2-Day Team Leading with Excellence Public Workshop

In today’s dynamic workforce, there are a lot of demands on leaders and management teams. Their responsibilities includes facilitating change management; reducing the negative effects of mergers, downsizing or rapid expansion. They also need to understand and motivate their staff and others in the organization. In other words, they need to lead their department and company with inspiring leadership skills and techniques.

This course will equip supervisors, team leaders, and managers with leadership skills that will strengthen their role as the critical link between strategic goals and tactical performance. Through this development program, supervisors will learn the skills necessary to lead their teams to success.

Too often, managers promote their best agents to be supervisors without equipping them with vital new leadership skills that will determine their success in their new job role.

This practical course is designed to reflect the “aim frame” of managing expectations and projects as a mindset as well as an activity. It assumes that “managing” is more than a hierarchical title; it is a state of thinking, responding, and acting. Participants will learn and apply management concepts, techniques, and tips to communicate, direct, coach, mentor, entrust, and lead others in routine situations and during challenging times of change. They will acquire tools for managing influentially and receive constructive feedback from their facilitator and peers.

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Delivering Responsive Customer Service Public Workshop

This course qualifies as one prerequisite towards CCSS© designation

A great customer service experience is vital to the success of a company, and delivering that service is what shapes the customer experience. This training program is ideal for anyone who wishes to provide their valued customers with a premium level of service. you will learn how to better understand customer expectations, profile difficult customer situations, and deal with customer objections using a proven model for effective complaint resolution. It also goes over how to use assertive techniques and positive language to diffuse difficult situations, reduce stress, promote team camaraderie, and create a positive customer experience resulting in win-win situations.

This interactive workshop is informative, fun, and provides easily applicable solutions for service excellence that are proven to work in today’s toughest customer service arena – the real world.

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3-Day Certified Client Service Specialist Designation BootCamp

The Certified Client Service Specialist (CCSS©) program offers participants the tools, techniques, and effective customer service skills required in today’s demanding work environment. Whether you work in private, public, or not-for-profit organization you will take away up to date information needed to succeed in the work place. Our world class certified facilitators with their engaging delivery style and relevant up to date content have delivered to hundreds of participants globally.

Our programs are certified and accredited by Canadian Council of Professional Certification (CCPC Global) to ensure quality, content, and engaging delivery.

Completion of our certification process confers the right to use the title Certified Client Service Specialist and the right to use the initials CCSS© after one’s name.

This 3-course program offers the right blend of knowledge and skills to become an expert in all aspects of customer service delivery – everything from professionalism to customer service, to sales, handling difficult customers, and more. Upon completion of the program, you will be able to build a solid foundation for your career and gain and industry specific credential that is recognized by major organizations.

Accredited Courses Required

1-Day Delivering Responsive Customer Service
This program is ideal for anyone who deals with customers and wants to provide a more customized or personalized experience for them. This training will provide you with the skills to not only handle a customer’s immediate requests, but also provide information and recommendations to build the customer’s relationships through providing valuable conversations.

1- Day Managing Difficult Clients and Situations
This program is ideal for anyone who deals with difficult clients in various challenging situations and wishes to remain in control. The program will lay out strategies for turning negative situations into opportunities for building lifelong relationships.

1-Day Conflict Resolution
Have you ever been in a conflict that you wished you could have handled better? We have all experienced the stress that comes from having unresolved conflicts with our co-workers. Conflicts that are ignored or resolved badly don’t go away – they cause people to feel resentful and to avoid each other. The effects on an organization are a loss of productivity, absenteeism and high turnover.

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Humanizing the Coaching Experience Public Workshop

A humanized customer experience begins by understanding your own emotions and the emotions of your direct reports. This means understanding and aligning to the basic human needs for interaction – empathy, trust, acknowledgement and relevance.

This program is designed to help supervisors and managers become more empathetic, and involved and active members of their teams in a way that will bring down walls and inspire growth and creativity.

Leaders will learn to lead by example by understanding the daily work experience of each of their team members as they function in their roles. Through this, they will strengthen their communication approach to effectively encourage openness and transparency to better identify and acknowledge individual talents and expertise of team members. At the end of this training, participants will work with their teams to promote cross-functional learning and mentoring to ultimately create a culture of cohesiveness and support. The end goal is to build stronger, more accountable and highly functional teams.

Upon completion of this full-day session, participants will have the skills and confidence to engage in impactful communication by employing the right mix of acknowledgement, personalization and empathy in every interaction.

