• Fine Tuning "Inside and Outside" communications
• Increasing customer satisfaction through improved employee communication
• Learning to better manage stressful situations
• Understanding what customers expect from their co-op and how working and communicating together helps meet those expectations
• Learning how the Communication Cycle serves as the key to improved internal/external communications
• Working together to earn customer loyalty

When you think of workplace attitudes you must ask yourself the simple question: would you want an employee who is extremely good at his or her job but has a bad attitude or an average employee who has a positive attitude? I believe the overwhelming response would be for the later because we all have learned the hard way that bad attitudes can reduce the effectiveness of ones organization. The fact is that skills can be taught but an attitude is often difficult to change. The question often asked is what is an attitude? To some it's a mindset, a way of thinking but that's only partly right. The bigger picture is that an attitude is a habit of thought. It defines how one looks at their world and workplace. What employers want are people with attitudes that think "I can," not "I can't." This one day seminar is devoted to the building blocks that lead to positive attitudes. Our trainer will show participants how to find, keep and maintain an approach that leads to a positive outlook. This highly interactive course includes interactive session as well as self evaluations to help individuals create an open mind and heart to developing a more productive, meaningful work life. This session will look at:

• How does one understand the importance of having a positive attitude
• How to develop and maintain positive feelings and thoughts in the workplace
• How a positive attitude leads to more productivity and a commitment to doing things right
• How attitudes impact and influence those around us
• The relationship between positive attitudes and internal and external customer satisfaction
• Identifying personality and attitudes - our true "colors"
• Creating personality matrix-the value of it
• Emotions and attitudes
• Anger-when, why, how, who
• Attitude "revamp", a process and project

Utilities in the U.S. lose more than $1 billion per year in uncollected funds. If this is an issue facing your utility then this course will be of benefit. The course is designed specifically for utility employees and supervisors with responsibility for collections and particularly those who pursue, or are interested in pursuing, former customers who have moved away while owing a debt to the utility. Participants will gain valuable insight into the process of "skip tracing" which is the process of gathering information on the location of debtors. This course covers the four major topics involved with this process: segmenting debtors for efficient tracing, legal guidelines and restrictions, current resources, and statistics regarding tracing performance. Employing an effective skip tracing procedure will help in reducing losses, particularly those that result from customers who do not pay their final bills after discontinuing service or being disconnected. Additional topics to be covered include:

• An overview of efficient options for conducting traces
• An understanding of the most effective skip tracing tools for specific situations, based on the debtor information available, and
• The information they need to immediately begin finding debtors who were previously considered "lost"

This two-day hands-on course will provide attendees well-defined procedures for conducting commercial and industrial (C&I) energy audits as part of their key accounts program. Among the topics to be discussed include analyzing the customer's power bill, evaluating the customer's operating processes, assessing alternatives to conserving energy usage, deploying mathematical methods of evaluating alternatives capital (e.g. present-worth analysis, cost/benefit ratio, etc.), and preparing technical summaries and reports of results. Customer Communication Skills:  Principles and Practices - This course is designed as an introduction to the principles of effective customer service and the role communication plays in how customers evaluate service delivery. Class discussion along with small group exercises provides each participant with the basic tools necessary to interact effectively with your customers in a variety of business-related situations, including the occasional difficult customer scenario.

Few would ague that life and work are hard enough without the complications surrounding self-defeating emotions, behaviors, and habits. The multiple forces that bear down on us every day can eventually take their toll. No wonder people often feel anxious, resentful, taken advantage of and even trapped. This one-day seminar is intended to help participants understand how to stay focused on their goals, whether work or personal, while ups and downs occur around them. Participants will gain insight into developing ‘personal' flexibility to deal with uncertainty and to find meaning in what they are doing. This seminar will focus on the important personal skill of emotional self-control. Participants will learn about what role emotions play in their life, the ways they are expressed, how to manage emotional ups and downs, to deal with stress and how to handle crisis situations. Over the course of the day, the class will learn how to make ‘better' choices at work and elsewhere, how to practice self-discipline, and control emotionally difficult situations. In addition, others issues to be covered include:

• Build confidence by learning to respond correctly to difficult situations and people
• Explore ones attitudes and how to use anger constructively
• Control how one reacts to emotional situations presented by other people
• Embrace how to ‘let go' of the old and accept change
• Learn to eliminate habits that tend to pull you down and work against you.

