Case study: Developing the St Pancras service brand
Recruiting and training customer service operatives for the opening of St Pancras Station
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Business Challenge
When St Pancras was identified as the new home for the Eurostar service it set out to be much more than a ‘railway station’. In addition to being the key destination for the Eurostar, and high-speed rail travel in the UK, St Pancras set itself the goal of becoming a truly grand retail and hospitality destination.
Underpinning this vision was a profound service change – the station was to be seen as a 'destination experience' with a plethora of exciting retail opportunities and a wide choice of eating and dining experiences. St Pancras International is at the heart of the regeneration of this part of London and is a key London landmark. the need to set the benchmark for customer service excellence by providing more and better trained staff.
This 'destination experience' was to be sustained with a vivacious and leading service brand, wih the service delivered by a team of around 170 'new' Customer Service Officers.
More than 70 existing employees were transferred to the St Pancras project; a further 100 new employees needed to be recruited for the opening of St Pancras and Ebbsfleet stations. The challenges were to:
-identify and select the right recruits
␉-design the superior service standards and training programmes for the travel and retail ␉experiences customers would enjoy
␉-ensure they were sustained
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Echelon’s Solution
Echelon designed an innovative recruitment programme to attract the best candidates from a composite of sectors in order that the selected cohort would together reflect the highest standards for maintaining patient safety and providing exemplary customer care in a busy terminus.
␉-Advertising for a week in the London freesheets and at all transport termini produced over ␉1500 applications
␉-To identify people with exceptional ability competency based assessment centres were run on ␉the lines of a talent forum at the Emirates Stadium to select the 100+ new recruits and identify ␉existing staff for key roles
␉-200 customer service officers were then inducted to deliver best-practice customer service ␉using these competencies, we were searching for people with exceptional customer service ␉capability. We used highly-engaging learning methods, incorporating the support of a buddy ␉support system into the induction programme.
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Key Benefits
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Over 40 million customers a year enjoy the results.
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Blending existing security skills with retail experience introduced new customer service behaviours.
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The recruitment and training process embedded the new airline style of service standards and reinforced St Pancras as a destination experience rather than a station.
Echelon’s approach
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Research
Initial background work was undertaken at the stations to identify the key points of customer interaction – verbal, in writing and face to face. Existing staff were asked to identify the ‘moments of truth’ when customers appeared to really value service and how they managed those moments. The competencies for recruitment were derived from this background work in agreement with management.
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Buy in
Ownership is best achieved when self-interest is served. St Pancras, due to its architecture and the advent of high speed trains, has brand appeal. We deliberately focused on that brand and turned it into an employee brand to attract a high quality of recruit. The use of actors to play out the competencies and create a platform for the assessments, the holding of the recruitment sessions at the Emirates Stadium, and a video of the new destination experience all created enthusiasm for joining this exciting new venture.
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Training
Echelon supported St Pancras to design and deliver innovative programmes to recruit, induct and assess leading edge customer service personnel who will deliver exceptional service providing a Destination Experience.
Over 1500 applied to join the team at St. Pancras via a bespoke ‘apply and sift’ website. From this initial assessment:
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400 were invited to actor-led Interview Forums in which applicants interacted with actors in a number of challenging customer service scenarios that depicted the unique mix of safety and service that was reuired. Candidates also attended a formal interview and a series of tasks that tested their technical and observational capacities.
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over 100 met the ‘attitude and skill criteria’ and participated in lively induction and customer care programmes
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70 existing rail staff attended Development Centres to highlight their customer service strengths and areas for development before participating in relevant learning activities. A series of one to one coaching sessions provided them with detailed feedback and provided a helpful talent management framework for the company.
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Communication
Each operative is issued with a hand held mobile which can be used to brief on change of timings, destination, platform, etc. These were used as communications tools to flash out reminders of the competencies and to access additional learning tools.
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Sustaining the initiative
Sustaining the high level of customer service achieved is as important as getting there in the first place if brand loyalty and advocacy are to be engendered. Much of the workshop materials were converted to on-line programmes, including video of the actors training sessions, for later reference and refresher training. Additional mobile learning modules were designed which could be accessed via operatives’ mobiles. These included brief reminders of the service standards across a range of situations, including how to handle a crowd and how to help a distressed customer. From there the operative had the option of clicking through to the full training module.
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Evaluating the outcome
- Increasing market share in the rail/air sector from London to Brussels and Paris, with over 9 million passengers carried in 2008.
Echelon, Angles House, 210 Sheen Lane, London SW14 8LB; 020 8274 9965