Original subtitles

I want to get your blood flowing I know

you've had an opportunity to have muffin

and some coffee and so on and so forth

but I want to get us talking here's what

I'd like you to do you're all in your

groups of five right anyone in the group

of more than five okay less than five is

fine as well here's what I would like

you to do I would like you to talk about

what you hope to get out of your day at

the zoo it doesn't have to be about the

customer service seminar I know that

this is the least important part of your

day at the zoo and I want you to have a

conversation at your table going around

where each sentence starts with the next

letter of the alphabet so for example

aren't you excited to be at the zoo boy

am I ever

I love the hyenas chimpanzees are my

favorite Dalmatians don't think I have

Dalmatians at the zoo and I want you to

take it around through the alphabet and

let's see how far you get

okay let's talk about what the process

was like how did that feel to you fun

great what was fun about it so you had a

challenge and you met that challenge and

had a conversation going that actually

made sense all right so you rose to the

challenge very important in customer

service to rise to the challenge when

you have an obstacle set in front of you

and you say my god I've never seen a set

of rules that look like this or a set of

requests that look like this how am I

gonna rise to the challenge and you did

and it actually had an outcome that made

sense let me ask you a question by a

show of hands and nobody will be getting

a report card in this on anyway how many

of you were counting ahead to what

letter was gonna come up for you and

thinking ahead of what your next idea

was gonna be okay all right that's well

that's about 75% of the group we're

saying a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o

okay and say oh okay i'm gonna hold it

for when o comes this is another reason

that i wanted to share this exercise

with you i would imagine for those of us

who are the solution center for our

organizations whether we're part of a

team or again a customer service

solutions center of one we are always

ready with the answer for our customer

before we've actually taken the time to

hear what it is our customer wants and

needs so you were ready to jump in with

letter o because you knew that's what

was coming up next you anticipated that

o was coming up next but weren't

necessarily listening for what the other

people at your table were contributing

to the conversation so as a ground rule

for moving forward today and for moving

forward in your customer service

initiatives i want you to be prepared to

listen before you prepare yourself to

speak they say that we have two years

and one mouth so we can listen twice as

much as we can speak but i'm gonna

practice it today i'm gonna try and do a

lot of listening i'd like you to do a

lot of

and in working with your customers I'd

like you now to be prepared to have the

answer but be prepared to listen for

what they need you might be surprised at

what the new solution might be for your

customers