This two-day course is designed as a comprehensive introduction to the principles of effective customer service and the role communication plays in how customers evaluate service quality and delivery. The course will cover areas such as knowing what customers expect, assessing the 'personality types' of customers, how to control problem situations, creating a 'positive image' for customers, effective phone and e-mail communications. This program offers ample opportunity for participants to practice verbal skills in successfully handling a variety of recurring issues such as bill inquiries, requests for service and/or information, and the occasional upset/irate customer. Learning outcomes in this program include:

• The ABC's of effective customer communication
• The four universal customer expectations
• How customers "keep score" on your performance
• The "communication cycle" and how to use it
• Nine "scripts" to avoid and what to say instead
• Five critical steps for handling stressful customer situations 

This is an interactive, hands-on training experience utilizing video taped actual customer communications examples. A variety of frequently occurring scenarios will be covered which require thought and appropriate responses on the part of the participating individual. The session is designed to gain insight into an individual's strengths and areas of needed improvement in the area of customer communications. Some of the areas to be addressed include including:

• Customer questions regarding service ("...why are my lights blinking?")
• Various recurring complaints (meter incorrectly read, high bills, etc.)
• Dealing with abusive or manipulative behavior.
• Each exercise is video recorded for playback and critique in order to maximize the value of performance feedback to each participant. Written evaluations and/or videos are available for authorized supervisors and managers.

• learning basic pronouns and greetings, days, time, and currency,
• learn how to question the customer for troubleshooting and take general information regarding service,
• practice pronunciation with a partner,
• learn how to communicate billing problems and ask for deposits; and
• learn how to give scheduled outage information and deal with disconnection problems.

The intent of this training program is to promote change which will result in a long-lasting improvement in employee treatment of customers and employee creation of positive customer experiences. During the two-day session, participants will learn to view things through the eyes of the customer. The program emphasizes customer experience management, customer loyalty creation and personal touch treatment of customers. Participants will gain knowledge into how to use customer experience mapping tools to improve contact with their customers, effective communication skills, listening skills, anger defusing skills, request handling skills, and mistake handling skills. Course highlights include:

• Learn to evaluate the difference between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty
• How one goes about creating customer loyalty
• Seeing customers ‘through their eyes' as a way to improving service
• Steps to enhance customer service experiences
• Establishing strategies for become a customer focused utility

• Learn to distinguish the 'two' categories of buyers
• Understand the PDM (Purchase Decision Making) process and how to use it effectively with your customers
• Learn to use the 5-Step customer focused selling model
• Understand how to create and use a 'features-benefits' checklist for selling products.

The success of a business is based to a large extent on the people skills of its employees. The purpose of this one-day seminar is to improve the company's business relationships through the skills of customer service professionalism. The course will cover topics such as: knowing what customers expect, assessing the ‘personality types' of customers, how to control problem situations, creating a ‘positive image' for customers, effective phone and e-mail communications, learning to effectively manage problem situations when they occur. The course will benefit participants by:

• Delivering improved customer service
• Increasing customer satisfaction
• Improving ones customer ‘credibility'
• Managing stressful situations

Customers have made it clear that they have specific standards of performance for those with whom they spend their money. This is especially true for utilities due to the importance of the product and service to the community's social and economic well-being. This program is designed to provide a basic understanding of fundamental customer expectations regarding routine business transactions, dissemination of information, and performance results. Participants will gain an understanding of what are customer service standards and what an organization must be able to do to deliver customer service effectively. The course will provide insight into how standards of service provide a framework within which an organization and its people address issues relating to customer service. Further, once formulated, how they should be implemented and reviewed periodically to ensure that they continue to reflect the very latest thinking about what makes for excellent customer service. Issues relating to the language and structure of the standards, and of the related professional qualifications, will also be considered. Learning outcomes include:

• The value/cost dilemma
• The four fundamental customer expectations
• The three fundamental expectations of organizational results performance
• The three fundamental expectations of information
• Specific actions which tend to exceed customer expectations

