Dealing With Difficult Government Customers - Train The Trainer Case Study - Insurance Agency

Context:

In some Canadian provinces, automobile insurance is provided by the province itself, rather than by individual private insurance companies. In those provinces, automobile insurance rates are much lower than in provinces where insurance is provided by private sector, all other factors considered.

We were approached by a crown agency run by a Canadian province that wished to become self-sufficient in delivery a seminar to their staff. As one can imagine, the automobile insurance "business" is difficult, even in private sector, since estimators, adjustors and so on are involved in assessing damages and payments, and often the car owner disagrees.

Couple this with negative perceptions of government in general, and this particular agency felt it important enough to equip all it's customer facing staff with the skills needed to deal effectively with disagreements, and plain unpleasant customers.

Process:

In conjunction with the client, we determined that a full day format would be best, and also discovered that they had on staff a number of very experienced trainers perfect for train the trainer learning and eventual delivery.

We proceeded with our standard needs assessment process to incorporate real life insurance related situations and case studies.

Delivery and Format:

We decided to do two full days of actual training to agency staff, and one full day for the train the trainers process. Prospective trainers attended all three days.

In the end we didn't need the entire full day for the train the trainers session, since the trainers were exceedingly talented, with much delivery experience (see below for deliverables).

Deliverables:

• Needs assessment form to be used at their option
• An extensive 60 page manual to be given to each attendee/employee attending all sessions in the future.
• An extensive Leader's Manual For Trainers to use. The format was interesting. We integrated the leader's instructions and guides within the participant's manual, and color coded the pages - learner's pages in white, and leader's pages in amber to make in-class use of the leader's manual more convenient.
• Presentation slides for in-class use, and keyed to leader's manual.
• A course evaluation form designed specifically for the Defusing Hostile Customers Seminar.

We also offered to provide ongoing support and trouble shooting for their trainers. They didn't require any additional support, in part because the leader's manual was so extensive, and they were experienced trainers to start with.

Outcomes:

On this project, we added a yearly licencing/support fee of approximately $500, renewable as long as the organization continued to use the material. After about seven years, it was clear they didn't need additional support from us, so we offered to give them a permanent licence at no extra charge. At that point we removed the $500 per year fee.

We had stayed in regular contact over the seven years of the licence deal, and they continued to offer our seminar to staff over that time.