Click here for more information about this program. (https://mycspn.com/blog/course/humanizing-the-coaching-experience/)

To Register, please click here

Complimentary Journey Mapping Workshop

Customer Journey Mapping is a vital, customer-centric, methodology that allows you to truly understand the customer experience from the customer POV, and uncover strategic opportunities to continually enhance their experiences with your organization.

June 28, 2018

Session 1 – Morning
8:30 AM – 12PM

Session 2 – Afternoon
12:30PM – 4PM

This workshop is a hands-on crash course showcasing the step-by-step process needed to take an outside-in approach to mapping the journeys your customers have.

For more information, please click here

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The Benefits of a Website Built with Responsive Web Design

May 17, 2018

Responsive web design is a relatively new approach to web design that seeks to optimize the web browsing experience for multiple devices. With the rise of smartphone and tablet usage over the last decade, the importance of having a website that displays beautifully on any medium is not only an opportunity for increased revenue, but is crucial for surviving as a company over the next decade.

With responsive web design, as a screen size increases or decreases, images and text on a website scale to fit the to the user’s web browser, ensuring that the all web content is displayed in its best form. So whether you’re accessing the web via a smartphone, tablet, desktop computer and so on, responsive web design provides you with a seamless and fluid browsing experience.

Here are the top 5 advantages to having a website built with responsive web design:

CoreSolutions Devices with Responsive Web Design

1. Website and Web Application Adaptability

Responsive web design offers a browsing environment that can accommodate any mobile product, along with the traditional desktop computer. With respect to mobile devices, responsive web design provides a web browsing experience with minimal pinching and resizing, as web content almost naturally fits with the shape and size of the screen size. The bottom line is that responsive frameworks dynamically adjust to the device that is being used to access the web application.

In today’s global market, characterized by a variety of mobile options and with that varying mobile device screen sizes, having a website or web application that is mobile-friendly and provides the best overall user experience, is crucial to generating new revenue for your business. Since responsive web design functions to optimize web browsing from any browsing device, there is no need to build dedicated websites and web applications for each web browsing demographic. Rather, a solution built on responsive web design will effectively and efficiently handle both desktop and mobile web browsing.

1. Mobile Usability and a Lower Bounce Rate

With mobile web browsing set to overtake desktop web browsing in the not too distant future as the number 1 method for browsing the internet, it’s imperative that organizations upgrade their websites so that they’re mobile-friendly. Responsive web design is tailored for the mobile web browsing experience and as a result, will provide you with a lower bounce rate due to the ease-of-use navigating the internet on mobile devices. Compare this with the bounce rate for non-responsive web design based websites accessed via mobile devices and the difference is astounding. If your website is not optimized for this mobile web browsing demographic, then you risk increasing your bounce rate. By providing mobile users with a seamless and fluid browsing experience, responsive web design will keep visitors on your website for extended periods of time, thereby assisting in lowering your website bounce rate.

1. Long Term Savings on Development Costs

Although the upfront development hours and costs are greater, the long term return on investment for websites and web applications built on responsive web design is abundantly clear – you will save time and money by avoiding the cumbersome process of managing and updating a mobile version and a desktop version of the same application. With responsive web design, organizations can make updates in one location that will accommodate for both desktop and mobile web browsing experiences.

1. Maintain and Potentially Increase Google Rankings

On April 21st 2015, Google released its mobile-friendly algorithm update, also known as the “Google Mice Update” or “Mobilegeddon,”with the goal of increasing the visibility of mobile-friendly websites, while simultaneously, pushing mobile-friendly websites to the top of google search results from mobile devices. It’s abundantly clear that Google’s mandate in this update is to assist with shifting web-browsing into a mobile dominated world. With a mobile-friendly website, there’s also the opportunity to snag new mobile business from a competitor whose website is not up to mobile standards.

So what’s Google’s number one suggestion for adhering to this new mobile-friendly standard? It’s having a website built on responsive web design! Technically-speaking, on its own, complying with Google’s new mobile-friendly standard won’t directly increase your Google search rankings on mobile devices – on the contrary, it will allow you to maintain your position and you won’t be penalized – what will allow you to leap-frog the competition in mobile search results is being the first to take the jump to optimize your website or web application so that it’s mobile-friendly.

