The Myths of Customer Service
Exploding the myths of popular customer service phrases. All credible until you look beyond the words….. 1. The customer is always right If they were we'd be out of business! Sometimes the customer has been mislead or misunderstood. So maybe the phrase should be: 'convincing the customer they were less right than they thought they were'! […]
Elearning for soft skills: Practical intervention or pipedream?
Elearning and soft skills are not the most obvious of bedfellows, but could one be used to educate people in the other? Ashridge's Tony Sheehan thinks so. Over the last 20 years, digital learning has evolved from the periphery to a core part of L&D strategy in many organisations. As technology has moved to the […]
Five tips if you’re feeling overwhelmed
Is your workload getting to you? Graham Allcott has some great tips to help you keep on top of everything. Read on to recapture your zen. Get control We all have times where it feels as if there is far too much to do, and far too little time to complete it all. When these […]
Make the right choice in task management
Tasking: Take your choice Allowing demands on our time and dropping everything to react to a situation has consequences. We become victims to other people's demands and task management plans go 'out the window'. Sometimes we do have to react to a situation, particularly if it's for a customer or client. But at other times […]
Mobilising the global workforce for 2014
Armin Hopp examines the issues around making a workforce truly mobile and sets out the training agenda for 2014. 2013 has been a game-changing year for HR and learning and development departments. Long-promised global collaboration and elearning platforms, combined with fast, reliable Internet connections and smart mobile devices have finally enabled the creation of a […]
Learning is up but the skills remain the same
An all-round increase in learning activity is changing the role of L&D, says Martin Addison of Video Arts. You’ve been busy – and we have the figures to prove it. Since 2009, the ‘Learning Index’ has looked at how you deliver training and your plans for the future. This year, two particular findings stand out. […]
Top 10 customer service quotes
Drawn from our Business Quotations Compendium, consisting of nearly 200 inspirational quotes. To receive a free copy, visit our web site. Use on training handouts, noticeboards, newsletters and campaigns. Here's our top 10 favourite customer service quotations. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning" BILL GATES "A satisfied customer – we should have […]
Exceptional customer service – feel the love!
What differentiates exceptional customer service from good service? It could be to do with 'feelings' – how the recipient of service feels afterwards. If customers and clients walk away from an interaction with us with a warm, positive feeling then whatever we did is an example of exceptional customer service. In other words we 'delighted' […]
L&D industry insight: Armin Hopp
To tie in with our recent focus on soft skills, we interviewed Armin Hopp, founder and CEO of Speexx. Making the case for soft skills as an essential – and measureable – component of the modern business skillset is pretty tricky, but Armin managed it with ease. A shorter version of this interview featured in […]
Emerging economies and the need for project management training
By 2025, emerging economies will contribute to over half the global GDP. Over 15.7 million new project management (PM) roles will be needed to be created globally just to keep up with demand. Alan Garvey says the need for PM training will skyrocket as a result. According to a recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, […]
An issue of trust
Ken Blanchard gives his opinion on the soft skills and leadership debate – with some interesting stats to boot. Ouch! It seems many of our workplaces, far from being the fair, nurturing collaborative environments they should be, are in fact hotbeds of mistrust and dishonesty. When I came across research suggesting only 20% of employees […]
Softer skills, harder results
To further make the case for taking soft skills seriously, Cornerstone OnDemand's Vincent Belliveau adds to the debate. The economic woes of the last few years have proven difficult for many organisations. The UK public has been a lot more careful with its money and indeed, at the end of 2012, figures from the Office […]
The importance of soft skills in leadership
Leaders don't need to worry about soft skills, right? Wrong. Fiona Lander elaborates. Technical know-how is all well and good, but it is emotional intelligence and self-awareness that will differentiate traditional managers from the star leaders of tomorrow. In recent years, there has been an influx of new leadership development methods; and it is no coincidence […]
Soft skills: Practice makes perfect
You've got the skills, you just need to hone them. Emma Oakley from RADA in Business tells us how. Soft skills – for many these are some of the hardest skills to acquire, teach and quantify. Effective communication, conflict management, personal impact, influencing and selling – these are all essential business skills and we tend […]
Soft skills for a hard new world
Emma-Sue Prince kicks off soft skills month with a look at their importance in the modern workplace. Soft skills get a bit of a bad rap. The term itself is, at best, vague and non-specific and there are varying views about what these skills actually are – as well as how you go about 'getting […]
Ten top tips for courageous conversations at work
Chartered psychologist, and author of ‘Positive Psychology at Work’, Sarah Lewis has 10 tips to help produce a good result when you have a difficult conversation to tackle. Many people, at some point in their working lives, have to have a difficult conversation with someone. It might be about a performance issue or something more […]
Disciplinary – it’s all in the preparation
The Employment Act 2008 places greater emphasis on the employer to ensure disciplinary issues are dealt with in accordance with new statutory procedures and guidelines. A.C.A.S. says: "Those responsible for using and operating the disciplinary rules, including managers at all levels, should be trained for the task". Prepare effectively and the manager is well on their […]
What would be the one piece of advice…
…you would give to yourself when you were 20 which you wish you had received? Recently I posted a discussion onto a Learning and Development group on LinkedIn with the above title. Due to the overwhelming response I received I decided to sum up the key points that arose from the discussion. Confidence The most […]
Seven top tips to build rapport with your audience
Julie Kertesz offers seven top tips to ensure you build great rapport with your audiences – whatever the occasion. We’ve all sat through them – those presentations where the speaker just doesn’t connect with the audience, leaving you feeling detached from the experience, that your time has been wasted, and more than likely, frustrated as […]
Is Crowdsourcing the new 360 Degree Feedback?
In this article from HBR online, the writer suggests replacing traditional performance appraisal with 'crowdsourced' feedback. Crowdsource your performance reviews Crowdsourcing is about using the 'wisdom of crowds' to make decisions, the idea being that a larger population will provide better data, create better products and produce better results that a small group or an […]
