Enhance Customer Experience standards across the whole of the Honeycomb Group encompassing telephone-based teams, customer facing teams and internal support teams.
Benefits achieved
- Greater control of customer conversations using techniques such as verbal signposting, paraphrasing, certainly phrases, empathy and positive language;
- Rapport building with customers to build confidence and trust;
- Reduction in the use of negative words and phrases such as ‘unfortunately’, ‘I’m afraid’, ‘the only thing I can do is’ has resulted in much less criticism of the service being offered. Appointment dates and recommendations for courses of action are much more readily accepted by customers and rarely being challenged or turned in to an escalation to line management;
- Observable changes in behaviour and attitude following rebrand and embedding of new culture DNA and values;
- “We’ve introduced small changes which are moving mountains internally and externally. Staff are now thinking about and questioning how they interact with customers and how they can change how they carry out their roles.” Jo Simcox, Head of Customer Experience
How we did it
We provided a bespoke solution which met the requirements of the Honeycomb brand, the development needs of their staff and the service needs of their customers. We followed four key steps:
1.Research
First we got to know the current service offering and standards of service being provided and became familiar with Honeycombs’ Vision and values, job roles functions, customer demographics, and culture:
- Vision & Values
- Customer Service Charter, Policy Statement
- Job role profiles and person specifications
- Review of website and documentation accessible by the customer base
- Review of recruitment process and standards sought
- Analysis of current service standards being offered by:
- live observation in the workplace of staff interacting with customers (internal and external customers);
- accompanying staff on home visits to customers’ places of residence;
- analysis of customer feedback via complaints and compliments;
- observation and familiarization of the use of software and technology used by different teams in the customer experience process;
- meetings with senior management team and key stakeholders to gain their input and build relationships for future commitment to the development programme.
2.Designed a development solution based on the findings in the Research phase
A Customer Experience development programme was designed which supported the rebranding from Staffordshire Housing Group to Honeycomb Group, incorporating the new company values, the variances in job roles and customer requirements. This included:
- presentations made to all line managers to provide an overview of the development programme’s goal, to introduce CFA Training and to gain buy-in to their role in providing input to the design, and to support learning back in the workplace;
- a 2-day Customer Experience development programme for all telephone based staff
- a 2-day Customer Experience development programme for all face-to-face servicing staff;
- a half day corporate programme for all internal support teams;
- all learning styles were catered for in the training, with the inclusion of real work based case scenarios with real workable tools and techniques;
- obtained stakeholder signoff.
3.Delivered the bespoke Customer Experience development programme
- Presentations made to all line managers to provide an overview of the development programme and gain buy-in to their role to support learning back in the workplace;
- Delivered training to over 230 employees in interactive workshops, utilising practical role play sessions with real customer scenarios.
4. Review and evaluate the development programme
An important step was to review and evaluate the development programme to ensure we’d hit the objectives. This was carried out at certain milestones in the project to check progress and also at the end by:
- evaluating the training and obtain feedback from delegates and key stakeholders;
- reviewing achievements with key stakeholders;
- delivery of a Train the Trainer for Customer Experience Champions to continue the delivery of training and key messages to new recruits and other future events;
- development of online training to be delivered via Zoom and MS Teams due to the Covid Pandemic and social distancing regulations.
In Summary
The challenge for Honeycomb Group was to implement a group wide development programme which was considerate of staff emotions towards their work and changing their perception of attending ‘another customer care training course’.
CFA Training designed and delivered a soft skills training programme to promote this message, to ensure staff felt supported and didn’t feel patronised. In addition, CFA ensured the training was interactive and staff came away feeling listened to and involved in the design and delivery of the programme. All roles within the group were taken into consideration, with variants of the programme being specialised towards telephone operational teams, face to face operational teams, and internal support teams.
To achieve this, we ensured the training was not gimmicky; no party hats or balloons, but aimed to involve everyone and focused on real life tips. As a result, the programme is timeless and able to be adapted to varying communication channels e.g. email, social media, telephone and face to face.
To ensure the continuation of this programme, a Train the Trainer for Customer Experience Champions was run so the delivery of training and key messages could continue for new recruits and other future events. In addition, due to the Covid Pandemic and social distancing regulations the development of online training has enabled the customer experience training to continue online via Zoom and MS Teams.