Communication Coach Blog
Let’s talk Customer Service Experience! Join me Ric Phillips and Jason Agouris of iTristan Media Group as we delve deep into how we humans respond to customer experience, especially in a world of digital products for business. If you work in customer service, or run a small business, this video is for you, especially if you are (considering) using AI and chatbots to assist the customer experience.
YouTube Video: https://lnkd.in/gzQ6Z4RC
A few weeks back, I was walking home in my neighbourhood after buying a bottle of wine for dinner. While walking on the sidewalk, a van came up from an underground parking lot, and to my surprise, failed to brake in time and almost hit me. I was a little shocked at first, jumped back, and used my right hand to brace against his hood, causing a little slapping noise when my hand connected.
Well, since I immediately understood that the van did indeed stop just in time, and there was no accident, I continued to walk home on the sidewalk. I did not attempt to make eye contact with the driver as I didn’t want to accidentally instigate a verbal or even physical confrontation. I did not say anything nor cast any dirty looks. I simply walked on, content that there was no need to cause an issue.
About 3 minutes later, I noticed on my left side that the same burgundy van was now beside me (more or less), in traffic, and again, I didn’t feel the need to look over. Until I heard his voice.
I turned and looked at him, a big, burly man with long dark hair and a beard, in what I guess I would describe as looking like a biker, and, with a matching deep, gravelly voice, said “I’m sorry Brother.”
In a split-second I judged his voice and facial expressions to be sincere, and knew that he felt bad about the almost-accident. There was no doubt in my mind that he was determined to let me know that he was sorry. I believed him.
So I waved my hand to him, switching from a wave to a thumbs-up, and shouted to him “no problem!” Thanks!” And that was that. My faith in humanity was once again restored. There are plenty of good people in the world who make mistakes, and feel the need to fix them. There are still people who practice an almost-rare attitude of “well, if I made a mistake, I’ll own it, and fix it if I can.” He I suppose was one such guy. And I wish him the best. I smiled the rest of the way home.
Ric Phillips, Communication Coach
Hello community!
I’m ecstatic to announce my new Subscription Plans. I had you in mind when we designed our ongoing memberships, specifically for Group Coaching (for the Public). This group coaching is currently accepting a waitlist. If you join the waitlist, please do the survey questions and you’ll be the first to know when it launches!
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Thank you all – let’s continue the learning together.
Ric Phillips, 3V Communications Ltd.
Communication Coach/Trainer
Like many of you, I am in disbelief of what is going on right now in Ukraine, and hoping for a quick, peaceful withdrawal, though that seems unlikely. I have been to Ukraine. In 2019 I spent the day in Kyiv on a stop-over. What a beautiful city full of proud people. I have also been to Moscow, Russia, twice for extended periods for business. I love that city, especially in January! The decorations are amazing! I have met many wonderful Ukrainians and Russians both here in Canada and abroad. People are people – governments are governments, and dictators are dictators. I hope for peace, and donated to help. You can too.
Here is a copied blog from NCCA Canada today. It sums up the message for me. Peace.
We are shocked and saddened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and inspired by the incredible leadership and resilience of the Ukrainian people. We are also seeing and hearing of many Russians who are against this war, and protest at the risk of their freedom. The Russian people should not be wholly judged based on their current President and government. Allies are everywhere. We #StandWithUkraine – and we can donate to the Canadian Red Cross to help, with this link:
PEACE
(https://nccacanada.org/blog/2022/03/04/we-stand-with-ukraine/)
Well what a nice surprise! I’m excited and honoured to be included in the prestigious Global Gurus Top 30 2022 under the category of Communication Professional, ranked #13. Strict criteria for selection includes being a published author, sharing original thought leadership pieces, and the public vote. I’ve been at this since 2006, and I am happy to receive this recognition. Thank you very much to all of my mentors, readers, clients and supporters. You are the best. 🙂
It’s been a couple of years since I updated this blog. Why you ask? Well I could say that I was busy blogging on two other websites of companies I’m involved with, which isn’t a lie, but a sentence closer to the true reason for my absence was that I had technical issues with this blog, and couldn’t get it to work for a long time!
I am not a techie, though as an entrepreneur and small business owner, I needed to learn a lot of computing skills, especially early on while on a shoestring budget. However I was thrown for a loop when a couple of years ago I tried to update this WordPress blog to a new, better PHP, and I must have chosen the wrong one in a list of several, and suddenly, I couldn’t create new posts! What was worse, the old posts wouldn’t appear either. I just had one page with a few posts visible, and their hyperlinks to the full articles were not functioning. Good grief!
I couldn’t figure out how to solve it (i.e. how to ‘unplug and reboot’, which solves at least 50% of ALL tech issues!) and for whatever reason I didn’t hire/bug someone else to look into it. My intuition was that after a couple normal updates, it would sort itself out. And it did. TWO YEARS LATER.
