1. Advisory skills: You need more than subject matter expert to serve the customer well!

2. Goals Communication training in the IFC
Realise the opportunities and risk media has
Be able to explain the KNMI policy on communication and then especially the “regime” for dealing with journalists.
Explain what weather advice and climate services are done at KNMI outside the forecasting office and how you should deal with questions for this kind of services
Give the students advisory skill tools to be able to serve the customer is a better way
Within our initial forecasting course we have reserved some time for a training related to different ways of communications. In half a day we manage the first 3 points of this list and in about 4 months after the students has gone solo we give a days training on advisory skills

3. Silvia Holl
Before we start with the work I like to say that this is not my work but the work of Silvia Holl, my HR colleague, who normally does this course at KNMI

4. Part 1

5. Exercise 1: Advising: What is is your idea about it? First exercise:
Association exercise:
1) choose a picture that represents advising others for you
2) Normally we have groups of people and each persons explains the group why he/she has chosen this picture in relation to advising people and what advising means for them. For now we pick a couple of the group to do this exercise for real
3) the trainer tells the group why she has chosen this picture and what giving advice means for her

6. Advising is like a Bridge2 3 1 4
Advicing is like walking over a bridge:
Phase 1: to make a connection
Phase 2: to get the question or problem clear
Phase 3: The answer or advice
Phase 4: The check whether the answer is clear

7. Phase 1: making the connection
Basically this is what we have done in the previous exercise
Also during telephone calls it is very important to make contact. This goes a lot further than saying “Hallo”.
You can’t do two things at the same time and somehow you have to focus your energy to the person on the other side of the line.
Check it by yourself but I often feels whether someone is connected to me in a telephone conversation or is doing other things at the same time….
Question: How do you feel when someone is not connected?

8. Phase 2: To get the question/problem clear
Listen very good: What is the question behind the question?
Ask the right questions
Get the question or the problem clear!
Question: Why is this important?
If an advisor answers the wrong question the customer doesn’t feel him/herself helped. Even for very short telephone calls this helps.
You probably know this example: A customer askes to build a development team a swing and everyone in a project heard something different in the explanation of the customer.
How can you prevent this: by using LSD. in Dutch Listening, Summary and Questioning. Do we have such a abbreviation in English???
Basically this is: you listen to the question or problem of the customer, you give a very short summary in your words and ask further questions when it is not completely clear what the other wants.
Example: someone call the forecasting office and asks whether the weather will be good tomorrow. To give an answer it might be handy why this is important, what the customer is going to do in what time window and the weather conditions are for success.

9. Phase 3: The Answer or Advice

10. Phase 4: Check whether the advice was helpful
Also the last step is very important: check whether your advice was helpful. If it was not you have to go back to step 2 getting the question/problem clear.

11. Exercise 2: LSD Also a phase 2 exercise:
show the LSD to the group by doing it with someone else:
Dived group into smaller groups of people
The headaches case: The trainer comes at the general practioner with headache (every Sunday for the past 1,5 year and on Monday it slowly goes away. The group should identify what causes the headaches and shouldn't give a prescription.
The clue: the trainer has lived 1,5 year in another house and on Sundays he works on his old car. he used have a garage in an remote area and could open the door. Now he is living a populated area and has a garage at home. he can't open the door due to noise nuisance so there is no ventilation
First person presents an open question, the trainer answers, the following summarizes and presents another open question etc.
occasionally timeout with suggestions / feedback:
* suggestive questions
* repeat instead of summarizing
* thinking in own concept
* closed questions
* not listening to each other and the answer given
LSD also works with very angry people and is an often used technique in the mediation
Let the people spit their anger and listen
Summarise their story
Ask new questions to find the real problem
Find an solution together.
This solution might be recognition of a problem, show understanding and tell them that it can’t be done in a different way.

12. Exercise 3: How to deal with “difficult” people
It might be handy to set the boundaries in circumstances you are under pressure or have to handle angry people
The scratch at the recording technique: this happens in phase 2 as soon as you have different interests
The technique:
1) Ask for information
2) Show understanding
3) Say NO
4) What else can you do for the person
5) Repeat step 2 and 3
I will do a request what you are going to reject! show an example to the group. (you want with someone to the cinema)
Couples will do this exercise together and will change roles half way.
An other example: There are flying marginal conditions. A pilot wants to fly from A to B but the conditions are such that he is not allowed to go. He keeps asking and pushing to get a yes.

13. Exercise 3: How to deal with “difficult” people
Steps:
1) Ask for information
2) Show understanding
3) Say NO
4) What else can you do for the person
5) Repeat step 2 and 3
It might be handy to set the boundaries in circumstances you are under pressure or have to handle angry people
The scratch at the recording technique: this happens in phase 2 as soon as you have different interests
The technique:
1) Ask for information
2) Show understanding
3) Say NO
4) What else can you do for the person
5) Repeat step 2 and 3
I will do a request what you are going to reject! show an example to the group. (you want with someone to the cinema)
Couples will do this exercise together and will change roles half way.
An other example: There are flying marginal conditions. A pilot wants to fly from A to B but the conditions are such that he is not allowed to go. He keeps asking and pushing to get a yes.

14. Part 2
The first part of the training is about learning on how best to advise their customers and training new techniques which are useful during this process.
The second part is the practise phase where we secure the just learned skill into practice. We usually do this second part of the trainers with the help of training actors who will give feedback to the participants

15. Real life examples
Case 1: It is Friday afternoon. Nearly weekend and these people want to go home but have to finish their job before they can go. Next to that it is a very showery weather type and they can’t use more that than 1 mm of water. This guys who calls wants you to make his decision to stop.
Case 2:There are flying marginal conditions. A pilot wants to fly from A to B but the conditions are such that he is not allowed to go. He keeps asking and pushing to get a yes.
And of course they can think of a case of their own.

16. Round-up Your experiences.. First part is funny
Second part is a kind of peer review
This was only a showcase
Question: What did you think of this training?
Our experiences:
The first part is often funny and the second part is a kind of peer review in which you see issues your colleagues are facing in their work and that you can learn from each other. Often this an eye opener for the participants.
The second part is where you secure the things learned
This was only a show case this was only a small selection of the exercises we are doing during the training. We usually we take a full day for this workshop. This way everyone get chance to exercise and there is enough energy available to have an active day.

17. Questions?