Workshops

Dealing with Difficult Customers

Practical techniques your staff can adopt today to make a real difference to your business tomorrow.

There are some people who we would just like to throttle! There are laws against this, so we need to learn how to deal with these challenging individuals!

We'll teach you and your staff some really easy-to-learn skills that can be applied immediately to make a real difference to how your customers feel about your business. This fun and interactive workshop will give your staff the skills to deal with difficult clients. Contact the Jigsaw team for further information and prices. Can you afford not to have better trained staff?

Why do my staff need to know these techniques?

It is human nature to complain - statistics show why it is so important to spend the time and effort to seek a positive outcome with difficult clients. If someone has a negative experience, they are likely to tell between 18-20 people, compared with when people have a positive experience, where they will tell an average of 5 people!

When managed effectively, a difficult client will become one of your business's greatest advocates!

Ensuring team effectiveness and increased productivity

No matter how exceptional or talented an individual staff member may be, if they lack the ability to interact and function as a productive team member, the goals of the group or team will most likely suffer.

This customised, interactive workshop will be designed after consultation and focuses on creating a dynamic and focused team. It will centre on the outcomes required by leaders and managers to facilitate all aspects of team work within the organisation or work group. The fact remains - the more a team can work together, the more efficient the team is.

A focus of this unit is the importance of performance management in ensuring the effectiveness of your team.

The workshop will focus on the following key result areas:

  • Establishing a team performance plan outlining opportunities, responsibilities and accountabilities.
  • Development of individual performance plans within the team to establish expected outcomes, key result areas, key performance indicators and goals.
  • Development and facilitation of team cohesion and constructive communication throughout the team and stakeholders.
  • Developing processes to ensure team members take responsibility for their own work and understand their role in the team unit.
  • How to provide feedback to team members to encourage, value and reward both individual and team efforts and contributions.
  • Ensuring that each individual's contribution to the team serves as a role model for others and enhances the organisation's image to all stakeholders.
  • Ensuring unresolved issues, concerns and problems raised by team members are communicated to, and followed up with, management and other relevant stakeholders.

This workshop is best delivered as a half-day (minimum) workshop.

Managing financial budgets

Accurate, informative and timely accounting and management information is essential for efficient and effective operations and decision making for all types of enterprises.

This unit will guide the learner in fundamental principles and practices in accounting, followed by analysis and interpretation of accounting and management reports prepared.

This workshop will introduce financial management fundamentals and contains information and activities about:

  • Business structures - their pros and cons
  • Elements of basic accounting principles
  • Financial management concepts
  • Reading balance sheets, chart of accounts, profit and loss reports
  • Designing and implementing cashflow forecasts
  • Basic tax affairs
  • Budgets, their purpose, types and key elements:
    • Interrelationships with work groups, plans and budgets
    • Establishing strategic and operational objectives within an organisation
    • Assessing actual performance against plan and budget
    • Achieving agreed financial and non-financial performance standards
    • Avoiding the common pitfalls associated with planning and budgeting
    • Building budgets from plans
    • Examining the internal and external risks to plans and budgets
    • Forecasting financial performance.

Course length: 8 hours

 

Mastering conflict resolution

Keeping customers happy without losing your job, your temper or going insane!

Discover practical, proven methods for managing conflict

  • Have you ever displayed anger in the workplace and regretted it?
  • Has unbridled emotion cost you too much?

This powerful conflict management workshop provides stimulating, inventive, solution-driven approaches to unavoidable conflicts arising at work and at home.

You will be provided with tools, strategies and tips to counter the most difficult, frustrating situations.

Specific outcomes include:

  • How to calculate a problem situation before it reaches crisis point
  • The secret to maintaining poise and control when everyone around you loses it.
  • Escape routes from "Alcatraz" situations.
  • Emotional Intelligence and emotional first aid - for yourself and others
  • Ways to repair damaged relationships - at work, at home, with anyone!
  • How to meet conflict and disagreement head-on ... and reach a mutual understanding.
  • Handling difficult and angry customers and how to stop the problem escalating
  • Understanding, using and managing emotional intelligence
  • Understanding and maximising our own communication styles
  • Non-verbal communication on the phone - voice dynamics
  • Truly maximising every call, every time in every situation
  • Understanding your own personality type

Conflict, strife, opposing points of view and difficult situations are part of the workplace and part of life - you can't change that. You can learn to better manage conflict when it does occur.

Learn to be a master of your emotions and the calm in the center of the storm.

