Sparkle is about improving lives through excellent customer service
The Sparkle Program for Libraries has been specifically developed by Success Habits Australia Pty Ltd and PACE Australia Pty Ltd for the many customer service environments that exist for Library staff who have both internal and external customers.
The goal is to ensure a consistent and quality customer experience.
The Sparkle Program aims to build upon and further enhance the existing customer service skills in the Libraries and develop ongoing best practice competencies.
The Library programs consist of five elements:
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Sparkle is a two day program for all Library and council personnel
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Sparkle Champions– is a two day program for Library Managers and Team Leaders
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Sparkle advanced
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Inspirational Leadership
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Team alignment
About Sparkle
The Sparkle Program is a Customer Service Training Program suitable for all Library personnel. Each Sparkle program is specifically tailored to your Library’s needs. We customise the program to your specific Library’s issues and requirements.
This program is designed to build upon your existing customer service culture, enhance your interpersonal communication and customer service skills, and help you to establish and enhance rapport with your customers/patrons/clients.
It will teach you the skills and knowledge of understanding, clarifying, meeting and exceeding customer needs and expectations.
Program outline:
Day 1.- Developing a focused customer service culture
How to build a customer service culture into your Library environment based on the 5 ‘Sparkle Principles’ – B.E.A.M.S
· Being Present
· Enjoyment and Fun
· Attitude is Everything
· Making a Difference
· Supporting and Serving
- Understanding the components of true customer service
- Thinking from a customer’s perspective about their expectations from Library
- Identifying who your customers are - externally and internally
- Identifying qualities and characteristics of excellent customer service providers
- Brainstorming ideas on exceeding customer expectations
Managing angry and upset customers
- Caring for angry and upset customers
- Develop conflict handling skills to achieve win/win solutions promptly
Program outline: Day2. – Empowering Customer Service Skills
Key Customer Service Skills to deliver positive customer experiences
Personality Styles - Understanding yourself and others
This part of the program is designed to improve your ability to understand yourself and others, and thus bring about improvements in your ability to relate to others, your personal effectiveness and your performance.
Understand self (why we behave the way we do)
Understand others (why they behave the way they do)
Improve communication
Improve behaviour flexibility
Improve results through and with others
Improve win/win potential
By the end of this program, you will be able to:
- Greet your customers professionally whilst demonstrating a caring attitude
- Ask appropriate questions to quickly identify your customer’s requirements/needs
- Present solutions in a clear and easy to understand way
- Deal appropriately with conflict and resolve complaint
- Adapt your communication style to suit different personalities and challenging customers
- Manage your state of mind to stay in control when frustrated
- Approach customer service in a consistent way across the whole branch/division/team
Susan Coker Executive Manager Townsville Library Services talks about Sparkle
Testimonials
“The Sparkle Program helped me recognise that people behave in certain ways for many reasons. We may or may not be able to help them and that is ok. It is always best to remain positive and offer positive options.”
“Communication is the heart of customer service, so understanding one another and my behaviour helps me in understanding others in my daily interactions.”
"I would recommend this workshop not only because it is lots of fun, but because it is genuinely beneficial in giving ideas on how to better serve customers and also understand yourself and the behaviour of those you work with. Makes for a much happier work place for employees and customers."
"I found the SPARKLE program to be extremely interesting and Carol our teacher was excellent in beling able to explain the program in a workable format. I know that I will find this to be useful in my everyday working and family relationships."
"A great course for improving the workplace all round. Between staff and management as well as between staff and patrons."
"Great interactive workshop. I'm going to use some of your strategies in the classroom ie Open questions "secret" game and the "nice" comments on the sticky notes."
"This is a high value program that introduces new ideas clearly and refreshes familiar ones in a relevant manner."
"This course is a must for all front-line customer service staff to assist with the wide range of interaction with the public and to improve working relationships among the team. It really makes a difference"
"I would recommend this workshop to anyone who values their staff and wants to offer a high level of customer service. this workshop I believe would help any organisation to 'raise the bar' in terms of staff relations and customer service."
"I would highly recommend 'SPARKLE' - it is enjoyable, eye opening and gives us insight into ourselves."
Sparkle Champions
A program for Managers and Team Leaders to “Keep the Sparkle Alive”
It is vital that there are “Sparkle Coaches” in each Library in order to ensure that the knowledge and skills learnt during the two day Sparkle Program are implemented back in the Library environment. The role of the coach will be to support their people and help them continue to apply the learning’s on an ongoing basis.
We see the role of the managers and team leaders as being crucial to the success of the Customer Service Sparkle initiative. For this reason, managers and team leaders should have the opportunity of attending the two day Sparkle Champions program which will give them improved skills in leading and coaching their staff on customer service skills provided during the program.
Day 1.- Sparkle Champions
The first half day module is focused on ‘How to keep the Sparkle alive’. This module provides knowledge and skills to create culture change through vision and values. The key theme of “Find it, Live it, Coach it” will enable Library management to sustain the change process.
