Confident Sales Wins Approval

We ran the new Sales and Business Development Training programme at The Lowry Hotel for the first time last week, the reviews from attenders were great. I tried to make sure the programme feels practical and contemporary and to blow away the myths of selling for people who have to do the job every day so they can confidently get on with the task in hand. On the basis of the reviews we have decided to run it again in June on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th.

If you would like join the programme we keep the course small, just 15 people, we keep the surroundings and food stunning so it's at The Lowry Hotel and we keep it affordable at £295 + VAT, how could you resist!

Here's the reviews....

“I would recommend this programme not only to employees but friends who work in the hospitality business”

“The structure, starting from a wide focus point that sets everything in context and then bringing that down to how it all sits with your business and personal sales goals”

“I felt the tasks involved were productive and could be made specific to my own role”

“Course was first class”

“Brilliantly delivered; not too much techie jargon or buzzwords”

“In general I found this one of the most honest and genuinely helpful training courses I’ve been on. Real experience shared rather than just the theory from people who haven’t been in those situations”

“Content was focused and clearly presented. Comprehensive structure based around softer sell techniques much better suited to my personal style”

“Really useful tips and advice that I think will be easy to apply”

“Content was relevant and inspirational”

“I feel confident to ‘bring it on’ and not allow negative responses to get me down I have given so many tactics, tools and guidelines to use which will help me perform and progress in my role”

“This course helped me to consider my goals from a number of perspectives and having an arsenal of techniques means I can find a system which works for me”

Christopher Rodrigues CBE Confirms Appearance

Christopher Rodrigues CBE will be heading an outstanding line up of speakers and tutors at the first Strategic Leadership Programme for Hospitality in Manchester this July. Mr Rodrigues who has led Visit Britain since 2007 will be using his 30 years of experience including his substantial experience in banking and the travel industry to explore the challenges of the next 5 years. Other speakers from the Manchester Business School, industry and research organisations will provide vital insights, strategic tools and techniques and personal development advice to an elite group of just 25 hospitality business leaders and business owners.

The residential programme will be based at the five star Radisson Edwardian hotel in central Manchester and includes visits, receptions and dinners.

To reserve your place contact Howard Raynor at World Class Service on 0161 456 6007 or by e:mail at howard@worldclassservice.co.uk

Peter Saville Confirms Appearance

Branding and Communications jedi Peter Saville has agreed to speak at the forthcoming Strategic Leadership Programme taking place in Manchester from 12th - 16th July 2010. Peter will be addressing issues relating to hotel design and what does luxury mean in 2010. Expect expert opinion and controversy.

If you would like to attend this week long summer programme contact World Class Service through the web site at www.worldclassservice.co.uk

The One Thing More Expensive Than Training...

is Ignorance

Making the most of ourselves and making the most of our people requires us to think about our own performance from time to time. The context of our activities is changing, we are changing and our people are changing. Stopping to draw back and take a view of the business and the industry can reveal opportunities and efficiencies that we don't see by driving the desk or the till or the venue all day.

With this in mind we are running two workshops; in April on the 15th and 16th I am leading a programme on Sales and Business Development, this two day non course is based at the outstanding five star Lowry Hotel in Manchester. Full details are available from the new World Class Service site. Expect some good basic refresher on sales and some magic when it comes to business development.

On 20th and 21st May I am running the Service Leadership programme again at the Lowry. This open programme is non-residential and specifically focuses on the issues around service leadership. My experience is that there are lots of generic leadership programmes and any number of books but key questions for leading people to deliver outstanding service are left unanswered. Expect great trends and market information, international insights in to service excellence, some useful models and tools and some lively discussion between the course attendees. Full details are available from the new World Class Service site .

High Standards don't mean Depersonalised!

Running publicly funded arts organisation in the current climate is no mean feat. The vagaries of funding are potentially catastrophic. What can be done short and long term to minimise the impact and improve other income streams?

One answer is to focus on the customers and the trading side of the operation.

The idea of developing trading income doesn't have to be a fraught with risk, World Class Service are running sales and business development programmes this spring to help deal with this issue but there is a wider backdrop for every customer or visitor that we need to be aware of; every customer has three critical dimensions, their transaction value, their life time value and their referral value.

