Return on Investment

Many organisations in the United States and around the world have used the technology of NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, to assist them to achieve their corporate objectives. Those projects range from coaching individual executives for improved performance and communication to customer service initiatives involving every employee in the company. NLP is useful in any situation in which two or more people must communicate in order to produce results.

Here are some examples of projects in which NLP has been used:

American Express trained twenty-four line managers from all over Asia to become transformational trainers. Without previous training experience, these employees became the heart of “American Express Quality Leadership”, an area-wide initiative to encourage every employee to take personal responsibility for quality in customer service.

Diners Club trained every manager and representative in the customer service area in NLP skills for handling customer and internal communication. The net result was a 254% increase in customer spending, and a 67% reduction in customer loss. The Customer Service department previously a cost centre became a revenue-generating part of the organisation.

BMW in England modelled the communication patterns of the top1% in sales. After determining the successful behaviours of these sales people, the skills were taught to every salesperson in the organisation. Sales of a newly introduced model greatly exceeded projections.

Fiat modelled the leadership skills of their finest formal and informal leaders. Subsequent management training focused on the skills uncovered in the modelling process.

An individual employee with NLP skills is empowered in the performance of his/her duties in many ways. The ability to reads others’ mental maps, is the basis of effective interaction. NLP has been used to assist business professionals in the following ways amongst others:

A manager tailors his approach to staff development and motivation to the individual “map” of each member of staff. In a performance review, she identifies the employee’s motivation strategy and incorporates this naturally into the employee’s development plan. In her next meeting, she uses conflict resolution techniques to resolve differences between three employees working on the same project.

A team member presents a proposal in a planning meeting. He begins by gaining rapport and accord with the group. He then incorporates highly valued criteria representing each faction in the team in the design and communication of his idea. This makes the idea more accessible to each participant in the meeting, and therefore more persuasive.

A salesman uses precision questioning to understand how his customer has been using the product he represents. He teaches the customer how to make the product work more effectively and go further. In the process of gathering more information he uncovers another area in which his products may be able to help the customer.

A customer service representative handles a call from an irate customer. He establishes rapport with the customer, gently leads him into a calmer state of mind, pinpoints the problem, and solves it. After the grateful customer hangs up, he takes a moment or two to shift himself into a more resourceful state of mind.

An internal consultant is part of an international project. He notices cross-cultural communication problems developing between project team members. Reading their non-verbal cues, he “translates” each group’s intentions to the other groups and prevents delays in the project due to misunderstandings.

A trainer learns to modify his approach to presentation based on the preferred learning styles of the student(s).

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