Learning Theatre

Case study: A Chamber of Business


The business chamber of a small but rapidly growing town in South Africa's premier tourist region contracted the company. The businessmen of the town felt that they were losing out on potential business growth because of a lack of customer focus in all businesses in the town.

The company put together a workshop consisting of a mix of Facilitated TheatreÒ and Interactive TheatreÒ. The workshop consisted of a series of short plays with two actors playing a variety of roles and a Master of Ceremonies facilitating the process, using the "right way-wrong way" technique. The actors would play a scene, making all the mistakes in the book, where after the MC would discuss the scene with the audience. The actors would then return and do the scene the right way, using suggestions made by the audience members. This allowed the opportunity to the employees of different companies to create their own mirror images.

After the five little scenarios the delegates broke into smaller groups and with a trained facilitator, worked through the specifics of their businesses. (Delegates came from many very disparate businesses.)

The results were very encouraging, with many businesses professing a marked increase in customer service levels after the workshop. Businesses measured their customer focus through a simple feedback system filled in by customers. Retention of the information shared was also very high. When the company returned to the same town for an unrelated project three years later, they were recognised and greeted by employees who had been on the Customer Service workshop, with many of them saying they were still using the principles that they had learnt in the workshop.