In addition, responsive web design will assist with increasing your SEO, as Google crawlers will only have to search one website for your information, as opposed to non-responsive web design web applications that force Google crawlers to search separate mobile and desktop websites to index content. This means that you can house and optimize all your metadata for SEO in one area, making life easy on Google crawlers, & as a result, organically driving traffic to your website.

1. Your Company Will Be Prepared for the Shift into the Mobile Dominated Web Browsing World

With mobile web browsing set to surpass desktop web browsing as the preferred way of surfing the internet, updating your website so that it’s mobile-friendly will not only assist your company in the present, but it will prepare you for the shift into a mobile web browsing dominated world. Responsive web design will put your company in a position where you are ready for this change in demographics.

Why Use Responsive Web Design?

In the end, it can be boiled down to one major organizational advantage: web applications and websites created using responsive web design will, if assembled correctly, save you time and money in the long run. You won’t have to maintain two separate websites for desktop and mobile, meaning that you will only be required to update one application. Your application will also be optimized for all browsing experiences and compliant with Google’s new mobile-friendly standard. And since your website will be mobile-friendly, there is the potential to increase your Google rankings on searches from mobile devices, along with the opportunity to improve your SEO.

Let CoreSolutions develop your next website or web application using responsive web design. With our extensive experience in software development, we’ll take your project from initial concept through to full implementation and beyond. Contact us today at 1-800-650-8882 to learn more about how CoreSolutions can make your next web development project a success!

Strategies to Overcoming Unconscious Bias in the Workplace

April 28, 2018

Unconscious bias is hitting the news. From Bay Street to Main Street to Starbucks the impact of unspoken bias is real and harmful to the workplace. Bias stands in the way of making correct decisions in hiring and promoting. It also has a vital impact on your staff and the workplace in general. Let’s explore how we can become aware of our own bias and stop it in the workplace?

First, let’s define it. “Unconscious bias refers to a bias that we are unaware of, and which happens outside of our control. It is a bias that happens automatically and is triggered by our brain making quick judgments and assessments of people and situations, influenced by our background, cultural environment and personal experiences.” (ECU: 2013 Unconscious bias in higher education)

We all have a bias. The question is, do we identify it and then what do we do about it? In addressing one of the most crucial training issues facing the workplace today, unconscious bias, employers can assist in creating an inclusive, civil and respectful workplace.

Research indicates that unconscious biases are prejudices we have, yet are uninformed of. They are “mental shortcuts based on social norms and stereotypes.” (Guynn, 2015). Biases can be based on skin colour, gender, age, height, weight, introversion versus extroversion, marital and parental status, disability status (for example, the use of a wheelchair or a cane), foreign accents, where someone went to college, and more (Wilkie, 2014). If you can name it, there is probably an unconscious bias for it.

Hence if we think we are unbiased, we may have unconscious adverse thoughts about people who are outside our own group. If we spend more time with people from other groups, we are less likely to feel prejudice against them.

This universal tendency toward unconscious bias exists because bias is rooted in our brain. Research shows that our brain has evolved to mentally put things together to make sense to us. The brain sorts all the information it is blasted with and labels that information with universal descriptions that it may rapidly access. When we categorize these labels as either good or bad, we tend to apply the rationale to the whole group. Many of the conclusions are taken from previous experiences and learnings.

In an article, “The Real Effects of Unconscious Bias in the Workplace”, a few of the known unconscious biases that directly impact the workplace include:

Affinity bias is the tendency to warm up to people like ourselves.
Halo effect is the tendency to think everything about a person is good because you like that person.
Perception bias which is the inclination to form stereotypes and assumptions about specific groups that make it awkward to make an objective judgement about members of those groups.
Confirmation bias is the openness for us to pursue evidence that sanctions our pre-existing beliefs or experiences.
Group think is a bias which occurs when people attempt to fit into a specific crowd by mirroring others or holding back opinions and views. This results in individuals losing part of their characteristics and causes workplaces to miss out on originality and creativity.

Horace McCormick’s research found more than 150 identified unconscious biases, making the task of rooting them out and addressing them daunting. For many organizations, however, identifying as many as possible and eliminating them has become a high priority.

You can address discrimination issues by increasing your awareness of your unconscious biases, and by developing strategies that make the most of the talents and abilities of your team members.

Unconscious behaviour is not just individual; it influences organizational culture as well. This explains why so often our best attempts at creating corporate culture change with diversity efforts seem to fall frustratingly short; to not deliver on the promise they intended.

