and reported: “I sat down with my 16 year old daughter after our last session and told her about what we had learnt. She said she doesn’t really feel heard by me. At first this was hard to take, but I applied the principles we learnt and for the first time I really listened to her, especially her feelings. We ended up talking for nearly two hours! It was great!”
Local body staff groups we work with
TUF: Thriving Under Fire for local bodies builds on our experience of working in a variety of situations that local body employees find themselves. These include:
- Front Counter
- Call Centre
- Rates
- Building Consents
- Animal Control
- Libraries
- Compliance Officers
- Recreation Staff
- Parking Wardens
- Building Consents
- i-site staff
- anyone who faces upset ratepayers
How We Work With You
TUF: Thriving Under Fire are the specialists!
We are the NZ experts in this area of training, specialising in this one area of customer service, so that you get the very best training for your work force. In our approach we:
- use highly skilled facilitators used to dealing with emotional expression and with people in learning situations so that anything that is raised in the workshop can be effectively dealt with
- have no more than 12 people per group so that each person can explore real issues for them in a supportive environment
- Conduct two half-day sessions with a gap between so that participants practice the learning into their daily work, reflect on their experience and focus their learning in the second session
- work with your people and their experience of your customers, identifying when they get stuck and what they need to do differently
- view customers as buyers who right now have a big problem which they can’t express in any other way. This means your staff generate a more positive view of angry and aggressive customers
- tailor the workshop material to address the kinds of customers you meet in your business
- incorporate your mission, vision and values and other customer service policies or training resources into our programme so that the TUF programme clearly supports your business goals
For more information about our approach click here or email us directly at enquiries@tuf.net.nz
Who we are
TUF is a training programme developed by Faisandier Associates led by Director John Faisandier and supported by a number of trained facilitators throughout New Zealand. For more information visit our website.
Contact us: enquiries@tuf.net.nz
Phone: (04) 476 8186 or 027 246 0411
LGOL Price Breaks
Price breaks for councils booking through LGOL Website
