Customer service boost for Newry businesses

Staff from six local businesses have successfully completed their ‘WorldHost’ customer service training qualifications with local marketing trainer, Lynda Willis.  WorldHost courses are aimed at helping businesses in hospitality and tourism to address the skills and challenges of customer service, deliver a world class experience to all their visitors and ultimately improve sales.  

'Maintaining high levels of customer service is something that you can never be complacent about so having Lynda to train our staff has made a huge difference', said Sean Connolly from East Coast Coaches .  'We want to go the extra mile and provide excellent service to our customers.  This course was a really good opportunity to refresh these skills with our staff.'

The two day course was attended by staff from Deli-Lites, Art Bar Funkel Restaurant, Clanrye Group, East Coast Coaches, the Courthouse Restaurant and the Ti Chulainn Cultural Centre in Mullaghbane.  Not all the time was spent in the training room.  Part of the course included a familiarisation trip of some local tourist attractions.

“We went to Tayto Castle and the Thomas Ferguson Irish Linen Centre in Banbridge.  It was my first time to both visitor attractions and I will now be able to recommend them to the visitors who come to stay with us,” commented Mary Martin from the Ti Chulainn Cultural Centre.  ‘Never has there been a better opportunity for businesses in the hospitality, leisure and tourism industry to showcase the best of Northern Ireland and to provide a warm welcome to our visitors that will encourage them to spend more money and come back to see us again in the future.’

 

To help businesses avail of WorldHost training, the Department for Employment and Learning is working with People 1^st and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and has developed a funding package for businesses in the tourism, hospitality or travel sectors.

‘We’re very excited to be delivering WorldHost especially when Northern Ireland will be very much in the world headlines over the next two or three years with a range of major events that are taking place,’ added Lynda Willis, the trainer who delivered the programme on behalf of the Northern Ireland Tourist Board .  ‘Due to the generous funding available, staff in hotels, restaurants, cafes, pubs or visitor attractions can have two days’ customer service training for just £20.” 

More WorldHost courses are scheduled for various dates in January and February.  For more information, call 07773 423675 or email lynda@customersensetraining.co.uk

 

Hotel room sales increase by 11%

A leading Northern Ireland marketer has advised the hospitality sector to improve their customer service for the increasing numbers of tourists coming to the province.

There were 178,000 rooms sold in hotels in June 2012, an annual increase of 11%. While businesses in Belfast enjoyed the biggest boost, other parts of Northern Ireland are seeing the benefits.

Customer Sense’s Lynda Willis believes that tourism in Northern Ireland is taking off and that the hospitality sector needs to wake up and provide worldclass customer service. 

"It is great news to see more visitors enjoying Northern Ireland," she said. "We want these visitors to enjoy their time here and stay here longer.  We are naturally friendly people but we need to focus more on providing a warm welcome to our visitors.”

Lynda works with the Northern Ireland Tourist Board in delivering the internationally acclaimed WorldHost Programme to the hospitality sector here. 

“After people have visited our topclass visitor attractions such as Titanic Belfast and the Giant’s Causeway Visitor Centre, we want them to have topclass customer service in our hotels, restaurants and bars.  With this increase in visitor numbers, Northern Ireland is now very clearly on the world tourism map so we need to ready to meet and greet them.  Programmes like WorldHost can really help with this.”

The WorldHost Programme is a two day course focusing on the principles of customer service and increasing delegates knowledge of their local area.  For private businesses in the hospitality, tourism and passenger transport sectors, the course only costs £20 per delegate with the Department of Employment and Learning kindly funding the rest.

To find out more, please email lynda@customersensetraining.co.uk.

What is WorldHost?

If you're thinking of coming along on a WorldHost training course, it would be good idea to know a little about it.  So here's a summary for you.

To start off, here are a few things that WorldHost is not.

1. It's not a new religion.
2. It's not about making cups of tea around the world.

WorldHost is in fact an international customer service training programme.  It was devised by the Canadians - and by the way, Canada is the best country for customer service according to a recent international survey.  Since 1985, over one million people have been trained on the programme in 17 countries around the world.  In other words, this is a tried and tested programme.

There are two programmes currently being rolled out in Northern Ireland - the Principles of Customer Service and the Ambassador Programme.  (We'll blog about the Ambassador Programme next week.)

The Principles of Customer Service covers:

• Why businesses need customers
• How to welcome customers and then how to remember their names
• Making conversation ie not talking about the weather all the time.
• Communication skills - verbal, vocal and non-verbal
• Telephone answering skills
• Listening skills
• Handling complaints
• Going the extra mile

This is not a day of "death by powerpoint".  Yes, there are slides but there are video clips, group activities and role plays.  And participants have a lovely workbook which guides them through the day, not forgetting the excellent facilitator!

Don't just take my word for this, here is what one of my course participants had to say about the day.  (And I didn't pay her to say this!)

“We had a great time on the course and definitely were inspired to provide a better service to one and all. Good luck with your future courses. The people who attend are lucky to have such a charming, professional tutor.”  Christine Kane, Manager, Muriels Cafe Bar, Belfast
(The photo which includes Christine was taken at Titanic Belfast as part of the Ambassador Programme.)

If you would like to come along on a WorldHost course, please email lynda@customersensetraining.co.uk.

WorldHost Customer Service Courses in September 2012

After taking a break over the summer, our WorldHost Customer Service Courses are starting up in September.  The two day courses are still only £20 per person for employees of private companies (under 250 employees) working in the tourism, hospitality, travel or passenger transport sectors.

The course dates are:

10th and 11th September 2012
Venue: Prince's Trust, Jennymount Business Park, York Road, Belfast
Familiarisation Trip: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum

18th and 19th September 2012
Venue: Prestige Employment Services, Monaghan Street, Newry
Familiarisation Trip: Tayto Castle, Tandragee

24th and 25th September 2012
Venue: Lough Neagh Discovery Centre, Oxford Island, Lurgan
Familiarisation Trip: Tayto Castle, Tandragee

If you would like to find out more or book a place, please email lynda@customersensetraining.co.uk.