If you are giving training for employees on providing better customer service such as in workshops, these 10 customer service activities and games are for you to use. Enjoy!
Benefits of Using Customer Service Activities and Games
There are several key reasons why holding workshops and using customer service activities can benefit you as an HR department, or workplace trainer, and these benefits are as follows:
Simulations and Role-plays – By providing customer service simulations and role plays as training activities, you can help develop your employee’s reactions and expertise in terms of how to deal with customers, including difficult customers.
In adult learning theory, adults tend to react well to doing and experiencing and using activities and games is a great way to teach customer service skills.
Employee Confidence – Employees who feel that they have the right skill set and training to deal with even the most difficult scenario, means happier staff and less customer service staff turnover.
10 Fun Customer Service Activities
1. Building Rapport Challenge
Participants Needed: As long as you have 2 or more participants then you can run this activity.
Time Needed: 15 minutes.
Purpose: Interpersonal communication skills are a vital aspect of good customer service because we inevitably have to deal with other people. This activity is aimed at helping participants learn how to build interpersonal communication by quickly improving their rapport with customers.
Rapport with customers means that you build trust with them more easily, and this can help to reduce friction and it can also help to turn any difficult situation into a positive outcome.
How to Run the Activity: It is worth starting this activity by just briefly first explaining to the participants the importance of rapport, and as explained above, how it can help diffuse any difficult situations and tension, and how it helps build trust with the customer. It also helps in getting valuable feedback from the customer when an issue does occur.
Also, take a moment to explain to participants (if needed) what open-ended vs closed questions are.
Now get the participants to form pairs and give each pair 10 minutes to find a minimum of 5 things they have in common with each other.
They should write these 5 things down on a piece of paper (or on a digital device).
Note: The things in common should not be blatantly obvious, i.e. such as that they work for the same company or that they are both female. Instead, it should be more unexpected things such as the fact that they both do salsa dancing in their spare time, or they both support Plymouth Argyle.
A very important part of this activity also is that participants must ONLY use open-ended questions.
If a participant accidentally asks a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question then they should re-ask it.
The best way to guide participants to do this is by one person at a time asking the other questions for a few minutes so that one person can try and establish common interests, values, or things of interest.
So ask one person to be the question asker for 5 minutes and then they can rotate.
The goal is to discover shared common ground, much like what they would do with a customer to make them feel more comfortable.
After the 10 minutes, it can be a good idea to have a 5 to 10-minute class discussion to ask everyone what types of things they found they had in common (perhaps ask each person to say one thing that they wrote down).
End the activity as the training coordinator by highlighting that in customer service the following can be useful:
- Asking open-ended questions
- Showing genuine interest
- Having great listening skills and looking for cues that might lead to finding common ground
- Building rapport
- Having adaptability skills
2. Speed Response Drill
Participants Needed: 8 or plus is ideal but no limit.
Time Needed: 20 minutes.
Intention: This is a fun customer service training activity that tends to be popular. This activity is great for helping employees to respond quickly and instinctively to customer queries, but while also maintaining a sense of professionalism.
How to Run the Activity: Beforehand, you will need to prepare some cards with different customer service situations listed on them such as issues to do with a technical or product issue, a delivery delay, a problem with billing, etc. Have one issue on each card (or piece of paper).
Start by splitting the participants into small groups of 4 or 5 and explain to the participants that one person will start off being the customer and another person will be the customer service person.
Each customer service person will take a card and then they are permitted 1 minute to give a professional response to their group.
After each round, the others in the group get to give feedback on the clarity and communication, tone of voice, and speed and relevance of the response, i.e. what worked well and did not work so well.
I would suggest also asking participants to discuss and consider how time pressure impacted their response and whether they maintained quality service.
In each group, they will rotate the roles so that each person gets an opportunity to do 2 scenarios each as the customer service person.
If you have a really large group you can consider having an audience to observe and provide feedback, whilst some people act out the scenarios.
At the end of the exercise, you might wish to re-emphasize to the participants, as a class, that it is important in customer service to balance speed with accuracy, emphasizing the importance of staying calm under pressure.
3. Mystery Customer Game
Participants Needed: 3 participants per team.
Time Needed: 15 minutes.
Purpose: This is one of the best customer service games for testing and assessing how well or not employees handle unpredictable customer interactions so that you can offer them guidance.
The activity gives participants some practice dealing with different types of customers but in a safe and relaxed environment.
How to Run the Activity: In this activity/game, one participant will play the role of a “Mystery Shopper/Customer.”
The mystery customer will be given a character brief that you as the training coordinator will provide them.
You might want to write down the briefs on pieces of card and include details about the character they are playing and the type of interaction they’ll have with the customer service rep.
Example scenarios you can use include a confused or angry customer, a calm but overly demanding customer, or a customer who is elderly and easily confused. The scenario is secret from the employee being tested until the interaction begins.
The other participants (observers) will take notes to provide feedback afterward.
Explain to the participants that the goal of this activity is for the “customer service rep” to address the issue while maintaining professionalism, and showing empathy.
Allow 5 minutes for the interaction where the mystery customer will interact (role-play) with the employee as though they were a real customer.
