Brilliant Customer Service
The experience of service is fundamental to business success. Customer-facing representatives are on the front line of any organization, and the quality of their interpersonal skills and problem-solving competencies are of critical importance to the enterprise. Mindfulness helps you project a positive and energetic cultural voice, with a high baseline of social and emotional intelligence. It enables you to focus more attentively, listen more carefully, and solve problems more strategically.
Building Relationships
Client-facing roles are built on positivity, enthusiasm, empathy and other relationship-building, problem-solving and communications competencies. Mindfulness strengthens the mental qualities (once thought to be immutable traits), that comprise them. It is a neural training process that develops mental strength, cognitive performance and emotional intelligence. It unlocks motivation and initiative, enables relationship-building and rapport, and enables the clarity and confidence to influence others.
Kindness, Care and Empathy
Today’s science-based mindfulness is a completely secular, proven neural process that quiets, calms and focuses the mind; reduces stress and distraction; and improves health, happiness, cognitive performance and emotional intelligence. It is an exercise program for the brain - and a simple, minutes-a-day practice that changes mindsets, increases interest and curiosity, cultivates kindness, care and empathy, and improves relationships at home and at work.
Course Contents
IOSM Certificate courses blend live instruction with self-paced learning, daily practice, unlimited group coaching and community support
Assessments
Pre-and-post course assessments
Master Class
Live, instructor-led master class
Modules
8 weekly self-study lessons
Progress
8 weekly progress exam-lets
Daily Practice
8 weeks of daily email videos
Coaching
8 optional coaching sessions
Final Exam
A comprehensive final exam
Certification
Certificate and digital badge
Associate Access
IOSM resources, tools and events
Lifetime Access
IOSM Global Alumni Community
Anytime Help
Phone, chat, text and email support
CEUs
SHRM & HRCI recertification credits
Course Objectives
IOSM Certificate courses blend live instruction with self-paced learning, daily practice,
unlimited group coaching and community support
Personal Performance
Manage stress, anxiety, and distraction
Increase motivation and engagement
Performance Capabilities
Project authenticity and trustworthiness
Create attunement and rapport
Increase clarity and situational awareness
Develop self-awareness and confidence
Increase self-knowledge and insight
Strengthen emotional regulation
Increase focus, attention and concentration
Improve creativity and problem-solving skills
Overcome unconscious behaviors
Challenge unconscious beliefs and biases
Improve critical thinking and decision skills
Improve communication skills
Improve negotiation and persuasion skills
Develop toughness, grit and resilience
Course Outline
Public courses offer the eight weeks of self-study below. Corporate programs may be customized by changing the length of the course, or swapping any modules with alternative classes from the library.
Week 1: Introduction to Mindfulness
Three decades of research in neuroscience and cognitive psychology have proven that the mind can change the brain and body — and mindfulness is the neural process that proves it. This class is a comprehensive introduction to the nature, science, outcomes and practice of modern mindfulness.
You will learn:
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The context of modern mindfulness
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The basic neuroscience and psychology of mindfulness
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How to perform fundamental mindfulness practices and exercises.
Week 2: Reducing Stress, Anxiety and Illness
According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), chronic stress is not only uncomfortable and unpleasant, it is the most serious health epidemic of the new century. This module explores the physical and neural impact of toxic stress, anxiety and illness - and the mindfulness strategies that reduce and reverse them.
You will learn:
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The danger and sources of chronic stress
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How mindfulness physically reduces stress, anxiety and worry
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Mindfulness practices that strengthen calm, patience and wellbeing
Week 3: Developing Positivity and a Growth Mindset
Brilliant customer service starts with a positive worldview — and a mindset open to growth, adaptation and improvement. This module introduces practices that literally change the structure and function of the brain — by replacing our evolutionary negative default with circuits that drive positive motivation, engagement and fulfillment.
You will learn:
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The sources and science of information overload, digital distraction and attention deficit
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How mindfulness can be applied to suppress distraction, and increase focus
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Mindfulness practices that strengthen our abilities to direct and sustain attention
Week 4: Developing Self and Situational Awareness
An understanding of ourselves — the people around us — and how those people perceive us, are fundamental building blocks for social and emotional intelligence. Mindfulness gives us the objective insight to understand our own feelings and emotions, while consciously navigating our environment.
You will learn:
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Why self-awareness is a critical trait for customer service
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How mindfulness can help us navigate successfully from the known and familiar, to an uncertain future state
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Mindfulness practices that help us accept the inevitability of uncertainty, and to embrace change with an open and curious mind
Week 5: Strengthening Empathy, Kindness and Compassion
Remarkable service springs from a visceral understanding of our customer’s challenges and emotional state. This sense of empathy, along with feelings of care and compassion, aren’t intellectual attributes. They are states and traits that can only be developed from within, through insight and neural training.
You will learn:
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The fundamentals of self awareness and authenticity
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How to apply mindfulness to strengthen personal ethics, integrity and trustworthiness
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Mindfulness practices to develop the traits that inspire trust, confidence and loyalty
Week 6: Developing Patience and Emotional Control
Service requires calm and patience, often in the face of frustratingly difficult circumstances. This module examines mindfulness and metacognition — the human capability to “think about what we’re thinking about” — and the skill to examine our thoughts and emotions as they arise, and choose the most strategic response to them.
You will learn:
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The framework and competencies that comprise social and emotional intelligence
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How to use mindfulness to strengthen self-and-social-awareness, empathy and communication
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Mindfulness practices for care, kindness and compassionate behaviors
Week 7: Deep and Intuitive Communication
Listening deeply and consciously — while paying close attention to aural tone, non-verbal cues and body language — are essential service skills. This module includes mindfulness practices that strengthen our ability to consciously listen, accurately understand, and respond with kindness and compassion.
You will learn:
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How to connect closely and cooperatively with others
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How to conduct an articulate and productive dialogue
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Mindfulness practices that increase intuition, rapport and influence with prospects and clients
Week 8: Creativity and Problem Solving
Mindfulness improves cognitive performance, which enables greater creativity and complex problem solving — This module provides mindfulness strategies for working with customers to find the right answers, with empathy, patience and poise.
You will learn:
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The principles of energy management
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How mindfulness connects us to stress and the state of flow
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Mindfulness practices for mental toughness, grit and resilience
"Mindfulness is a state of moment-to-moment experience that produces intense attention regulation, emotional regulation, and body awareness. The deeper these outcomes, the higher the score for flow — in challenge, skill balance, goal clarity, sense of control, and loss of self-consciousness"
Chen, Tsai, Lin, National Institutes of Health, 2018