Catching People Doing Things Right

Catching People Doing Things Right

A Simple Idea... Imagine if you could make it really easy for customers to give positive feedback What would you do with the flow of Thank You s and good news stories? How would your team respond to being recognised for what their customer was saying about them? With Powerful Results... 1 Winning new and retaining current customers 2 New business and increased market share 3 Great PR, marketing and brand value 4 Increasing performance 5 Increasing efficiency

Introduction The WOW! Awards is a very simple process that has grown into a powerful force. The recent years of working with some of the very best customer service providers across the UK have been a voyage of discovery for us. We ve come to realise that this process can genuinely help to create a great place to work, provide great results and create a great place to be a customer. Almost every day we receive feedback from managers, from employees and from customers that The WOW! Awards has had an impact on them. It s inspirational for employees. It s giving management a valuable fresh line of customer feedback. And it s delighting customers. This little booklet sets out to try and explain why The WOW! Awards has become such an important process for organisations across the UK and now in the USA. I know that there will still be many questions and concerns that this booklet does not answer, so please do give me a call. I really look forward to hearing from you. Derek Williams Creator of The WOW! Awards Great Place to Work Page 2 Great Place to be a Customer Page 6 Great Results Page 9 WOW! 1

Great Place to Work Participating in The WOW! Awards helps you to create a Great Place to Work by: - 1. Increasing Employee Satisfaction 2. Increasing Employee Engagement 3. Increasing Employee Retention 4. Decreasing Absenteeism 5. Helping you become an Employer of Choice 1. Increasing Employee Satisfaction Increased Employee Satisfaction, measured through surveys, questionnaires and online channels is producing key business benefits. Companies in the Best Companies To Work For in the period 2004 2008 increased their turnover by 94% and their profits by 315%. Absolutely (The WOW! Awards) had a positive effect on satisfaction ratings team members routinely stay beyond their normal working hours to assist clients making them happier clients and subsequent great feedback. Recognition at board level and use (of WOW! Award nominations) during quarterly company reviews has helped improve employee satisfaction throughout our centres. 2. Increasing Employee Engagement Employee Engagement, measured by pulse surveys, perceptions of fairness and trust, and the release of discretionary effort through high levels of motivation and morale. A 5% improvement in employee engagement can add 2% to sales. Business units in the top half of employee engagement do better than the bottom half by 86% in customer metrics, 70% in productivity, 70% in reducing employee turnover, 44% in profitability. (Gallup) Our Employee Survey shows that (now we are using The WOW! Awards), 92% of our employees were engaged. Employees have been significantly more engaged and proactive. They are always passing on ideas to improve the business. 2 Great Place to Work

3. Increasing Employee Retention The effect of increasing employee retention is to: a Reduce spend on recruitment and training of new employee. a Reduce the impact of loosing productivity when someone leaves. a Increase efficiency. Engaged employees are 87% less likely to leave an organisation than the disengaged. (Driving Performance & Retention through Employee Engagement Corporate Leadership Council report, 2004) Employee Turnover is down by 25% since we started using The WOW! Awards. In an industry with a traditionally high level of employee turnover we outperform our competitors significantly. The WOW! Awards have helped us keep staff by recognising successful employees and teams at all levels of the organisation. 4. Decreasing Absenteeism The positive impact of decreasing absenteeism: a Increased productivity a Increased performance results a Reduced costs through having to bring in inexperienced temporary employee Engaged employees take an average of 2.69 sick days per annum compared to 6.19 by disengaged employees. (A How to Build a High Performance Workforce, Gallup, 2003) Absent staff cannot win WOW! Nominations so we believe this is a stimulus to not only attend but excel at work. Employee absence is down to 1 day per year on average from 6 days per year. WOW! 3

Great Place to Work 5. Helping you Become an Employer of Choice The effect of being an employer of choice: a Reduced recruitment spend a Reduced advertising costs a Reduced time spent interviewing a Reduced cost of induction training a Reduced loss of productivity a Reduced loss of tacit knowledge The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For Investors in People 4 Great Place to Work

Recognition at board level and use (of WOW! Award nominations) during quarterly company reviews has helped improve employee satisfaction throughout our centres. WOW!

A Great Place to be a Customer Participating in The WOW! Awards will help your organisation become a Great Place to be a Customer by: - 1. Creating customer loyalty and advocacy channels 2. Creating a culture of service excellence by catching people doing things right 3. Producing a great customer experience 4. Making it easy for customers to say thank you and complete the feedback loop 1. Customer Loyalty and Advocacy The effects of increased loyalty and advocacy are: a Increased repeat business a Improved Brand Recognition a Increased Net Promoter score 68% of our clients renewed their contracts with us (YTD as of Sept 2009) showing that our exceptional level of customer service has helped our clients succeed whilst working in our business centres. 90% of customers now re-book within 6 months. We have calculated our current retention figure as 93.68%. 2. Creating a Culture of Service Excellence A culture of service, measured by mystery shopper scores, culture surveys and organisational Unwritten Ground Rules, can: a Reveal how customer focussed team members are by showing what they REALLY say/ think/feel about customers. a Increase team motivation by evidencing organisational customer focus. a Encourage employees to continually deliver outstanding customer service. Employees have been motivated to maintain excellent customer service. This has been made the standard and they are constantly reminded by all the WOW! certificates surrounding them. They take providing a great service personally. Our management team has been more customer focused rather than profit focused. However, being more customer focused has lead to an increase in profit. 6 A Great Place to be a Customer

