Sales & Customer Experience

Customer Experience: Count to 7!

Managing challenging conversations: a transformational programme on understanding yourself first, then the person who is angry with you.

The business challenge

Why organizations ask for this

Organizations invest in the product and improvise the experience. Frontline teams absorb the difference, and without tools for de-escalation and emotional regulation, the cost appears as escalations, churn and burnout.

customer-experience-count-to-7-challenge
Approach & methodology

How the programme actually runs

4 × 3.5 h workshops + 2 h follow-up, or 2 days face-to-face · Online or face-to-face · 70% practice / 30% theory · RO / EN

Setting the scene

Corporate strategy and the focus on customer intimacy; mindset versus role in achieving performance; the customer care goals and KPIs the team is actually measured on.

Part 1: Mastering self

Understand, reflect, accept, integrate and act. A world café where the group answers, from three perspectives (me, the company, the customer): how I see my role today, what the organization expects of me, and what customers actually expect.

Customer needs and expectations

The customer's mindset and buying occasions; the customer persona; the customer journey and its Moments of Truth; effortless buying; the service profit chain that links employee satisfaction to customer satisfaction to profitability.

The Customer Interaction Framework

1. Acknowledge and approach. 2. Identify the best solutions. 3. Build authenticity. Then: identify further needs and issues, deliver the solution, overcome resistance, close the interaction.

Managing conversations and emotions

Effective communication across phone, email and chat; de-escalation of upset customers; powerful questioning to build rapport and trust; what changes in the brain during a challenging conversation.

Between sessions

Short reflection homework that embeds the previous workshop into the day-to-day.

Follow-up

A two-hour group coaching session: what went well, what can be improved, sharing best practice and creating productive embedding routines.

Optional: mystery shopping

A mystery shopping programme run against an interaction framework agreed with the client, to measure the behaviour rather than the intention.

Competencies built

What participants can do afterwards

Emotional regulation

Count to seven and choose your response, instead of matching the customer's state.

Active listening

Hear the request underneath the complaint.

Empathy

Acknowledge the frustration before you start solving anything.

Conflict management

De-escalate without conceding what you are not able to concede.

Rapport building

Rebuild the relationship inside the same conversation that damaged it.

Customer journey management

See your interaction as one step in a journey the customer remembers whole.

Expected business outcomes

What the organization should see

Higher customer satisfaction scores (NPS, CSAT)
Reduced complaints and escalations
Improved customer loyalty and retention
Schedule & format

Practical details

Audience
Customer-facing teams
Duration
4 × 3.5 h workshops + 2 h follow-up, or 2 days face-to-face
Format
Online or face-to-face · 70% practice / 30% theory · RO / EN
Measurement
Kirkpatrick L1–L4
FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Customer-facing teams.

4 × 3.5 h workshops + 2 h follow-up, or 2 days face-to-face. The rhythm is deliberate: modules are spaced so participants apply the behaviour at work between sessions.

Online or face-to-face · 70% practice / 30% theory. We adapt the mix to your geography and shift patterns.

Yes, and it always is. We start with two to three individual conversations with selected participants, then rebuild the cases, the language and the practice situations from your business.

Kirkpatrick levels one to four: reaction, knowledge, self-assessed behaviour, and the participant's manager assessing the same competencies. We agree the target behaviours with the sponsor before design starts.

Digital missions and buddy work on PROMOTE, with the participant's own manager involved. This is the difference between 15-20% and 60-80% transfer into practice.

Yes. We also deliver in French across our Western European and African operations.

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