It all starts in my view with this fantastic piece of research:
World Class Customer Service.... for 2012 and beyond, Research and recommendations regarding how best to raise customer service standards across the visitor economy in advance of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.
In my capacity as the Programme Director for Customer Service within the National Skills Academy for Hospitality I have taken the findings and recommendations from a pan sector research document and spent time and resources finding a solution which fulfils the findings of this research.
So, how did I start?
Yes, I read the report three times, each time highlighting what was key to taking a page in a document and bringing it to life. I then engaged with a programme developer, who had a track record and was able to demonstrate industry return on investment. I had the vision of what it would look like and integrate with a solution of making training live beyond the one or two day classroom experience.
What next?
Piloting and this was a lot of fun with elements of pure pain and frustration. The main challenge at the time was to take a product that had structure and substance and ensure consistence with personalisation, through facilitation not training. The dilemma is if one person is able to facilitate the course then great, but how do we take that beyond that individual. The solution Train the Facilitator was born with assessment and Licensed Facilitators, which only has a success rate of around 40%, with feedback from Quality Panel and the Board that enabled the individuals that deliver the World Class Customer Service to be verified as excellent.
How did I get to a name?
The original name was “Gold Standard” Customer Service, then National Skills Academy Hospitality Customer Service Level 2 and Level 3. Then finally, I did what all slightly mad people do. I trained and developed the long standing short course solution experts – Welcome to Excellence who deliver Welcome Host and asked them to give our programme a name, which came back as, World Class Customer Service Professional and Coach courses. Thus, I feel totally justified in saying that these sets of programmes deliver exactly what was required by the research document and take the journey of Customer Service to a higher level than the excellent job that Welcome to Excellence have delivered over the last 13 years.
So, what a course that delivers on the research? Why should you be enthused to send your team on the courses or embed it within your own organisation?
This is where the real magic comes to life from those pages on that research document. The organisations that we have delivered and embedded into their Customer Service training and therefore culture have seen growth in financial terms. People 1st had to verify the qualification solution delivered what they said it would in their research. This report is about to be released, but the drafts show that the delivery method and the programme created by the National Skills Academy for Hospitality delivers a Return on Investment, which will be illustrated independantly by the ROI Academy.
Where are we up to now?
We have negotiated Awarding Body rates that make these courses financially competitive, the learner guides are at the same or lower price than all other short courses which deem to cover Customer Service, like Welcome Host or Gold and World Host a new product that is similar light touch approach as the Welcome to Excellence products. Therefore, if seeking a full solution regarding Customer Service which has endorsement from brand names like Hilton Hotels UK, Delaware North (Wembley Stadium and Emirates Stadium), Restaurant Associates, London Zoological Society, Galvin’s restaurant – La Chapelle, Brend Hotels, Boparan Venture Retail, Baldwins Omega, Barcelo, Virgin – Babylon Roof Gardens, Radisson Edwardian, Von Essen - Seaham Hall, Travelodge, Baxter Storey, and on and on. We are currently waiting for a response from Punch Taverns to join the journey to changing the face of Customer Service in the UK and many more.
How have we truly embedded the courses into the culture of organisations?
We train your best managers and trainers to deliver to your own teams. If you are too small to release people to train others the other route is through our training Provider partner HIT Training.
Take a look at my valuable TIPS on how to deliver excellent World Class Customer Service. These clips will give you a real taste of what we cover on our courses