This one day (or half-day) program is designed for employees who work outside of the office setting (in the field) and covers the basic principles of good customer service. It also provides strategies for dealing with angry and difficult customers, tips for giving bad news to customers, and to build effective customer service. Unlike the traditional customer service courses, this course was designed to provide participants with a clear understanding of how customers view the customer/supplier relationship and what employees can do to strengthen that relationship. Participants in the course will gain experience in:

• Handling customers professionally and efficiently
• The five basic strategies for handling stressful customer situations
• What customers expect
• Conflict management

This course is designed specifically for those with administrative responsibility to help increase cooperation and productivity. Topics covered include the bases of organizational power and how to effectively use each to accomplish challenging tasks and meet critical deadlines. Each person will take a personal leadership assessment inventory. Topics to be covered include:

• Understanding the bases of power and influence
• Levels of professional independence
• Principles of "followership"

• The issues involved in implementing a rate increase when any increase in products and services to consumers is very unpopular
• Setting the stage with consumers for rate increases
• Giving consumers information about the needs for additional revenues
• Advertising the new rates and strategies for implementing rates, such as timing, that would cause the least impact on consumers
• Strategies used by other utilities
• How to effectively ‘listen' to your customers

Regardless of the size or type of organization, all are faced with the eventuality of some form of emergency or crisis at some point. Whether by nature, man-made, or accident, crisis means problems and unwanted public scrutiny. All organizations must contend with managing these unforeseen emergencies, and, learning to effectively deal with them through a clear and comprehensive communication plan of action. This plan, when tied to ones emergency response plan will assist the organization and its employees in communicating effectively with its customers and the public at large. The purpose of this one-day class is to provide participants with the tools they need to help Management respond to a crisis. Participants will explore universal crisis communication problems and strategies that will help them learn how to deal with these intricate problems purposefully and immediately. Participants will learn how to offer useful, pragmatic advice to management to help protect the integrity of the company.

Using industry-relevant case studies and small groups, class participants will learn how to:

• Look at a crisis from management's perspective
• Establish priorities in the crisis communication process
• Create a Crisis Communications Plan
• Communicate with the press and the public during a crisis

• The Marketing Management and Research Process
• Influences on Member Behavior
• How Marketing Influences Member Behavior
• Using Different Advertising Budgets
• Understanding Market Segmentation
• Determining Members Needs & Wants
• Developing Product/Servicing Positioning
• Integrated Marketing Communications
• Managing the Sales & Relationship Building Process
• Overcoming the obstacles in Service Marketing
• The Service Challenge

• Understanding the bases of power and influence
• Levels of professional independence
• Principles of "followership"

The success of any organization is based largely on the people skills of its employees.  The purpose of this one-day seminar is to improve the company's business relationships in the current environment through the skills of customer service professionalism. Participants will gain a perspective of service excellence from the modern day customer's point of view when conducting business transactions both in person and via telephone. Using class discussion and interactive exercises, they develop skills for dealing with customers in a variety of recurring scenarios including service connects, disconnects, technical support, and billing concerns. The skills learned in this program serve to enhance the performance of the all employees who interact with customers resulting in reduced stress, more efficient utilization of transaction time, and improved customer satisfaction. Participants will learn:     

• The "ABC's" Blueprint of effective customer communication
• The four Universal Customer Expectations
• Creating positive customer experiences through effective telephone etiquette
• Handling customer transactions professionally and efficiently
• The five basic strategies for handling stressful customer situations

• Varieties of Complaints: technical, weather-related, errors, hardship
• Resolutions: energy audits, payment plans
• Dealing with Irate/Irrational Customers: types and scripts

• The overall state of the energy industry in the United States and in their state.
• The basics of how electricity is generated, transmitted and distributed
• Wholesale power costs
• Retail rates and wholesale power cost adjustments
• "High" bills and recommended conservation efforts

• Scope and dynamics of the theft of service problems
• Issues that may cause a customer to steal utility service
• Creative methods to catch power thefts
• Utility metering, accuracy, maintenance and testing
• Resolution of theft cases: fines, punishment, and legal action vs. a ‘slap on the wrist'

• The basic science of electricity and why it exists
• The three fundamental methods of electrical generation and how an electrical generator works
• How electricity is transmitted and distributed to homes and businesses
• Understanding various electrical terms and devices: i.e. transformers, capacitors, relays, etc
• The function of electrical metering devices
• Understanding the computation of power usage and electric bills