Gather your team and explain that Disney has to handle over 135 million customers in their parks each year, so customer service isn’t something they take lightly.
Explain that the technique Disney has developed to train customer service representatives on angry customers is called HEARD:
Hear: Listen to the customer’s entire story.
Empathize: Use phrases that convey that you understand how the customer feels.
Apologize: And do so effusively!
Resolve: Fix the issue, and if you don’t know how, ask the customer, “How can I set this right?”
Diagnose: Get to the bottom of the issue – that way you can make sure it won’t happen again.
Write this on a whiteboard or flipchart while you explain, so the team can clearly see all of the steps. Then ask for a set of volunteers and tell the other participants that they’ll act as judges.
Provide the volunteers with a scenario that you may have seen happen in your company—something either common or comical to keep their interest.
Assign one role-player to be the customer service agent, and the other to be the customer. Ask them to move through each of the five steps.
Ask the rest of the team to offer advice or suggestions if the pair gets stuck.
Afterwards, ask the team to discuss how the customer service agent handled each step, and to explain the impacts of what happened.
