Improv and Customer Service
Many improv exercises can be used to improve team building and customer service. One such exercise is “Yes, and.”
The purpose of this exercise is to improve customer relations. When a customer requests something which is not available or impractical, rather than responding negatively and putting the customer on the defensive or upsetting the customer, this exercise will train you to respond in a positive way.
Form a circle and start with an outrageous story. The first participant continues the story by saying “Yes, and…” Continue this exercise until everyone has had a chance to respond at least one time. This version has everyone participating, learning to respond in a positive manner, and also enhancing their listening and creative skills. You can also play this game where you eliminate those that don’t respond by saying “yes, and..” until there is only one left.
April 7th, 2006 at 5:56 am
That’s a great game, I remember playing variations with some of the children I used to teach. One such game was someone began writing a line of a story, and then folded the piece of paper just enough to cover that line. Then the next person made an addition, it could have been anything, they then also folded the paper just enough to cover the line they had written and so on and so on until everyone got a chance to write.
Once everyone had written a line or two, it was then unfolded and read out to everyone, it always used to turn out hilarious with the most random stories you can imagine, always a great way to break the ice between a group of people!