The “customer service rep” must listen carefully, identify the core issue, and provide a solution or appropriate response in real time.
The mystery customer should make the scenario challenging but realistic, asking unexpected questions or giving comments such as:
- “I’ve spoken to three other agents already, and I’m still not satisfied!”
- “I don’t understand how to buy this online, can you explain again”
As the training coordinator, you might wish to provide a printout of unexpected questions/comments the person playing the customer can use.
Now allow 5 minutes for the feedback stage.
The mystery customer should provide their perspective on how they felt during the interaction and whether their issue was resolved effectively in their view.
The observers can offer constructive criticism on how well (or not) the customer service rep managed the interaction. They can also discuss other ways that the situation could have been handled.
4. Product Knowledge Jeopardy
Participants Needed: 4 or more participants.
Time Needed: 20 minutes (but can easily be adapted to 15 or 30 minutes).
Purpose: This customer service training exercise is designed to help employees develop their knowledge and expertise on their company’s products, services, and policies, but in a fun but competitive way.
The beauty of this activity is that it helps employees learn about gaps in their product knowledge and can really help them when dealing with customers because they will understand the products better.
How to Run the Activity: As the training facilitator you will need to decide before the training session what aspect of the customer service to focus on for this activity.
If you are an in-house trainer this will be easy but either way, you just need to decide if the activity is about:
- Products the employees provide support for
- Common troubleshooting FAQs the employees are asked (including on returns policies etc.)
- Service you offer (and upselling opportunities)
For the activity itself, you will assign points for each question (as occurs in the TV show Jeopardy), with easier questions worth 100 points and more difficult questions worth 300 points, for example.
Now divide participants into teams of 3 to 5 people and explain how the game will work.
Following the basic Jeopardy format:
- Each team will take turns choosing a category and a point value, such as ‘Product’ for 100 points.
- As the training organizer, you will then ask the related question, and the team has 30 seconds to give their answer.
- A correct answer will win them the number of points that question was worth, i.e. 100 points, for example.
- If the team fails to answer the question correctly then the next team to their right can answer and try and win the points.
- The team with the most points at the end of the game wins.
Use a whiteboard for tracking the scores and make sure you have the questions prepared beforehand, based on the type of department or company you are providing the training for.
5. Silent Conversation
Participants Needed: At least two participants but more is better.
Time Needed: 15 minutes.
Purpose: One of the quirkier customer service games, this activity is all about non-verbal communication (including active listening) and measured responses without speaking out aloud.
This specific activity helps employees develop customer service skills that are especially handy for dealing with online chat support, and email support, where written communication is central to the role.
How to Run the Activity: Beforehand, make sure that you have written down a couple of scenarios that you can get the participants to use.
To give you an example idea for a scenario:
- “How would you handle a customer who is starting to get angry because of a long-delayed order that you still do not have a delivery date for?”
Explain to the participants that they will not be allowed to speak out aloud during this exercise.
All communication must be written either on paper in the classroom (or on a shared online document for running this activity virtually).
I suggest groups of 5 or 6 for this activity and then to have one person create the first written comment in response to the scenario or question that you have handed them.
Then another person in the group will build on or react to other participants’ written response/s.
Encourage participants to ask questions, clarify ideas, or challenge thoughts, just as they would in a spoken conversation. This though of course has to all be done through written communication only!
Allow 10 minutes per question.
After you have had them do this activity for 1, 2, or 3 questions, you might want to have a 5-minute class conversation to discuss how different this is when using non-verbal communication versus telephone or face-to-face customer service situations and conversations.
6. Tone of Voice Challenge
Participants Needed: 4 or more participants is best.
Time Needed: 15 minutes.
Intention: One often overlooked aspect of customer service is how powerful the use of a good tone of voice can be for settling a positive start to the customer service interaction.
This activity is great for helping participants understand and develop the right tone of voice.
How to Run the Activity: I recommend beforehand creating a simple list of typical customer service phrases that one might typically say such as:
- “I’m really sorry, but unfortunately we are unable to offer a refund.”
- “Please bear with me. I just need to transfer you to another department.”
- “Unfortunately, the item is out of stock.”
Create a list of 20 (more if you will train a large group) of such phrases, print them out, and then cut them up into pieces so that you have each phrase on a small slip of paper. Take these into the training session, i.e. in a small box or bag.
To get the activity started, participants will take turns pulling out a slip of paper and they will then need to say the sentence out aloud, three times, each with a different tone of voice of their choice (such as kind, angry, upset, etc.).
You might suggest that they also try and use body language that matches the facial expressions and tone.
After everyone has had the chance to try this exercise once or twice, you might then want to hold a short class discussion about how the activity went, i.e. what did they learn about the tone of voice and body language.
You might wish to explain that body language and tone of voice work together and send out a strong signal in terms of communication to the customer.
This tone of voice also applies to written customer service such as on chat support and email, as the intonation and style of writing give this tone of voice element.
>>Dealing With Difficult People Teaching Materials
7. The “Extra Mile” Brainstorm
Participants Needed: 4 or more participants.