The second half day module is focused on ‘Coaching Sparkle for Managers and Team Leaders’ and this module teaches how to coach and develop your people based on their competency and commitment levels.The program shows how you can encourage people and help them grow. They will learn a powerful coaching method called ‘GROW’, which will give them the skills to do just that. We will apply these to customer service situations in the Library.
Day 2. - Sparkle Champions:
Sparkle has developed a new one day advanced leading and coaching program, which is focused on the key behavioural communication skills for building positive relationships with your team. The key topics are the most sought after by leaders and managers who want to build, keep and grow a loyal team.
Motivation:Have you ever wondered what makes you tick? Are you motivated by responsibility and challenge or just more money?
What brings out the best in you?
Many Managers, Team Leaders and Supervisors think the only way to motivate staff is by offering pay rises – yet if you can’t give pay a rise then how do you motivate your staff?
Learn what motivates you and your staff. Money is one of them and there are eight others.
These motivators actually align with your values.
They provide you with a great tool to help you lead develop and inspire your staff to be the best they can be.
Changing difficult behaviour: Often the biggest challenges Sparkle coaches have are managing the attitudes and behaviours of difficult people. Staff who come to work focused on the negative's, complaining or being critical can be challenging behaviours to manage. We will show you how to instantly influence all behaviours skilfully and easily, using three simple steps. Once learned you can use them on any one including your customers and family members. It was once thought that it is impossible to change people but that is a myth it really is a simple skill that comes from the behavioural science of neuro linguistics programming. Once mastered these skills will have you wielding your magic as soon as you get back to the library.
Constructive feedback: We all need it at times as it is the fertilizer of growth. We have two easy to use strategies designed to give feedback in the best possible light. One strategy is for spontaneous feedback when we need to have a quick word and the other is for performance management when a change of performance behaviour is required.
Being open to and receiving feedback as a manager is important for ones personal growth, yet most team members are reluctant to give feedback to their manager. You will be introduced to some simple tips for receiving feedback that will help you evaluate and take advantage of any feedback you might receive.
Recognition: The most positive way to reinforce good behaviour and motivate your team is through praise and recognition. It has been said that if you constantly focus on what a person does well and reinforce that behaviour, then other less satisfactory behaviours a team member might have will begin to diminish and disappear. We will cover the value of recognition, how to deliver recognition in the most meaningful ways and the different opportunities that exist within the library to give recognition.
Duration: The Sparkle Champions Program is a two day program
Program outline Day 1.
Module 1 - How to keep Sparkle alive – what will make it stick
- Creating culture change
- What helps and what hinders
- Your role, your example, your leadership
- Leading is setting, giving and letting
- Find it, Live it, Coach it
- What’s the vision for your Library/Team
- How to implement the change process through involvement
Module 2 - Skills to Coach Sparkle
- Communication skills for coaching
- Learn and apply the GROW model in your coaching conversations
- The importance of asking ‘coaching’ questions
- Creating willingness vs compliance
- Handling differences for win/win outcomes
- How to present information that empowers and engages
Program outline Day 2.
Module 3- Motivation
- Identify the motivators that make your team members feel good at work
- Develop a motivating environment to stimulate loyalty
Module 4- Changing difficult behaviour
- Learn how to change behaviour patterns in positive ways
- Discover the TRIAD that creates every emotional pattern
Module 5- Performance management
- Learn two quick and simple strategies for giving feedback
- The CIGAR strategy is an excellent performance management tool
Module 6- Giving recognition
- Learn the value of recognition
- How to give recognition that is meaningful
- Different ways to give recognition
Testimonials:
“Role plays and interaction helped to make the whole experience positive.The content was excellent. I will always remember that with difficult behaviour it is essential to step up and change my own behaviour. I recommend this program to anyone who supervises staff."
“This training is inspiring and gives relevant practical skills. The strategies involved in interrupting behaviour and modifying performance - Carol gave really relevant real life anecdotes that illustrated her concepts well."
Sparkle Advanaced
As a way of providing additional support and keeping the Sparkle skills and energy re-invigorated we have developed a third day of Sparkle.
The purpose of the day is to assist your team to rejuvenate their Sparkle skills, learn new strategies to be even more successful in life and the library, plus new skills to create customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Program overview:
We will review the Sparkle skills and add extra service skills to deliver positive experiences for customers. We will also run a session on the Psychology of Success to provide Library staff with the life skills to “choose their attitude” for professional and personal benefits.Participants will be asked to bring to the program positive and negative personal service experiences they have had as customers.
Program elements:
Delivering excellence in customer service
- An exercise to define the key elements of excellent service from the customer’s perspective.
