National Trust

Lewisham College

Hounslow Homes

Swan Housing Group

IBA Dosimetry

Press Release

Greenfields wins National Training award for Eastern Region

Essex-based Greenfields Community Housing has won a National Training award in the East of England Medium Employer Category.

Greenfields is now competing against eleven other national organisations to win the overall Winner of the Year for its category and will find out the result at the awards ceremony on 5th October at WorldSkills (the world’s largest international skills competition) at ExCeL in London.

The National Training Awards (NTAs) “recognise and celebrate Investors in People accredited organisations that have delivered outstanding organisational benefits by directly linking the training needs of their people to the business needs of their organisation.”

Julie Breed, Head of Human Resources at Greenfields, said: “We decided to apply for an award to recognise the significant culture change we achieved by using the international Mary Gober Customer Service training. As well as giving all staff two days intensive training in the customer service methodology, several staff members also become ‘coaches’ who continually reinforce the Gober principles to remind staff about aiming for excellence in Customer Service. I am very proud of everyone at Greenfields who has helped us to win this award.”

An NTA representative said: “Winning an award can directly impact on an organisation’s success. One in three have said that their organisation has become more efficient.”

Previous Eastern NTA winners include Wickes in Hemel Hempstead, Pitney Bowes in Harlow and the MOD Guard Service in Braintree.

Greenfields was accredited with Investors in People Gold earlier this year.  www.greenfieldsch.org.uk

Mary Gober International would like to congratulate SYHA in winning the prestigious ‘Regional Social Landlord of the Year’ at this year’s Housing Excellence Awards. 23 other housing associations where entered for the award.

Narendra Bajaria CBE, Chair of SYHA’s Board commented:

“Becoming the Regional Social Landlord of the Year is a great achievement for us as the award focuses on so many aspects of the work of our organisation.

The fact that we are able to show that we deliver excellence to our customers in so many different ways is truly a credit to all at SYHA.”

South Yorkshire Housing Association implemented the Gober Method training in 2009.

http://www.syha.co.uk/Latest-News/SYHA+Celebrate+Success

Bank of America have reported that following the introduction of a Live Chat service which exceeded 90% in customer satisfaction, it was evident that the role of the front line was changing. It was clear that the easier, less emotional queries and transactions were now being completed through the self service channels. This resulted in more complex and potentially emotional queries being the ones most likely to be dealt with over the phone. Agents would need to be equipped to deal with this. In addition, it was clear that there were demographic differences between the team providing the service to Bank of America customers (average age 24 years) and the customers themselves (average age 45 years).

A partnership was instigated with Mary Gober International in Q4 2009. Following several weeks of call listening and agent interviews, a new programme was designed to give the agents both the mind-set and approach to build a better rapport with customers and deal with more challenging contacts in a positive and solution-oriented manner.

Following a pilot scheme early in 2010 there were positive results:

• · The ‘Gober Method’™ saw a 50% reduction in Manager Escalations
• · And a 20% reduction in formal Customer Complaints

A full roll-out is now being planned for Q1 2011 and forms part of a progressive plan for Bank of America to provide the best possible service.

“Congratulations to everyone at Wolverhampton Homes on this excellent acknowledgement of your service!” – Mary Gober

Read the full article on The Guardian – Click Here

Congratulations to Bank of America for scooping four major awards including the ‘Best Achievement in Customer Service’ at the prestigious 2011 Card & Payments Awards.

The ‘Best Achievement in Customer Service’ Award was given to the company for ‘Bank of America in Pursuit of Excellence’ – a programme the judges said “demonstrated how the online medium was playing an increasing role in resolving customer service issues”.

Ian O’Doherty, Europe Card Executive for Bank of America, said: “To win four key national awards in the face of such strong competition is a fantastic achievement for our business. We are absolutely delighted.

A lot of our effort is focused on putting our customers at the centre of everything we do and it’s great this has received the endorsement of the industry.”

“We are very proud of our strong affinity relationships. Play.com and Amazon.co.uk are fantastic partnerships that are delivering greater choice and better offers to the UK credit card market.

“Our customers are our business and we will continue to find ways to bring more choice, simplicity and value to all that we do for them.”

The prestigious 2011 Awards attracted around 1,370 people from across the payments and financial services world to recognise best practice in customer service, excellence and innovation across the industry.

