Handling personal criticism
Featured in the Complaint handling for positive outcomes training manual
By Nina Lockwood
Category: Customer Service
Credit price: 3 download credits (Single user)
Most of us would really rather not be told when our actions or behaviours have been inappropriate, or when we have made a mistake. We might feel personally wounded, embarrassed, deflated — any number of negative emotions — which can potentially impact on our performance for a relatively long period after the event. This training activity will encourage participants to respond positively to criticism — and to view it as feedback that they can use in order to continually improve their personal performance. It also demonstrates ways in which we can build our confidence and self-esteem so that, when we do receive criticism, we have a full quota of self-worth with which to deal with it.
You start by asking the participants to work in small teams to identify the ‘Top 10’ characteristics of the ‘super service provider’. They then spend time individually on a self-audit to emphasise the point that we all have areas in which we can improve. An individual exercise then provides the participants with an opportunity to build their own self-esteem levels and encourages them to acknowledge their own personal skills and achievements to date. They add to this list by working in pairs and asking each other pertinent questions to encourage further thought on their own personal list. You point out that criticism can, sometimes justifiably, be felt as a personal attack. You invite the participants to acknowledge times when they have ‘attacked’ someone and to discuss the underlying reasons for their behaviour. This allows an insight into why some customers might react in a particular way and encourages participants to look beyond the immediate behaviour and realise the ‘attack’ is not personal but, rather, stems from some other event or situation. Finally, you ask the participants to examine strategies for handling personal criticism and encourage them to prepare an action plan for themselves to improve their own resilience back at the workplace.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to help participants maintain personal motivation when dealing with complaints, as well as encouraging service providers to take responsibility for their own performance.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 6 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:10:00 |
| No of Pages: | 12 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with all members of staff, particularly those with customer-facing responsibilities and those who deal with unsatisfied customers as part of their day-to-day role.
Download the training activity, Handling personal criticism as featured in the Fenman training manual; Complaint handling for positive outcomes