What communication scripts might you use to support practice of this skill? Are these complete scripts or just key words to support initiation?
In retail operations, unless the facility is a business that only involves mail and electronic orders, there is a need to have a plan for customer interactions. For some individuals, your first focus is setting up job responsibilities and environmental design so that customer interactions are limited, thus supporting the student in using his strengths. However, having a clear plan for handling the complexity and variety of potential customer interactions is a focus. *Set up scripts to address the specific interaction patterns and issues of the student!
Scripting is likely to prove useful in addressing a variety of customer interactions. Scripting provides a response regardless of the student’s verbal processing, anxiety or shift of attention issues. Scripting fits with the need of many for predictability in interaction. The two primary interactions between customers and workers who are organizing and presenting merchandise for display are 1) for information or 2) for compliant. If the individual worker has the knowledge of the store and can learn to control the length of interaction with customers, handling ‘information’ questions may be an area of skill you wish to target. However, in both information and complaint situations, providing a simple redirection script may be your first target.
For students who can handle specific information questions (i.e., price, location, product details), you may want to consider setting up a script to support the student’s specific interactions with customers. For instance, you have a student who has learned (or can easily learn) the location of items in the store. However, the student has a tendency to ‘share more information’ than necessary with a customer (he may follow customers and tell them all about products). As another example, you have a student who is very knowledgeable about a product and is expected to answer questions about the product. However, he tends to go on and on, rather than allowing the customer time to examine the product alone. In both cases, you may set up a rule card that has a script as part of the card:
For a student who will work at the cash register or customer terminal, scripting is likely to be an inefficient tool. Although there are specific remarks that a cashier says every time, ‘friendly’ cashier behavior requires quick and varied responses to multiple personal cues and customer remarks. The same is true in bagging groceries or in packaging items with customers present. Because of this variety, a script is less valuable than a rule card.
Even so, supervisors may periodically want cashiers to share specific information or ask specific questions during customer transactions. In this case the visible presence of a script card on the terminal or cash register may be appropriate:
On the script card, does the student need additional picture or word cues to define his body position, facial expression, gestures, etc. during the use of the script?
Consider whether the student needs additional photo or picture cues on the script to encourage 1) turning to face the customer, 2) looking at the customer’s face, 3) smiling and nodding, 4) adjusting voice tone and volume.
What additional visual clarity cues (e.g. color-coding, highlighting) might you add to the visual script to promote attention and comprehension for the student?
What scenarios might you present (using scenario Act it Out cards) to help students produce their own dialogue and interactions to practice or role-play in a scene?
Below are a variety of scenarios to which the student might practice responding when he is ready for a more advanced level of rehearsal. Of course, the needs and strengths of the individual (as well as the environment in which he is working or likely to work) will dictate the complexity of the scenarios you target:
What video scenarios might you present to help students make accurate discriminations between appropriate and less appropriate responses?
If the student is capable of the judgments necessary around customer interactions and appropriate scripts are developed that support those interactions, ideally, it may prove worthwhile to provide practice with scenarios and video scenarios to build student confidence in labeling correct interactions and in correcting inappropriate interactions. The video scenario provides an opportunity to label what is incorrect and to correct that identified behavior.
Are you arranging frequent practice opportunities with visual scripts and scenarios to build independence and fluency through repetition?
In order to align this intervention topic area with the unique needs of the student, do you need to create scripts or scenarios in the View2do program?
