101 Ways to Improve Customer Service: Training, Tools, Tips, and Techniques

Chapter 9. What Now?: Perceptual Expectations

Goal

To explore how individual perception influences expected outcomes and results. Participants will create endings to prescribed situations.

Time Required

Approximately 45 minutes

Group Size

Subgroups of three to five persons each

Materials

• One copy of the What Now? Worksheet and a pencil for each participant

Process

1. Introduce the session by stating that the individual perception of events can influence the expected outcomes or results of various situations.

2. Ask the following question and facilitate a group discussion:

   • What factors affect the way in which we view the world? (personal values, education, religious beliefs, family upbringing, economic status, personality, maturity level, relationships with others, emotional state, current events)

   Explain that this unique view of the world characterizes an individual’s perception. The way in which we perceive things and events, in turn, influences how we make observations and anticipate or judge outcomes. A simplified example of this is for one person who sees someone running down the street to assume that she is running toward something (catching a bus) and another person to assume that the individual is running away from something (fleeing a robbery).

3. Explain that the participants will have the opportunity ...