 

Leaders can be made

Becoming an inspirational and effective leader

This workshop will equip you with the tools and strategies to ensure you will be able to motivate your team effectively. You will learn to manage emotions under pressure, learn to better identify feelings and emotional states in yourself and others and understand the impact of emotions in the workplace.

A motivational leader understands that people are the source of all progress and innovation and is able to help people develop and utilise more of their potential.

You will reflect on the roles, behaviours and characteristics of skilled leaders and managers in an organisational structure.

Various strategies for improving your leadership abilities, performance management techniques and organisational communication methods will be studied. We will investigate decision-making and the different processes used to make informed decisions.

You will be learn to develop your own ideas and use problem solving strategies so you can critically analyse the systems currently used in your organisation and develop continuous improvement strategies.

You will develop skills enabling you to:

  • Understand leadership styles and situational leadership
  • Develop and communicate an organisation's vision
  • Develop and use effective leadership skills enhancing productivity for all
  • Understand the need for, and processes involved in, performance management and performance counselling
  • Gather and analyse data in order to make informed, effective decisions that are matched to organisational goals and objectives
  • Design procedures to involve employees in decision making and acceptance of responsibility
  • Delegate and to share authority, resources and knowledge
  • Deal with conflict in the workplace

Course length: 7 hours

 

Creating outcomes through effective communication

Effective communication, more than any other skill, will determine your success in any organisational or social interaction. Quite simply, people who communicate effectively have a distinct advantage.

The Jigsaw communication program is designed to enhance your communications techniques.

This is a highly interactive and participative program and will have you out of your seats fine tuning your communication skills.

You will learn to:

  • Communicate more effectively and critique your own style
  • Improve your communication and evaluate those used in your organisation
  • Maintain goodwill and trust even when your message is not welcome
  • Deal with negative feedback and communication
  • Select appropriate communication vehicles for every occasion
  • Analyse and evaluate every communications process
  • Understand the importance of non-verbal communication and how to use and manage yours and other's non-verbal communication
  • Read other's non-verbal communication
  • Understand the distinctions between each communication style
  • Recognise clues for identifying the styles of others
  • Respecting other people's communication styles
  • Utilise active listening skills
  • Structure your message through establishing the end point first
  • Effectively lead using powerful questions
  • Put your best foot forward
  • Say "no" without offending

This course is essential if you wish to create enhanced outcomes in your interaction with others. The ability to communicate information clearly and concisely to different audiences is an essential skill that must be practiced.

Poor communication can lead to dissatisfaction, a breakdown of relationships, complaints and inferior performance.

Don't miss out on this opportunity to get ahead!

Customer service and call centre training

Forget about "vanilla" customer service training that merely goes through the motions!  Prepare to be excited by cutting edge training customised for your workplace.

Tailored telephone sales courses - Using over a decade of training experience we will work closely with you to guarantee strong return on investment.

The rationale of these courses is to improve skills not just for sales people but for all personnel involved in customer service. Jigsaw provide the skills, strategies and tools to increase productivity and sales.

Your staff will gain practical, relevant and specific skills and knowledge and be able to assist you in customer excellence. These include:

  • 5 Golden steps to empathy
  • Understanding a customer's basic needs
  • Handling difficult customers
  • Handling angry customers and how to stop the problem escalating
  • Understanding, using and managing emotional intelligence
  • Understanding and maximising our own communication styles
  • Non-verbal communication on the phone - voice dynamics
  • How to gain agreements
  • Truly maximising every call, every time in every situation
  • How to place calls on hold and transfer calls

Benefits of the training for employers include:

  • Increased employee knowledge
  • Heightened staff loyalty to the company
  • Increased yield through more effective sales skills
  • Improved time efficiency and productivity
  • Increased staff motivation leading to less staff absences and lateness
  • Improvement in the company's bottom line

 

Managing meetings with minimal mistakes

This practical workshop covers managing the preparation of meetings, chairing the meetings, dealing with different personality types, organising the minutes and reporting outcomes.

Skills that will be gained include:

  • How to confidently plan and run meetings with purpose and structure
  • Turning groups into an asset, rather than a challenge
  • Dealing with unforeseen issues that arise during meetings
  • Ensuring that your meetings produce clear and valuable outcomes
  • Maximising participants' morale and minimising frustration
  • How to ensure your meeting starts and finishes on time
  • Ensuring meeting follow up occurs and people understand their responsibilities
  • How differing personality types affect meetings
  • How to negotiate outcomes in a meeting setting
  • How to assess information in a meeting for relevance and accuracy
  • How to deal with unproductive and disengaged staff members in meetings

If you would like to be known as a great meeting facilitator, you can ill afford not to attend this dynamic and empowering three hour workshop. You, your peers and your business will gain incredible benefit from this experience.

