Effective Communication with Customers

Both The NHS and the Drugs and Healthcare industries are going through a series of re-organisations and major change.

Effective Communication with Customers

Both The NHS and the Drugs and Healthcare industries are going through a series of re-organisations and major change. Developing a stronger partnership with customers is essential for navigating such changes. James Prior, an employee of AstraZeneca, is involved in leading this journey.

AstraZeneca is putting significant development into ensuring it has the best sales force in the UK, moving towards being partner of choice with its customers. This means developing a stronger appreciation of the wants, needs and values of their customers, together with a greater awareness of their own communication styles.

James is Skills Development and Speciality Care training lead, who works with a team of 5 to develop speciality care skills packages for a sales field force of 1200. He approached NLP Professional, Michael as he believed that Business NLP could help him achieve his objectives. As a starting point he wanted to demonstrate the benefits of a focused business NLP approach for himself.

AstraZeneca sponsored James to complete his Master Pracittioner; he chose to study modules in leadership, change management and executive coaching. He instantly recognised the benefits in both raising his own self awareness and giving him an additional set of tools to use. James explains “I noticed the impact of my own communication and I was immediately able to put into practice skills that I had been learning for some time. This made me easier to talk to and in turn enabled me to raise the value and worth of my own team.”

James added “Understanding my own personal communication styles was a key step in building on my current skills to communicate with others”

Two techniques that James found exceptionally valuable were ‘values’ and ‘timeline.’ ‘Values’ is a questioning and listening approach that enables the practitioner to find out what’s important to his or her client. ‘Timeline’ is a visualisation or kinaesthetic approach to explore and achieve future goals. James continues “Both are easy in principal; the art is in developing the skill set to do them well.”

James believes that this training will have a profound benefit in providing a comprehensive tool set those working in the care industry.