Internal Consulting & Customer Service
- Course:Internal Consulting & Customer Service
- Course ID:SERVICE Duration:2 days Where: Your Office (7+ Persons)
- Download Course Description (PDF)
Available as a private, customized course for your group at your offices or ours and in some cases as a WebLive(TM) class.
Course Outline
- Communication in a Consulting Role
- Recognizing the primary inhibitor to successful communication and influence
- Exploring typical barriers to communication
- Dissecting and overcoming barriers
- Consulting and Customer Service as a Five-Step Process
- Exploring the role of internal or external consultant
- Five points to the consulting star
- Developing positive ongoing client relationships and long lasting rapport
- Customer service as 90% relationship and 10% product
- Setting Goals and Understanding Implied Consulting Contracts
- Setting mutual goals
- Changing “requirements” and “features” to business issues, e.g., financial constraints, user needs, skill level and misperceptions
- Recognizing differences in communicating and decision-making styles that can be misperceived as conflicting goals
- Turning negative situations into positive ones through reflecting, interpreting non-verbal communications, and asking leading questions
- Problem Solving and Diagnosis
- Dealing with negativity
- Partnering through problem solving
- Making phone calls and voice mail messages seem like in-person interactions
- The research process: A consultant’s role with a subject matter expert
- The interview process: Questioning to uncover the real needs and bring the client to your side
- Presenting Ideas, Recommendations and Solutions that Sell
- Preparing for dealing with resistance
- Ten most common resistance behaviors and how to deal with them
- Preparing for the feedback meeting; gathering allies, designing collaborative dialog
- Presentation openings and closings that grab; presentation formats and styles
- Persuasion techniques for getting others to say “yes”
- A strategy for leading an undecided client toward decision-making
- Follow Through
- The difference between follow through and follow up
- Partnering with other internal clients, becoming one voice to external clients
- Mastering the points on the Consulting Star to bring it full circle
- Wrap Up
- Q & A
- Action planning and accountability
Course in a Nutshell
You may be an Internal Consultant whether or not you recognize yourself as such. Professionals at all levels are asked to solve problems for or provide advice and ideas to their colleagues, management, other departments, and external clients.
This course will help you achieve more productive relationships and partnerships through mastery of the techniques critical to interpersonal problem-solving, communication, and trust-building. Following the process outlined in Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting, you will learn and practice a five-step consulting model that can be applied to any workplace setting. We will show you how to diagnose problems, predict customer needs, suit your consulting style to those needs, make recommendations based on a substantiated decision making process, present your ideas in a clear and compelling manner, and fulfill client expectations. You will receive tips on listening to both verbal and nonverbal communications, receiving feedback and criticism, and understanding expectations that are implied though never explicitly stated. In short, this course will give you all the tools you need to understand and deliver to your implied consulting contract.
Customize It!
Customize this course at little-to-no additional cost to your specific needs:
- Tell us about the internal or external customer(s) that you have a consulting or service relationship with and we’ll tailor the course to the specific requirements of your situation.
- If you like, we can turn the course into an action learning program. You will learn how to sell your specific idea, service or product, practice on videotape, and receive real-time coaching and critique.
Learn How To
- Understand how your communication style affects your ability to communicate effectively with others
- Detect major communication barriers and build relationships based on positive communication and trust
- Apply a five-step process to maximize your effectiveness as a consultant
- Recognize the ten primary behaviors that demonstrate resistance and learn how to overcome them
- Overcome the human tendency to “solve” a problem before its cause is identified
- Enhance your influence with your clients by following a joint decision-making process
- Uncover the secrets of making presentations that persuade and sell
- Encourage client participation to achieve increased buy-in for your ideas and recommendations
- Use questioning and listening techniques to help your clients recognize needs and expectations that you can meet but that they didn’t realize they had
- Respond to questions with tact, clarity and openness
- Say “no” without saying so when you can’t provide what the client is asking for
Aimed At
All those whose job requires them to solve problems for or provide ideas, advice, or support to their manager, colleagues, and other departments.
- “Good presenter; encouraged participation. Liked interaction opportunities. The participant handbook is a great take-away – lots of info, so it’s good as a stand-alone resource.” – Karl Rogers, Employment Services Company