Does anyone know of a problem solving exercise that I may use with a group? I am doing a session on telephone techniques and customer service and want to stress the procedure of how to solve a problem. I want to do this through the use of an exercise. Can anyone help?
Lisa Birch
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6 Responses
Problem Solving
Hi there Lisa,
have you tried http://www.trainerslibrary.com they have some fantastic problem solving exercises – one I have used recently is the Welsh Holiday – 2 families travelling to the same point, different parts of a map, walkie-talkies etc.. I found it most useful when talking about key questions to ask, communication skills, negotiation etc.. and how to apply this to general cust: service, it’s also great fun to watch 2 teams in seperate rooms trying to use a map and fighting over who has the waklie-talkie!!!
You have to pay a very small monthly fee to join trainerslibrary but it’s well worth it, loads of material, quotes, handouts etc..
Hope this helps and good luck
Try asking them…
You don’t say whether this is part of an induction course or if it’s refresher training or something completely new but if these people are already doing the job you could ask them to bring situations which they’ve struggled with in the past as part of the course prep.
I guess that this would be referred to as “accelerated learning” as the solutions may not be readily apparent but the benefits of the exercise would be to relate the learning to their actual role and help them apply problem solving to real life problems so that the benefits are readily apparent. Which often doesn’t happen with an artificial situation.
If they are completely new to the organisation you could ask them to bring examples of communication issues they have had elsewhere and work on those instead.
PROBLEM solving model
Tesseract Management Systems Ltd. have an excellent PROBLEM solving model as it is copyright material you would need to contact them in order to use it. See their web site http://www.tesseracts.com/
or email [email protected]
Hi Lisa
A really good friend of mine runs pro receptionist courses and may have some suitable ideas in keeping with the topic. Neil Hodges of http://www.knowledge-college.org
Problem Solving Exercise
Hi Lisa,
I have used two very good games to show the importance of effective communication to solve a problem. The games are called Colourblind and Signlines.
Our company purchased these from a company based in Edinburgh called Future Factory who have a superb collection. We have implemented these games into Induction courses for Customer Care and they can also be used for a variety of courses.
problem solving exercise
Hi.There is an exercise called No Turning Back, where two sides each being holiday reps have to decide how to deal with problems that are presented to them throughout the exercise. They are given choices plus money to use as they see fit. It incorporates various skills as well as being easily run and fun to play. Sorry not sure where you can now get hold of it.