Press article April 2008: Bishop’s Move Luton looks to customer service to face down adversity

A new staff training initiative ensures high customer retention and referrals despite a slowing housing market.

Bishop’s Move Luton, part of the largest privately owned removals company in the UK, is taking a unique approach to talk of a downturn in the local removals and storage market by looking to excellent customer service as a way to ensure existing customers are retained, and new ones found via referrals.

A three-day training programme, held in February, gave all 36 members of staff the opportunity to enhance their existing customer service skills and to see how, when applied correctly, such skills can make the difference during challenging times.

Bishop’s Move Luton employed specialist external company, Executive Playground, to deliver their TeamVention Challenge programme.

Over the three-day period, the entire Bishop’s Move Luton staff were split into teams of three and set various team building games and challenges, all designed to make them consider and think about what they do from a customer’s point of view. The outcome has been a top-to-bottom realignment of understanding the potential of how important good customer service is to company bottom line.

After seeing that over 50 per cent of its business comes from recommendations from other clients, Bishop’s Move Luton ensured the course also focused on how it could improve the experience from the customer’s point of view to maintain its good reputation with its public, thereby driving sales and encouraging potential referrals.

Philip Edwards, Managing Director of Bishop’s Move Luton says the range of exercises during the training programme has not only resulted in a clearer communication between staff and its clients, but has also created a more positive and energised working environment. He comments: “All of the exercises made the guys think about what they do from a clients’ point of view. Although each day involved a lot of fun, it did present some thought provoking challenges such as different ways you could modify your behaviour to enhance the customer experience.

“One particular exercise involved 15 images on a wall depicting people in different attire. We then had to guess the occupation of the person in the photograph. Quite often we got the answer wrong and this not only highlighted the point that you can’t judge someone’s character by his or hers appearance but it also revealed how the client may well judge us from our first impressions.

“Although three days represented a significant investment, we really believe that it has been worth every penny in terms of providing us with the tools to negotiate some troubled waters.”

Results of the programme are already apparent. Clearer internal communication techniques have improved the flow of information from the initial meeting made by the customer account manager down to the crews involved with the move, meaning customer’s concerns are dealt with at source rather than carried through each stage of the move. This has meant customer satisfaction levels remain high, a vital requirement if positive recommendations are to be made.

However, it’s also the atmosphere at the Bishop’s Move Luton branch that has been most positively benefited by the training programme. Phil says: “By far the greatest impact of the training has been an enormous desire, by everyone, to pull together and improve our offering during these challenging times. It’s easy for motivation to falter and fear to spread. This initiative has helped us quash those factors and stay positive. A happy workforce is a productive workforce.”