 

The science of getting the best out of EVERY situation

This authoritative workshop will enrich your negotiation skills and let everyone come out a winner.

The workshop is designed for managers, leaders and supervisors who find themselves constantly having to accommodate the various needs of staff, contractors and customers.

You will acquire powerful negotiation skills including:

  • How to prevent or resolve disputes and conflicts
  • Improving individual, department, and company productivity
  • Humanising your management and interpersonal skills
  • Increasing your profitability and new opportunities
  • Negotiating in any situation with skills that will last a lifetime
  • How to increase the quality of the relationships you make
  • Techniques that neutralise surprises or "ambushes" from the other side
  • Achieving consistent results from your negotiations
  • Proven alternatives to adapt and use immediately
  • Reading your opponent and unveiling hidden meanings in conversations
  • Analysing your opponent's nonverbal behaviour (We spend a lot of time in the workshop on this area because non-verbal communication will add or detract to your negotiating strength. You will learn what the other side is saying and become aware of what your body language is saying to your opponent.)
  • Selecting the proper negotiating 'climate' to increase the odds of success
  • Proper preparation for a negotiation
  • Reinforcing decisions made through negotiation

Your ability to successfully negotiate is one skill that you will use in every facet of your life - it is a skill that can be learnt, trained and reinforced. Make an investment in your future TODAY!

 

Present like the professional you wish to be seen as!

Jigsaw presentation training provides specific tools helping develop skills to be clear, memorable and confident. All courses include a great deal of practical experience and exercises - NOT lectures! By engaging in practical work straight away the course is alive and buzzing from the start. It's fun and energetic and participants feel involved.

Participants receive personal feedback on their presentation skills and are given specific, individual advice to help them improve. Careful attention is paid to each delegate and highly specific advice is provided to help them make better presentations. Indeed our courses are much more like personal mentoring or coaching than training.

All courses include confidence boosting ideas, which are straightforward and which can be easily put in to practice.

We have a fundamental presentation course exploring the basics of planning, presenting and reviewing a fixed presentation to a somewhat captive audience. This is perfect for inductions or where training is consistent. It will show presenters how to get the message across, understand different learning styles and utilise a variety of methods to achieve desired results. Our 'fundamental' course is for people doing the job now - regardless of previous experience. The fundamental courses includes:

  • A critical analysis of your presentation style and ability
  • A series of steps you can take to improve your presentations
  • A guide on how to maximise your performance.

The fundamental course covers show you how to:

  • Control nerves and present in your own natural style, not acting skills
  • Prepare a full presentation in less than 20 minutes
  • Engage and interact with your audience with confidence
  • Increase your impact and earn the recognition you deserve
  • Differentiate between communicating as opposed to presenting
  • Understand and control the use of body language
  • Write presentations
  • Use of audiovisual aids

Course Length - 5 hours

Manage your time effectively

The most common form of stress is the feeling of being overwhelmed with far too much to do and having too little time to do it in.

In fact, time poverty is the biggest single problem facing most managers today. We simply do not have enough time to fulfill all our responsibilities.

Most projects blow out because of time. This session helps you manage project time more efficiently. You will learn how to be the most astute investor of your time, start majoring in majors and stop majoring in minors, stop feeling overwhelmed and separate your work life from your home life!

In this interactive Time Management session you will learn:

  • How to set goals that you can and will achieve
  • Conditioning the sub conscious mind to achieve time management success
  • How to prioritise your work
  • How to coordinate yourself and others
  • The art to minimising interruptions and time stealers
  • Why re-engineering your role can double your effectiveness
  • Traits of time management experts
  • Managing project time

Your Prescription for Business Success

If you have tried everything to get on top of your workload and nothing has helped then it is time to call in The Time Doctor.

Jigsaw have devised their own tried-and-true methods and the Time Management workshops are rich in content and delivered with warmth and humour. This is conveyed with a practical prescription that is simple to apply. Crucially, it is designed for "real people" in the "real world".

You will be kept engaged and leave feeling informed, energised and motivated.

Importantly you will get you real results where they count ... on the bottom line.