The significant shift in power from the producers and suppliers to consumers of goods and services has led to the need for developing service effectiveness to improve customer satisfaction, for all organisations, whether they be public, private or charitable organisations. This book provides a collection of 40 games and activities that can be used to develop a service‐focussed culture. These games are based on two sets of 52 cards, Service Interaction Cards and Service Environment Cards.
The authors are the co‐founders of Advancement Strategies Inc., founded in 1988, an Indiana designated women‐owned business. They are both practitioners and have over 40 years’ experience in this field between them.
The book comprises ten chapters of varied lengths, in two parts. In the first part, with three chapters, the authors introduce the concept of the Card Games for Developing Service, guidelines for using the card games and the two sets of 52 cards. The two decks of cards “contain 26 ‘Do’ cards, presenting effective behaviours to use, and 26 ‘Don’t’ cards, presenting ineffective behaviours to be avoided” (p. 4). The four areas of service interaction presented are Paying Attention, Establishing Rapport, Gathering Information, and Solving Problems. The four areas of Service Environment presented are Creating the Environment, increasing Knowledge, Improving Processes, and Encouraging Others.
The 40 games are grouped into the following six categories: ten discussion games, eight assessing and sorting games, seven acting games, six artistic games, five implementation games, and four board games. The implementation games focus on how to apply the effective behaviours at work.
For each game and activity, the authors give a learning objective as well as a short summary, the approximate time needed for the game, details of materials and resources needed and the suggested minimum and maximum number of participants. This is followed by brief directions for playing the game together with ideas for varying the format of the games. They have also provided debriefing questions to assess the effectiveness of the games and ideas for improving both the games and the effectiveness of customer service provided by the participants, etc. The time required for each game ranges from 45 to 90 minutes but for some implementation games, which are ongoing. The objectives of the four ongoing games are aimed at reinforcing the understanding and recognition of effective service behaviours, practising recognition and use of effective service behaviours, actively improving specific service behaviours, and recognising effective service behaviours in the workplace.
The objective of Game 14 is self‐evaluation of the importance of the eight areas of Service Interaction and Service Environment Cards. For this activity additional materials (Assessment Sheets and Action Plan for Self‐improvement) are required and these are provided in the Appendix.
Each card of the two decks has an eye‐catching headline; a short paragraph describing a particular behaviour; and a question or two for the users to answer about their own or those of their team’s service behaviour. The cards also have an engaging illustration. The authors claim that holding the cards, reading, discussing, and arranging and sharing them learners become immersed in the activities (probably, the same as playing a game of cards such as Rummy). The four board games are entitled “Big Eight”, “Developing Service Game”, “Now That’s Service”, and “Now That’s Service Too”. The organisers of the Big Eight game have to photocopy the required number of sheets from the master provided in the Appendix. However, the boards for the other three games are included in the box of cards. The boxed cards also contain some examples of instructions from the book.
The instructions are clear and easy to follow. Compared to the cost of hiring consultants, the package is reasonably priced, but for the cost of additional cards. However, users can only assess the effectiveness of conducting sessions using the package.
