Results experienced by our clients following the implementation of the Gober Method include:

• Staff turnover down from 30% to 12.8%

• 1st time resolution of customer complaints up from 87% to 90%

• Staff satisfaction up from 46% to 79%

• Staff sickness absence down by 25%

• Customer complaints down by 20%

• Recognition in The Sunday Times’ ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’, including top ranking among
‘The 100 Best Small Companies to Work For’

• Rankings in the Finanical Times Top 50 Best Workplaces

• Housing Association, 3 Star Audit Commission awards

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.

As a professional in the customer service arena, and as a citizen, I wanted you to be aware of a monumental and revolutionary change that is underway in the 43 police services and authorities across Britain.

I became aware of this important development as a result of working closely with West Mercia Police (4^th largest Policing District in Britain) helping them implement the Home Office Citizen Focus Agenda and the Policing Pledge.

Starting this year, the Home Office has published a single national target for the police – so the police service answers to the public – not the government.  It is now local people and communities, rather than central government, telling the police what service they need and holding them to account via The Policing Pledge.

How are they doing it?  By being bold – scraping all but one central target – to raise public confidence.  This fundamental shift in police accountability and reporting has been instituted to dramatically improve customer service and engage with communities so that by working together, crime and anti-social behavior, that matter to citizens locally, are being addressed.

Confidence levels currently vary across the country with the latest national average at 46%.  This single-minded focus was set as a deliberate, serious challenge.  The Home Office believes the target needs to be challenging if a real change in public confidence in the police is to occur.

By 2012, the national target is that 60% of people are confident that their police service is satisfactorily addressing what matters to them locally, so they can get on with their lives.

The Policing Pledge is described as a ‘deal’ between the police and the public.  It sets out what citizens can expect from police nationally and locally – such as minimum standards on response times, crime maps, local crime information and very importantly, monthly meetings.

To support the police in delivering this new confidence target, there is a package of slashes to red tape freeing up time to enable every officer to spend at least 80% of their time visibly working in neighborhoods and patrolling at the times and places where citizens tell them they are needed the most.

There is also a real step-up in public meetings which are scheduled at least once a month to decide policing priorities with citizens, to meet local needs and provide updates on local crime and police activity.  At the meetings, information is given on specific crimes, what has happened to those brought to justice and details of what actions are being taken to make the neighborhood safer – all in a determined effort to drive up confidence.

I have been very impressed with the practical customer-centricity of the Policing Pledge.  I encourage you to read it and discuss it with your team.  Customer-centric is sometimes seen as an academic term – however, as you read the 10 points in the Pledge, you will discover a fine example of customer-centricity in action.  You can find the Policing Pledge on the Home Office website.

I also would encourage you to consider attending your neighborhood police public meetings.  Not only will your input be valuable as a citizen of your community, you will also see a dynamic example of how to engage and listen to customers, find ways to understand their needs and deliver what is important to them.  I am sure we will all gain as we learn from the police – they are doing pioneering work and setting a new standard in customer service for all of us.

On Wednesday 1 July 2009, in partnership with Intergrated Performance Management Systems (IPMS Global), Mary Gober International (MGI) launched the IPMS™ Business Practice.

The IPMS™ Business Practice offers performance improvement services in the areas of organisational efficiency, customer service and sales.  Our services are offered through consultancy, training and coaching and are all based on proven methodologies with track records of bottom line impact.   The IPMS™ Business Practice puts the performance tools in the hands of the organisation, creating self sufficient sustainability and continued improvement, organisation wide.   If you are interested in reading more about this approach please click here to download an Introduction Document which outlines the benefits, requirements and the remedy.

If you would like to speak directly with one of our team we would be delighted to discuss our services with you in specific regard to your business goals and needs.

Jacques Marais, Business Practice Director +44 (0)7530 816 069        jacquesmarais@marygober.com

Sarah Balch, Business Practice Client Manager +44 (0)7725 104 972       sarahbalch@marygober.com

Debbie Warren, Business Practice Executive +44 (0)7793 307 038      debbiewarren@marygober.com

www.ipmsglobal.com

www.sprintsalessystem.com

‘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.

I have a firmly held view that all organisations, regardless of the economic situation, must have a clear customer service strategy in place supported by the optimal policies, processes and people skills to deliver it.

If we look back over the years, in any slowdown, such as 2002-3 much was being written about the importance of ensuring a high level of customer service to retain customers and so survive. I feel however, that there is a sea change in this recession compared to previous economic slowdowns. There appears now to be a real a focus to back up good intentions with a strategy and commitment to continue to develop people through training to deliver consistently excellent service. There is an understanding that through building the service competence of service-givers, customer service metrics improve and so therefore do bottom line results.

We will all be familiar that in a downturn it is often said the “first budgets to be cut are marketing, recruitment and training”. This has been my experience in the past.  It is absolutely critical for organisations now to ensure the highest possible levels of customer service with the right policies and processes in place, delivered by highly trained and motivated people. That means making decisions to ensure that this happens in your organisation. You are not able to leave the delivery of outstanding service to chance.

I am very encouraged because there is evidence to suggest that in this recession, business leaders are seeing the importance of investment in their people. Of course this has to be set in the context of responsible management and risk taking.  In November 2008, 5 leading figures in British business (Sir Michael Rake, Mervyn Davies, Brendan Barber, Richard Lambert and Sir Stuart Rose) placed an Open Letter to UK Employers in Newspapers acting for the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. In this letter they pledged their absolute commitment to investing in training. They said, “The skills of our people are our best guarantee of future prosperity – and the best investment a business can make in challenging times. We must not pay the price of failing to invest in the talent on which our future will be built”.

The recently published results from the Institute of Customer Service also give us reason for optimism about service provision within the UK. The UK Customer Satisfaction Index again rose compared with the previous results. In this report the overall UKCSI stood at 72% up 1% since July 2008. Roger Crawford ICS Executive Director lays down a challenge to UK organisations – to reach a UKCSI of 80% to be classed as world-class in service delivery. An essential building block, in my view for economic recovery.

My encouragement to customer service professionals is to be bold and courageous leading your teams through this recession. If you truly believe in your product and know there is a market for it, then your obligation is to make sure you have people with the highest levels of service competency, working within customer-focused policies and processes.  Ensure your people are equipped for the times ahead to deliver even higher levels of service.  By investing in them you will increase their engagement with your organisation and build a firm foundation for better years ahead.