3. Produce a Great Customer Experience Customer experience measured by mystery shoppers, impact surveys, satisfaction surveys and repeat business can: a Reduce complaints a Increase advocates 2008 Client Survey 90% of clients are satisfied or very satisfied with our service delivery. This is proved in our annual Client Satisfaction Survey and the number of WOW! Nominations. In the month of July we had a 41.5% return rate of customer service letters. That speaks for itself!! We currently have a customer satisfaction rating of 99.97% and we are constantly striving to improve. We know we have improved in this area (since starting The WOW! Awards), as the confidence and satisfaction survey, conducted on a monthly basis, has shown Merseyside Police showing improvements in all areas of the survey. In relation to the National Survey, Merseyside Police are 1st out of 43 forces when it comes to our customers being confident that we tackle the issues that matter to them, such as crime and anti-social behaviour. 4. Making it Easy for Customers to say thank you Implementing The WOW! Awards, allows customers to offer quality feedback. Tracking the changes and measuring the effect reveals the power of: alistening to customers and learning from what they say aunderstanding what the customer values and delivering it more often amaintaining customer satisfaction afree consultancy: your customers will tell you what you are doing well! We are now learning from what we are getting right. The management of the company have been able to see the engagement that the customer has had with the individual in the company and this helps them to understand what customers want and the service they expect. WOW! 7

We ve dropped all of our KPIs and now focus purely on The WOW! Awards nominations Consumer Relations Manager, Cadbury UK Great Results

Great Results Participating in The WOW! Awards can help you to achieve Great Results by: - 1. Winning new and retaining current customers 2. Providing you with great PR, marketing and brand value 3. Increasing performance 4. Increasing efficiency 1. Winning New and Retaining Current Customers Loyal Customers, acting as advocates for your organisation, deliver a Increased sales a Decreased advertising spend (customer telling their story sells the brand!) a Increased profit Three years after receiving an award, the 120 award winning companies outperformed the comparison companies by an average of 17% for sales and 36% for share value. During the final year that performance was tracked, the award winning companies experienced even greater increases as compared to comparison companies with sales growing by an average of 77% more and operating income by 18% more. University of Leicester for the British Quality Foundation and the European Foundation for Quality Management. Evidencing independently verified and authentic Customer Feedback is vital for tender propositions. a External accreditation of feedback adds value and credibility to submissions for new contracts Our WOW! Award nominations booklet is used in the sales process to secure new business. There has been a tremendous amount of feedback from sales force as to the usefulness of this document to secure premium sales. WOW! 9

Great Results 2. Providing You With Great PR, Marketing and Brand Value Customer s stories provide great PR tools. The WOW! Awards delivers feedback as a fantastic marketing asset. Externally accredited feedback can provide strong evidence to support formal awards submissions, for example, The Times Best Companies to Work For, ISO, ICS, IiP and Business Excellence. These stories will hold a great deal of credibility authenticated by a national brand that is independent of your organisation. 3. Increasing Performance Increased performance can be measured in various ways and can be used for Management Information and performance management. a Being able to use the information as a diagnostic tool for performance management a Informing and directing training spend for maximum impact a Providing an incentive for internal competition to boost productivity a Providing managers with more Management Information of strong individual performance It (The WOW! Awards) helps to highlight areas of excellence, which can be captured and developed in less customer-focused teams. 10 Great Results

4. Increasing Efficiency Efficiency measured by head count and productivity. The WOW! Awards helps you to deliver efficiency savings through: - retention of experienced employee - resolving more customer calls first time - increasing the longevity impact of training a Provides strong data on where to most effectively allocate training investment a Reduced absenteeism Nominations are fantastically powerful. Team members feel recognised, appreciated & uplifted by the comments clients have taken the time to offer. Staff morale is fantastic! I was amazed at how ready the customers were to participate... All that we had to do was to...make it easy for them! WOW! 11

The WOW! Awards : A Customer nominated compliments management system that a Visibly recognises excellence in customer service a Comes from an independent national awards scheme, with more impact than an internal recognition scheme a Inspires employees, as the recognition comes direct from the customer a It maximises the impact of training and prolongs its effectiveness 12 Catching People Doing Things Right

The WOW! Awards is a registered trademark of The WOW! Awards Ltd. Business and Technology Centre Bessemer Drive Stevenage Herts SG1 2DX United Kingdom Tel: + 44 (0) 1438 310191 Fax: + 44 (0) 1438 310001 info@thewowawards.co.uk www.thewowawards.co.uk