“Flirting” With Your Customers
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Add to calendarFlirting is about connecting. A German university now requires their IT engineers take a flirting class—not to attract a partner, but to learn how to interact more effectively in the workplace. We will explore how flirting techniques translate to use in a business setting—inspiring us to create stronger connections with our customers. Our 8 Steps to connecting with your customers will help teams better understand customer requirements and build business value. “Flirting” With Your Customers creates the connection that can make a significant difference in a project’s success.
In January 2009, Potsdam University in Germany began offering a flirting class to its IT engineering candidates. The class, according to a news report from Reuters, “is part of the social skills section of the IT course and is designed to ease entry into the world of work.”
While our “Flirting” With Your Customers tutorial contains many learning points – the presentation style contains a lot of fun elements. We are constantly playing with the possible impossible situations you could get yourself into – if you take our title “Flirting” With Your Customers to heart. We engage the audience – and we role play by introducing stereotypes from both the flirtatious and business world.
Our 8 Steps to connecting / flirting in brief are:
- Acknowledge importance of engaging the customer. / Be aware that you want to connect.
- Find the power in the organization. / Determine who you want to connect with.
- Show and prove your interest in their perspectives. / Show openness and interest.
- Stand back and see what happens. / Let the other have a chance to show that they are interested.
- Share more. / Be open.
- Go out with the customer. / Have some fun.
- Solve a crisis together. / Get real with the one you’re connecting with.
- Enjoy the relationship with the customer. / Take advantage of the mutual desire to be together.
(45 minutes)—Teaching our tips on “Flirting” With Your Customers: answering the So what? How to connect with your customers and why it is important to building business value?
(45 minutes)—Interactive exercises including role playing various “connecting” situations.
- Learn how to really connect with your customers to develop strong relationships and build trust.
- Learn how to develop relationships that make working together easier, more productive and more fun.
- Learn how to communicate effectively to make Agile projects more successful and build business value.