Bank of America recently implemented a rollout of the ‘Gober Method’™ in their Telephone Access Contact Centre and have trained some of their own internal Trainers to continue to deploy the Gober Method skills to support their ongoing commitment to delivering an exceptional customer experience.

Wolverhampton Homes Awarded Maximum Three-Star Rating by the Audit Commission

Catherine Dass, Head of HR Strategy and Organisational Development at Wolverhampton Homes is delighted to have achieved ‘excellent’ status and a three-star rating.  Catherine believes that the work they have undertaken with Mary Gober International across the organisation has been a major contribution to their success alongside the positive leadership from their CEO, Lesley Roberts.

Wolverhampton Homes’ three-star rating by the Audit Commission shows that the organisation has improved since it received a two-star rating in 2007.  Among the strengths commended by the Audit Commission was a strong commitment to customer care, value for money and increased employment and training opportunities.

Mary Gober International has worked in partnership with Wolverhampton Homes since 2009.  The entire organisation is being trained in the ‘Gober Method’™ from the senior team through to managers and frontline staff who are sustaining this new service style through ongoing coaching following their successful accreditation as coaches of the ‘Gober Method’.

Please click the link below to read the full press release from Wolverhampton Homes.

http://www.wolverhamptonhomes.org.uk/LatestNews.aspx

Wendy says “I am delighted to have been presented this prestigious award as every year thousands of customer service professionals submit entries.  Supporting, training and coaching my team is something I am very committed to.  I am extremely grateful to Capita and Mary Gober International for providing me with the tools to enhance my capabilities which I will continue to use in the future”.

The percentage of employees stating that they are proud to work for Virgin Holidays following their Gober Method training implementation increased to 95%.  Click here to find out how.

Staff sickness absence decreased by 25% and staff attrition rates fell to 7%, significantly below the national average, after Gober Method training was implemented at West Mercia Police.  Click here to find out how.

Virgin Holidays Train Staff to Deliver Exceptional Experiences

Virgin Holidays has seen an increased satisfaction among customers, key partners and other important trade and consumer-facing clients since a company-wide bespoke values 2-day course.  Refreshing the company values, all 3 based on ensuring the customer is at the heart of every area of the business, has seen tangible results in customer satisfaction, internal and external relationships.

Amanda Wills, Managing Director of Virgin Holidays, says: “I have always believed passionately in the basic truth that staff in a customer-facing business who live and breathe a common purpose can drive sustained success whatever the commercial backdrop.  As the travel industry enters its toughest trading conditions yet, we have been consistent in increasing investment in staff training and engagement.  There was never consideration of scaling back or compromising in our focus on our principle success drive – our people.  Consequently, we are in rude health against market benchmarks, and share a common purpose and belief in our values.”

Virgin Holidays offers holidays to the Caribbean, USA, Far and Middle East and the Indian Ocean.  Its self-declared vision is to provide “the best holidays in the whole wide world.”  Managers felt that while there were pockets of brilliant service, there was also an opportunity to build more consistency and focus, and cement ownership of the customer journey among all staff.

Through training, the company wanted to build further on a good CSQ rating among customers, and protect its healthy level of repeat customers.  Mary Gober International designed the “Living Our Values” 2-day course to meet the company’s needs, developing the optimum mindset for giving enthusiastic and genuine customer service, while also improving communication skills that trainees could use to find positive solutions.  Above all, the training aimed to remind delegates what exceptional service looks and feels like, and how to deliver that consistently.  It made the link between the company’s vision and values and how staff work with each other and with customers.

Over the course of six weeks, trainers working in groups of three or more held interactive round table seminars for 50 to 100 people at a time.  A total of 580 people took part.  Success was measured through customer surveys, call monitoring, statistical information gathering and staff survey results.  Following the training, customer satisfaction has reached record levels.  Furthermore, 97% of staff say they understand the Company’s values.

Terri Bailey, General Manager of People and Performance at Virgin Holidays, explains: “The seminars have resulted in a real shift in behaviour, particularly in the psychology of how we approach customer service.  Our staff now really understands the importance of responding positively to customers, every time, explaining what we can do for someone, whether an internal or external customer.  This provided a boost to our ongoing investment as a company in innovative skills and culture training to always ensure the customer journey, in whatever format, is the priority.”

Travel company Virgin Holidays employs 701 people and has made the Skills Pledge.