The lesson is clear – don’t wait so long to fix a blog issue and don’t expect it to sort itself out without help.
In the meantime I upgraded my business website 3V Communications, and implemented a new logo too. It’s different from the one you can see in the upper right corner of this website, right? (Because I don’t know how to switch them out!)
I am still Canada’s first Communication Coach, and I love having this website active. I still get a lot of traffic from this site, and now that the many blog posts are again active, I hope Google will once again crawl through them and others can find useful content dealing with all things interpersonal and professional communication skills.
Now I have to start adding more content – starting with this new blog post. I hope you have enjoyed reading, and I know many of you can relate to the tribulations of being Tech Support for a small biz, when you don’t have a tech support background. It’s all part of the learning and growing experience, and truth be told, I love it. 🙂
“How To Speak Bad English Perfectly” Interesting commentary on the business of ESL (English as a Second Language) including fixing ‘bad English’ grammar and pronunciation mistakes. Native English speakers are greatly outnumbered in the world, yet many non-natives are striving for ‘perfect’ English skills. I’ve always believed we can help ESL speakers speak ‘through’ or ‘with’ their accent, not reduce it completely. I also believe learning business focused idioms and slang will help speed up a learners’ comfort at the office (in addition to learning industry-specific vocabulary of course). Heather does not really agree with that last idea.
What do you think of her assumptions and suggestions?
As most of you know I am part of a team that trains entrepreneurs, both for-profit and not-for-profit, in Canada and abroad. This year our organization YEDI (York Entrepreneurship Development Institute) which operates partnership programs with York University and Schulich Executive Education Centre was ranked the #1 University-linked accelerator in the world, by UBI Global. I am proud to be on the YEDI team, where my primary role is to improve the business communication skills of our entrepreneurs in the areas of leadership, customer service, networking and pitching skills (from slides to body language!) and branding. As an original co-founder of YEDI I can attest that having communication skills training was always part of the formula for YEDI, since a great idea will be wasted or shelved if the business owner cannot express it in a simple and impactful way to potential partners and investors, catching their attention and clearly understanding how they will benefit. At the risk of sounding too self-serving, I wish YEDI continued success and exciting developments in the near future!
http://www.yedinstitute.org/yedi-ranked-1-in-the-world-by-ubi-global/
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays from 3V Communications! This holiday time is a perfect time to practice great verbal communications by wishing others season’s greetings, and also practice your non-verbal communication by hugging those you love! 🙂
Together let’s make 2018 a positively successful New Year!
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 9th 2017
CONTACT: Mr. Ric Phillips, Executive Director, [email protected], 647-478-8612
NCCA Canada Hosted Innovative Toronto Event Connecting Communication Coaches With Small Business Entrepreneurs to Help Improve Business Communications
Toronto City Hall, October 13th 2017 — The key to successfully starting and growing a business is effective communications. An entrepreneur or small business owner may have a great idea, but will not get much interest from anyone if they cannot share their vision, persuasively pitch, and clearly explain their products and services. There are professional coaches and trainers who focus on helping people improve their business communication skills, and they need a place and an organization to meet each other.
NCCA Canada proudly partnered with YEDI (York Entrepreneurship Development Institute) and the City of Toronto to co-host a half-day professional development and networking event at Toronto City Hall where professionals from various industries learned how to develop these vital business communication skills. Jason Easton, MPP Jeff Leal’s Chief of Staff for the Small Business in Ontario portfolio gave opening remarks on the importance of honing professional communications before NCCA President, speaker extraordinaire and body language expert Mark Bowden delivered a truly memorable keynote on persuasive non-verbal communication. NCCA Executive Director Ric Phillips then led an interactive learning workshop on the art of the quick pitch. This led to lunch and mini-workshops hosted by Colleen Clarke on the topic of how networking is really “telling, not selling” and Dr. Marat Ressin on clarifying a business vision. The half-day ended with a panel discussion on the trends in the coaching and learning & development industries.
“This was a unique opportunity for entrepreneurs and small business owners to quickly learn and implement the same day specific and very useful business communication skills, and then network with other business people and communication coaches who teach these skills,” said Co-Founder and Executive Director of NCCA Canada Ric Phillips.
This event was open to everyone and received praise for it’s innovative model from coaches, trainers, vendors and entrepreneurs.
“It was invigorating. To finally be in a community of communicators, swapping stories and ideas about the work we do, and to listen to such accomplished, interesting speakers was great. Thank you for seeing the need and for building a high quality base for us” said Eleanor James, Communication Coach/Trainer.
About NCCA Canada
NCCA (National Communication Coaching Association) Canada is a nationally registered non-profit organization that acts as a home for communication skills coaches, trainers and enthusiasts, providing professional development, networking and designation opportunities for its members. NCCA also provides communication coach/trainer and training company designation standards, peer review and official designation lists, used for professional credentialing. The primary mission of NCCA is to contribute to the growth of personal and professional communication skills, both here and abroad.