Trading successfully and gaining goodwill with the audience requires us to see all three dimensions of our customers. It seems to me that a lot of organisations get trapped in seeing only the transaction value and even that is poorly understood. The idea of the customers lifetime value isn't considered at all and their referral value is only dimly understood. If arts organisations want the public on side and to maximise their value they need to see that every individual has the choice to spend more, come back more often, stay loyal and to refer their colleagues, friends and fanily.

Improving performance as an organisation requires a step change of thinking particularly in the field of service delivery. At the moment the idea of standardising service is given short shrift, there is a perception that standards depersonalise the experience; this is the defence of random. Without high standards then anything is pretty much acceptable, poor self awareness, poor communication skills, lack of anticipation, lack of urgency and poor empathy are all acceptable. The failure to identify acceptable service levels for our customers leads to the long standing TARP finding that 68% of customer drift away due to feeling of indifference that they perceive from the business they are engaged with.

Having high standards shows you care and that is the start of the customer relationship. High standards do not depersonalise the service experience in fact they are likely to significantly improve perceptions and improve transaction and lifetime values. High standards are a referral issue, if we encounter good service we do talk about it...its rare!

The hard work of high standards is not just about attention to detail, which appears to be unfashionable, but about how we make high standards an enjoyable thing to deliver and this is the crux of the issue. If an organisations can work out how to motivate its people to deliver high standards they will see a winning approach start to emerge.

I firmly believe that high standards of service and success in trading performance are linked..

Cod Gets Time Off at The Palace

All hail The Palace Hotel, Oxford Rd, Manchester. Cod, the mighty white fish we all love has not been served in The Palace Hotel for two years! When you think about this huge hotel and the hundreds of thousands of people who have met, dined and conferenced there over the past two year not one of them has been served with Cod. This is a huge achievement and much needed for the recovery of Cod stocks.

How did they achieve this thoughtful and much appreciated feat? They substituted other tasty white fish like the marvelous Pollack, most of us would not be able to taste the difference. Pollack is a fantastic fish and it isn't threatened.

I also hear that the Palace have been doing their bit for lobsters too. Tiny lobsters can now thrive in British coastal waters thanks to the Marine Act which came in to force last year allowing conservation areas to be developed so that some sea creatures can restore their population with protection. The Palace has been leading the charge at their end by suggesting to customers that they make a £2.50 donation and in return they fund a tiny lobster down on the South Coast. Cute.

Why take this kind of care you might ask, well General Manager Richard Morrell is keen on fish and takes action. Simple really. I think its admirable. Well done to the kitchens and The Palace for having some imagination, well done to Richard for taking action and smile when you think of all those cod still enjoying the towering seas and young lobsters peering out of their rocky homes.

Is it good for business, well it seems it is, corporate CSR programmes mean companies are paying more attention to the places they do business. Having a clear and committed environmental policy is good for business. The other story I heard this week concerns a florist who use grey water to water their plants, on making this fact known they won a number of local authority contracts. It seems that if you apply your CSR programme well and with imagination AND tell people about it you will find new customers and new markets.

EVERYONE'S A WINNER

Michael Winner's outspoken remarks about the North West makes for an interesting comment on how one man's struggle to stay at the top of the midden heap lead him to tactless personal remarks. Michael's comments, which presumably reflect his personal experience, call up some interesting questions about the role of the critics in a world where we can all blog, youtube, flickr and facebook our own personal experience.

Michael is not blessed with better insights, understanding or better cooking skills than the rest of us. And nowadays we all get to have an opinion of service and we all get to broadcast it using social networks. Regrettably for Michael that includes him as a critic.

In my experience and the experience of millions of customers in the North West is we enjoy fantastic produce cooked and served well by passionate committed people who understand food and their customers, the fact that an insurance salesman with a TV show to promote has a desire to put these people down with such tactless stupidity say more about him than it does about a region and its food. And that is my experience of his remarks, see what I did there.

Fortunately we live in an increasingly open source world where we can all use our critical faculties to praise or offer criticism of the service we receive. It will be interesting to see whether vitriol and bile are the way forward.

TripAdvisors is a bell weather for this I think. If the media trains the public that criticism and bile are the best ways to improve a system then a fundamental rethink is required.

In the mean time I think we should remember that 2% of customers cost more to service than they ever return to the business and as a result we should seek to stop doing business with them.