Time Needed: 20 minutes but extend as needed.
Intention: Great customer service sometimes requires some creative thinking and with this in mind, this customer service training activity helps employees think in terms of pushing the boundaries to offer service that is beyond just solving the problem.
How to Run the Activity: As with quite a few of the activities on this page, you will need to spend five to ten minutes of prep time just writing down a couple of very simple common customer service scenarios. You only need basic ones such as:
- Jimmy’s delivery is damaged when received
- Jane has still not received her order
- Nadia needs technical support to get her new cellphone working
Put one scenario on each slip of paper and put these in a small box or bag.
For the activity itself, start by dividing participants into groups of 4 (adapt as needed) and ask one person in each group to pull out a piece of paper with a scenario on it.
Each group will now brainstorm and come up with answers to how they would plan to resolve the issue BUT they must do so by also going the “extra mile” to more than exceed the customer’s expectations.
The goal is to turn a difficult situation into what the customer would likely see as a positive experience that actually leaves them even more impressed than ever with the company’s service.
Suggest to the participants that they should really try and think creatively and innovatively and that they might want to also include consideration for a personalized solution, or thoughtful gestures.
I suggest allowing 10 minutes for the brainstorming session and then 10 minutes for a full class discussion where each group can briefly explain their scenario and the solution they came up with.
8. Positive Language Challenge
Participants Needed: 4 or more participants works well for this activity.
Time Needed: 15 minutes.
Purpose: Many of us lapse into using negative or neutral language, i.e. it can be normal in everyday conversations.
In customer service though, we need to try and always frame what we say in a positive way.
This is one of the best customer service games for helping to teach positive language for dealing with customers.
How to Run the Activity: Prepare a list of common negative or neutral phrases that employees might sometimes use when working in a customer service role. Examples you could use include:
- “I’m sorry, I cannot answer that question.”
- “We don’t have that item in stock and I don’t know when we will have it in.”
- “We do not sell those items”
- “I can’t give you a cheaper price”
Have each phrase written on a slip of paper and try to have a batch of slips prepared for the training session.
Have one participant (one in each group if you need to split participants into groups if you have a large class) pick out one of the slips of paper and read out the negative or neutral phrase they chose.
They should read it aloud to the class or their group.
The participant or group now needs to change the phrase into a positive version.
For example, “We do not sell those items” could become “We do not sell that item anymore but we now produce a similar item that is even better and we have it in stock”.
You can have each person solve one scenario or have a discussion based on each scenario. There are different ways to run the activity but the premise of the activity is the same, i.e. to turn negative scenarios into positive ones.
9. Customer Support Storytelling
Participants Needed: 2 or more participants.
Time Needed: 25 minutes.
Intention: Compassion and empathy are useful skills to have when working in customer service and this activity is aimed at helping participants build these types of skills.
How to Run the Activity: Before the session, print off some customer scenarios such as:
- Bob is a sole trader running a plumbing business and a large palette of bathroom tiles he needs is delayed being delivered to him, and it is directly impacting his business.
Hand each participant (or group if you’ve divided people up) one of the customer scenarios.
They will now need to further develop the story by taking time to consider the customer’s background, emotions, and motivations.
How, for example, might the customer be feeling, what is the potential further impact of the delayed delivery, and what might be able to say to his own customers who are themselves impacted by the delay in Bob being able to do the work because of the lack of supplies?
Participants should develop the customer’s story, imagining things like their business challenges, personal frustrations, and what resolution would truly satisfy them.
Allow them 10 minutes to develop the customer story.
Now allow time for each person (or group) to read their customer story to the rest of the class and allow for the rest of the class to give their input and thoughts.
After each person/group has read their back story I like to then have a class discussion about ways in which we can deal with customers’ frustration, and provide a thoughtful and suitable solution in such situations.
10. The Complaint Iceberg
Participants Needed: 2 or more participants.
Time Needed: 20 minutes.
Intention: This is one of my favorite customer service activities for workplace training as it helps employees focus on trying to understand the underlying issues that are the root cause of customer complaints.
How to Run the Activity: Before the session, write a bunch of common customer complaints on slips of paper and put them in a small bag or box.
Some examples of complaints can be:
- “My order is taking ages and I don’t know if I can wait any longer.”
- “The item broke as soon as I took it out of the box.”
Now divide participants into groups of 4 and ask each group to pull out one slip of paper with the complaint on it.
Each group must identify the possible deeper, underlying issues (what we call the “iceberg”, i.e. the issue under the surface).
For example, if the complaint is about a long wait time, the underlying issue might be a breakdown in communication or some other issue.
Ask each group to identify at least three potential underlying issues and to discuss as a group, how each of these issues could be addressed to prevent future complaints.
Teaching Employees Customer Service Skills
If you found these customer service activities helpful for what you need, you might find it interesting to read around customer segmentation techniques and then to also consider employee training and teaching materials, such as on managing and dealing with difficult people:
Paul is Co-Founder of Symonds Research and is a qualified researcher with a PhD in wayfinding. Paul helps the team at Symonds Research build and focus on providing high-quality training materials packages and programs for trainers, classroom teachers and HR departments.