National Trust

Lewisham College

Hounslow Homes

Swan Housing Group

IBA Dosimetry

Freebridge Community Housing is the largest provider of affordable housing in West Norfolk.  With around 7,000 properties, Freebridge is responsible for managing relationships with a large number of customers located across the borough.  At the heart of Freebridge is a commitment to ‘customer focus’ which is also one of the organisation’s five values.

Mary Gober International has been working with Freebridge Community Housing since 2010.  Please view the detailed Freebridge Community Housing Case Study by clicking the link below:

Freebridge Community Housing Case Study

For immediate release: 7 October 2010

Industry Lifetime Achievement Award for Mary Gober

The 2010 Customer Service Training (CST) Awards has  honoured Mary Gober with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her outstanding contribution to the customer service training industry.

“For over 30-years now Mary has worked in the customer service industry, both in the UK and overseas. Her professionalism and dedication have become an industry benchmark and continue to raise the bar for standards of excellence,” said Don Hales, Chairman of Awards International.

“Mary is truly dedicated to changing customer service cultures and has always worked tirelessly throughout her career to make a difference to the individuals and organisations she represents. This commitment is so clearly demonstrated by the unprecedented levels of customer satisfaction she has achieved for her clients throughout the world. We are absolutely delighted to present this prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award to Mary and long may she continue to innovate and lead by example.”

Mary first came to the UK in 2000 at the invitation of a British Airways subsidiary training company and in 2003, Mary Gober International was established.  Since then, Mary has made the UK her home and base for the international business and Mary Gober International has grown a team of 28 accredited Consultants who deliver the Gober Method to organisations worldwide.

“I am absolutely thrilled to have been presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the CST Awards. I am now in my 31^st year of working within the industry and I have enjoyed every moment.  Winning this award must be one of the highlights of my career,” said Mary Gober.

“During this time I have had the good fortune to work with so many organisations in different industries and together with their leaders, teams and individuals, I have worked hard to raise the standards for consistent customer service globally.

“Everything we think, say, or do, is a service or disservice to ourselves and everyone around us. My aim is always to take customer service to another level, to improve business performance and to enhance people’s lives by equipping them with the tools and techniques to positively deal with any situation they may be faced with.”

The Customer Service Training Awards are run in partnership between Awards International and The Customer Service Training Association. It is an awards programme for customer service trainers, designed to recognise the importance of the function and to promote best practice and the sharing of ideas.

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Notes to Editors

Mary Gober/Mary Gober International

Developed by Mary Gober, leading international authority on customer service, the ‘GOBER METHOD’^™ is a proactive and inspirational Methodology that builds in all staff a sense of urgency and personal accountability for customer satisfaction, loyalty, business growth and increased sales. It is a proven approach to retaining customers through exceptional service.

Mary and her team of accredited Consultants have been achieving excellent results around the globe with clients ranging from multinational companies to small privately owned enterprises, government departments and not-for profit organisations. www.marygober.com

Contact: James Craven 07701 046640

Client Examples

Marks & Spencer plc, British Airways Holidays, Virgin Holidays, Thomson Reuters (formerly Reuters), Accor Hotels UK & Ireland, Zurich Financial Services, Leaseplan UK & Ireland, Prudential Property, Investment Managers, West Mercia Constabulary.

Results

Following the introduction of the ‘GOBER METHOD’^™, organisations report some of the following service improvements:

• 30% increase in customer satisfaction demonstrated by mystery shopping

• Reduction in staff turnover from 30% to 12.8% over a 2 year period

• 50% reduction in complaint handling times

• Reduction in written complaints from 400 to 35

• Number 1 ranking in The Sunday Times’ ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’

The Customer Service Training Association (CSTA)

The CSTA is a self administered membership body formed by Don Hales in 2007 to enable those involved in customer service training and associated activities to:

• meet on a regular basis and share ideas
• listen to great presentations
• keep up to date with latest developments and
• develop a network of colleagues in various organisations to call upon when necessary
• the association is open to everyone who has an interest in customer service training provided they respect the aims of the membership

Best practice in customer service, leading edge training techniques, service excellence, staff retention and satisfaction are all key issues for members as are customer retention, customer satisfaction and the effect of customer service on the bottom-line. All of these issues feature on the agenda at CSTA meetings.

Awards International Ltd

Awards International’s purpose is to recognise excellence in business and promote positive recognition and celebration of personal and professional achievement through operating Awards Programmes.
Awards International is unique because of its exclusive focus on the operation of awards programmes. Noone else offers this focus combined with the breadth and depth of experience in this area. Awards International offers excellence in evaluation and selection, marketing, communication and events management.

Contact: Don Hales 07850 874120

Mary Gober International ran one of its regular Executive Briefings in Edinburgh on 6 December 2011.  Senior Executives from a wide variety of public and private sector organisations attended to hear Mary Gober deliver a 3 hour briefing on The Gober Method for the Psychology & Language of Service.

The Executives in the audience listened to Mary as she demonstrated how her Methodology delivers improvements in customer satisfaction, employee engagement, operational efficiency, regulatory performance and financial results.

Mary Gober will be personally delivering her next Executive Briefing on 7 February 2012 at Heathrow – please click here for your personal invitation.

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.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown is amongst those to congratulate The Riverside Group, with a personal letter from his office.

The Government wants public services for all that are efficient, effective, excellent, equitable and empowering – with the citizen always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision.  With this in mind Customer Service Excellence was developed to offer public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation.

The foundation of this tool is the Customer Service Excellence standard which tests in great depth those areas that research has indicated are a priority for customers, with particular focus on delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude.  There is also emphasis placed on developing customer insight, understanding the user’s experience and robust measurement of service satisfaction.

The Customer Service Excellence standard aims to make a tangible difference to public service users by encouraging provider organisations to focus on their individual needs and preferences.

‘The ‘GOBER METHOD’™ – How to Fully Engage Your People to Deliver Consistently Superior Service & Increase Sales to Drive Business Results!’

To see Mary at this event, please click here to register online.

Management Expo on 22 or 23 September 2009, please fill out the form below and we will be delighted to get in contact and arrange a convenient time for you.

Once you have completed the form, we will check whether you have registered as a delegate for Call Centre & Customer Management Expo, and if you are yet to, we will do this on your behalf and you will automatically receive your delegate badge for the exhibition from UBM.

Alternatively, please come and visit us on Stand G16 and join Mary for her keynote presentation at 10.45 – 11.30am on 23 September 2009.
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To enable organisations to experience our proven training, we are now running regular 2-Day Public Seminars in Sydney.  The next date is 8-9 July 2010.

For more information, please contact Bette McIntyre on +61 (0)2 9089 8883 or via email at bettemcintyre@marygober.com.