OK, I admit it: unlike the owner of the car in this picture I’m not a massive rugby fan, but it’s difficult not to get caught up in the carnival atmosphere as the team flags and pennants go up around Auckland, and no doubt every other town and city in the country. With my trainer’s hat on I can see that the tournament presents a number of challenges and opportunities to New Zealand companies, particularly from a customer service perspective. During the next few weeks hordes of demanding visitors from around the globe will be descending on hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and tourist attractions. Many of them will be getting lost, confused, injured, impatient, anxious (and also angry whenever reality doesn’t match their expectations). Kiwi CSRs and others with a customer-facing role are going to need to display heaps of patience and empathy if they want to help send these visitors back home after their holiday having had a positive and memorable experience.

I know many companies have provided special RWC training to prepare employees for the tournament, but if yours wasn’t one of them you could do a lot worse than visiting (or pointing your staff towards) this excellent, and free, online training programme offered on the government’s NZ 2011 website. Called ‘First Impressions’, the 2 hour interactive course (broken down into bite-sized 15 min sessions) provides a great primer for the competition itself, as well as covering some basic customer service concepts centred around the CARE acronym (Customer, Attitude, Respect, Engagement). I rushed through it to check it out, but it’s really designed to be completed in a more paced way. There are mini web research tasks and interactive exercises and you get to test yourself at the end (it took me two attempts to get 100%!).

Also, it’s not too late to capitalise on Rugby Fever by using the tournament as an excuse for injecting a bit of competition and fun into your workplace. Getting each work area team to pick a country might be a great way to introduce some friendly competition, and this could be expanded to encouraging each team to decorate their work area and celebrate the culture of their chosen nation. It’s also a great opportunity for some overt team-building activities. Maybe you could have an inter-team touch competition, or stick some goalposts on your foosball table, throw in a mini rugby ball and have an indoor knockout tournament. Just dust off your copy of Fish! and use your imaginations. Remember to involve the teams in the planning so you get buy-in (there’s nothing worse than being ordered to have fun) and keep business objectives in mind (so you can frame the activities as relevant to the organisation’s goals and values, rather than a pointless distraction).

Links:
http://firstimpressions.nz2011.govt.nz/
http://www.fishpond.co.nz/product_info.php?ref=1391&id=9780340924587&affiliate_banner_id=1

- Will Moore

Tags: customer service, call-centres