CHAPTER 28 CASE STUDY

This case study is based on a mixed use property development in the south of England. The development consisted of designer outlets, bars and restaurants, leisure and entertainment facilities, a marina, a hotel and car parking.

It is a very good example of a virtual organization because there is a team of people employed by the landlord operating together with the teams of a variety of service partners (security, cleaning and technical services). From a customer perspective, however, the complexity of the organizational structure is irrelevant. Customers regard all of the employees as being there to provide the appropriate customer service and will form their perception of the organization accordingly.

In early 2011, as part of the customer service strategy, 31Practices was adopted.

A number of workshops were held with a cross-section of employees, including management and service providers. The workshops focused on what the values and vision meant to this group, developing the 31Practices eventually adopted so that all staff (management and service providers) could identify with them.

A team of Customer Service Champions was created specifically to assist with the day-to-day deployment of the approach. Their first task was to work with the resulting 31Practices to ensure the “language” was easy for every employee to understand and apply.

Workshops for all staff from the various service partners were led by the Customer Service Champions to encourage two-way communication and allow feedback right from the beginning of the initiative. The workshops were organized for small groups at different times of the day to make it easy for people to attend, irrespective of their hours of work. A celebratory lunch and dinner were provided to launch the programme and carry cards (see Chapter 1, Introduction) were given to every member of staff, becoming part of the uniform standard.

The on-the-job training was embraced by all members of the “virtual organization” and reinforced in a number of different ways; for example, a daily email of the Practice for the day, and a flip-over calendar of Practices in the restroom.

Once 31Practices was in place, nominations were requested about what team members had done and how they had demonstrated and personalized the various Practices. The aim was to highlight the “dayto-day” rather than just the heroics, allowing everyone to take part and make a personal contribution. The nominations were posted in a central location so that everybody could see how others had contributed. At the end of the month, the best nominations were shortlisted, and the Customer Service Champions met and reviewed the month and voted in a confidential ballot to select the month’s winner. This assisted in bringing all service partners together, working as one team, and highlighted all the good examples of how people were making a contribution. The winner of the previous month was then invited to join the voting for the following month. Each winner was awarded a certificate and gift card in recognition of what they had done. A newsletter provided details of why the winner had been chosen; however, all the other shortlisted nominations were also described. In effect, this created the “heritage” of the organization through stories and positively reinforced desirable behaviour.

The regular (daily) feedback meant that the programme was kept at the forefront of people’s minds and while the budget was not available for a team-building exercise off-site, this “on-the-job” approach gave a greater understanding and appreciation of what other employees were doing at the Centre. The Customer Service Champions (training team) worked together to further develop the programme during the period, learning from their experiences and fine tuning it to ensure momentum was maintained so that it kept the wider teams’ motivation high.

Nominations highlighting the successes from across the virtual organization promoted positive team relations and helped to create an engaged team keen to offer the best customer service.

This project highlighted the importance of many of the topics referred to in Chapter 18, Discipline. There was a significant amount of planning, administrative process management and monitoring on an ongoing basis that helped 31Practices to be so successful.

“It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.”

Zig Ziglar¹

THE IMPACT?

Customer service is an intrinsic part of the development’s product and experience. This commitment to excellent customer service is the key to ensuring customer retention, which in turn drives sales. The 2011 exit poll showed customers had 89% satisfaction with their experience with service polling at 87%. Visit time increased and despite a difficult economic climate, 2011/12 sales increased +10% on the previous year, compared to +8% in 2011.

845 31Practices nominations were made during 11 months, from all departments and service providers. There was 100% participation and at least one winner from each of the service partner companies. 92 of these nominations were shortlisted during the period, giving an average of eight each month, which meant that each month, a broad variety of nominations were received from around the business.

100% of staff attended workshops carried out at different times of the day and week to enable all shift workers to gain an understanding of the programme and what was required of them. 95% of staff attended either the launch lunch or dinner; they were put on at different times to ensure maximum attendance of the team working different shifts.

An Employee Engagement Survey took place in November 2011. The results highlighted that the level of engagement was 11 points above the Towers Watson UK High Performance Norm. When asked if they felt able to impact customer satisfaction within their role, this was +33 compared to the Group. In addition, the team’s results of “feeling energized to go the extra mile” were +27 compared to the High Performance Norm.

The programme was seen to encourage greater appreciation and understanding of other team members’ roles working at different times of the day and give greater motivation to provide fantastic customer service.

Over 80 new ideas were suggested through the programme, two of which were winners for their respective months. This included the introduction of a temporary disabled user badge in the car park, which allowed visitors with a temporary disability, such as a broken leg, to park in a disabled space, allowing them easier access to the lifts and facilities normally only granted to visitors who are registered disabled. In addition, for site evacuations or exercises, one of the cleaning team suggested that temporary stickers should be placed on occupiers’ doors to confirm they were empty and had been checked, which would assist in speed and greater efficiency when confirming building clearance. Both ideas were implemented at low cost and regarded as great successes.

Finally, in addition to the hard measures mentioned above, positive feedback was received through mystery shopper visits, testimonials from a variety of staff from different service providers and customer feedback (increased from five entries from 11/8/09 to 31/12/10 to 59 from 1/1/11 to 28/02/12).

In summary, this example highlights how effective the 31Practices tool is in translating an organization’s core values into practical dayto-day behaviour and the measurable impact that can be achieved by giving ownership to operational teams supported by a robust recognition programme.