Playing above and below the line
- Victor or victim behaviour is a choice
The Psychology of Success
- Your attitude determines your success or not
- The physical consequences of a poor attitude
- Where our attitude comes from
- The link between what we think about and the response we get back from our customers
- How we create our reality
- Three strategies to develop a more positive attitude
This session promotes: personal accountability, ownership and responsibility. Participants will clearly learn that blame, denial and excuses do not serve them or their library, family or friends. Also that even with the unexpected challenges that we sometimes get in life our attitude towards it will always determine how we move forward.
Sparkle success!
Why attend Sparkle Advanced?
We all need a refresher from time to time and a get together in a learning environment is the ideal place.Sparkle review is ideal for those of your team who are not delivering the level of service you require or are not consistent. The practice sessions are a fun way to remind staff of the value of the skills and how to use them. Also in Sparkle we learnt about managing angry and upset customers but as we know staff have challenges with other difficult customers such as arrogant or condescending customers in day three we have your people identify the types of difficult customers they deal with and then look at ways to work with those customers to create a
positive outcome for both parties.
The psychology of success is about improving one’s attitude to life, being responsible for our actions and making the most of life in general. If you have staff who are stressed, often get sick, come into work with the world on their shoulders or simply have a negative mind set then this session will help them to understand the part they play in manifesting those pains in their life and how they can choose to change it.
Team Alignment and Goal Achievement
Is your library at a new stage in its growth and development during which new growth is usually accompanied by a myriad of challenges and people issues?
Generally, the particular people issues impacting productivity and workplace effectiveness are the ways in which management and staff work together and how the needed changes get implemented, in such a way that Library staff do not feel threatened or resistant to the changes, but are willing to embrace it – albeit, even if ‘cautiously’!
When a group or team are not functioning well, the impacts on morale, productivity, absenteeism, staff turnover, other departments, customers and overall Library effectiveness are very significant.
The Sparkle Approach
The performance of teams and the people in those teams are enhanced when there is:
¢ A clear purpose for the team
¢ A vision of what the team is aiming for
¢ Guiding principles and/or values that determine the rules of engagement for the team
¢ Understanding of each other and the core motivational preferences and communication styles of each person.
Our Recommendations
There are five Key Areas that we believe should be focused on for each functional and cross-functional Library team.
¢Our Identity – Who We Are. A clear understanding of who we are as a Team and what our Purpose is. This is so important because it underpins the meaning and value of what each team member contributes
¢Our Value – What is our Contribution Collectively and Individually. A clear and solid recognition of what our internal/external customers want from us and how we deliver on this
¢Our Engagement – Who are Our Customers. This defines how we engage with our internal/external customers so that we fully understand their needs and can recommend the best solutions from our Team
¢Our Empowerment – How do We Support Each Other. This defines how we support each other as team members aligned to our Library’s Corporate Values
¢Our Strategies and Goals – Lets Take Action. Having an agreed strategic and tactical set of Action Plans to implement all the above to meet the needs of the Library in the broadest sense.
The Leadership Journey - Team Alignment Workshop one to one and a half days is designed to bring the team together and enable them to be all heading in the same direction, singing from the same song sheet.
This will then significantly improve the performance of the team members and the team because:
- Communication will be improved
- Purpose and commonality will be shared
- Diversity will be understood
- Change will be managed from both a ‘people’ and a ‘process’ perspective
Outcomes
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Each Library team member will agree and align themselves around a common purpose, vision and values that will have the team focused on what it needs to achieve
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The members of each Library team will have a higher understanding of themselves and their positive and limiting impacts on the smooth and efficient working of the team
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Understanding of how the individuals handle conflict - personally and in the team – will help to deal with the inevitable stresses that come up in a high performing team
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Issues impacting the team’s performance and results will be identified and solved
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Goals, strategies, and plans will be implemented to move each Library team forward to where it needs to go
If this sounds like something that would benefit your Library team – please discuss with Carol Cooper 0417022688
Testimonials:
“I wish to compliment you on your professional approach to deliver a concise and effective training session to the team, that has resulted in significant operational improvements, including a lift in moral and motivation."
David Sinclair, Customer Operations Manager
Independence Solutions, a division of ParaQuad NSW
"The SPARKLE Advanced program provided an opportunity to re-visit our past SPARKLE learnings. I am very keen to follow up on the scramble technique and will always remember the blind date exercise!"
"This program has given me options for being more positive for myself and handling situations in the work place."
"More excellent customer service tips. Don't let fear of failure hold you back. Change your beliefs to gain more positive behaviours. It is becoming aware of the power of your mind that brings positivity."
"A fun program that explores more of the Sparkle principles - a great refresher if you have been 'SPARKLED' before plus new concepts about success with customers."
To register your place on any of the The Sparkle Programs please contact:
Carol Cooper
Success Habits Pty Ltd
Address
PO Box 342 Labrador Queensland Australia 4215
Telephone 0417022688
Facsimile 02 99741539
E-mail carolcooper@gotalk.net.au
