| Game |  Opener |
Team-building |
| Categories: | Energizer |
Review |
| Communication |
 Topical: Customer Service |
Purpose: To raise sensitivity about customers’ resistance to standing in line.
Time Required: 5 minutes.
Size of Group: Unlimited.
Materials Required: None.
The Exercise in Action: Teri Robertson training coordinator for Sea World of Florida, Orlando, FL, says the park uses this exercise in customer service training to raise sensitivity in employees about a pet peeve of many customers: being kept waiting while workers attend to seemingly more “important” tasks. Continuing to talk on the phone while customers wait for service is a good example.
Workshop participants are first told that each of them is responsible for ensuring that guests visiting the park have a good time. At that point, Robertson instructs everyone to stand up, stand on only one foot, and not to put down the other foot until told to do so.
Robertson then proceeds to leisurely page through class notes with her back to participants. She then announces she has to make an important phone call, and walks out of the room. After returning a few minutes later, participants are told, finally, that they can put down their foot.
Robertson then makes the point: while participants have been left standing physically, customers are often left standing figuratively. “Any time we give guests the idea that other things besides their needs take precedence, we leave them standing on one foot,” Robertson says.
Like some participants, some customers will continue to patiently “stand on one foot” until the employee returns, but they will probably later tell everyone within earshot how uncomfortable they’ve been made to feel. Other people will immediately put down that foot and vent their displeasure with the first employee to happen by, whether he or she is responsible for the problem or not.
“If all employees realize the importance of giving guests the attention they deserve, we can avoid the ‘foot problems’ we all encounter at public facilities,” Robertson says.