What you can do:

Be aware consciously of your bias
Focus more on the people, on their strengths
Increase Exposure to Biases
Make small changes
Be pragmatic
Challenge stereotypes and counter-stereotypical information
Use context to explain a situation
Change your perception and relationship with out-group members
Be an active bystander
Improve processes, policies & procedures

Also, managers can play a crucial role in unearthing these hidden biases by declaring their intentions to be non-biased. They can also provide transparent performance appraisals that emphasis on the employee’s exceptional abilities and skills, and grow a stronger mindfulness of their own unconscious principles.

Leadership Development and Coaching Skills Workshops

Growing Coaching Skills

The Extraordinary Coach (1 Day Workshop)
Toronto – June 22, 2018

Leaders who coach and develop others have a huge impact on bottom-line results. In The Extraordinary Coach Workshop, you will develop the essential coaching skills that are required to be a great leader. In addition, you will learn what extraordinary coaches do well and how you can maximize your leadership impact and inspire others to perform at their peak.

Click here for full details:
The Extraordinary Coach Workshop

These are interactive, leadership learning, assessing, and planning experiences led by Jim Clemmer in:

Toronto – hosted by Workplace Safety and Prevention Services at the Centre for Health & Safety Innovation, Mississauga
- The Extraordinary Coach Workshop – June 22, 2018

See also The Extraordinary Leader (1 Day Workshop)
Toronto – June 21 2018

Discount Code: MUNIS1 for 1 day ($150) or MUNIS2 for 2 day ($250)

Leadership Development and Coaching Skills Workshops

Toronto – June 21 & 22, 2018

Building Leadership Strengths

The Extraordinary Leader (1 Day Workshop)
Toronto – June 21, 2018

The Extraordinary Leader process is being used extensively for individual leaders at all levels of an organization from senior executives to first-line supervisors. Customized in-house sessions are delivered to executive or management teams, other intact or cross-functional work teams, or to individuals gathered from different parts of an organization.

This is a uniquely powerful leadership development system using strengths-based leadership development, on a foundation of evidence-based approaches, producing a highly personalized development plan, that’s built around a best of class 360 multi-rater tool.

Ensure that your leaders are extraordinary — and drive extraordinary results. Register to attend one or more of these powerful coaching and leadership development workshops today!

Click here for full details:
The Extraordinary Leader Workshop

These are interactive, leadership learning, assessing, and planning experiences led by Jim Clemmer in:

Toronto – hosted by Workplace Safety and Prevention Services at the Centre for Health & Safety Innovation, Mississauga
- The Extraordinary Leader Workshop – June 21, 2018

See also The Extraordinary Coach (1 Day Workshop)
Toronto – June 22, 2018

Discount Code: MUNIS1 for 1 day ($150) or MUNIS2 for 2 day ($250)

Emotionally Intelligent Customer Service Training

Enhance your Customer Service with Emotional Intelligence

What keeps you going back to your local grocery store? Gas station? Clothing store? It is not all about pricing and convenience. It’s much more than that.

As an organization, you already understand that keeping loyal customers is more difficult than ever. The key to keeping your customers happy, is to make an emotional connection with them. Greet them warmly, being accessible, ask questions. Be knowledgeable, courteous and responsive when they enter your store or call you. The truth is, you only have 7-10 seconds to make a good first impression. If that individual does not feel valued, they don’t trust you or they don’t feel confident that you can help them, they may or may not make a purchase and they most likely will not be back.

In this interactive workshop, we will discuss:

What customer service means in relation to all your customers, both internal and external
How your attitude affects customer service
Identifying your customers’ needs
How to enhance the customer experience with emotional intelligence
How outstanding customer service can generate return business
Building good will through in-person customer service
Providing outstanding customer service over the phone
How to deal with difficult customers

When? Wednesday, June 27th, 2018

Location: Office Inc. – 54 Cedar Pointe Drive, Unit 1207 Barrie, Ontario L4N 5R7

Time: 9:30am – 4:30pm

Price: $97+HST >> Early Bird pricing in effect until April 30th!! After May 1st, price is $120+HST

Price includes: Workshop booklet, lunch, snacks and refreshments; free parking

Registration deadline is: Friday, June 22nd, 2018

Provided by Spark Your Vitality

Learn More and Register

Do you have more than one employee that you would like to attend this workshop? We’ve got your back! We are offering a special rate, so you can send multiple employees to attend this workshop.

Use promo code: BOGOCustServ

That’s right, register your first employee at full price, then save 35% on any additional registrations -no limit!

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