Last Friday, I had the privilege of being a judge at the 2013 Customer Service Training Awards, organised by the Customer Service Training Network. I have been a member of this organisation for a couple of years, and this was the first time I have been able to be a judge at their annual awards.

First of all, I would like to congratulate Haven Holidays for their winning entry. I was blown away by their enthusiasm, the fact that they had involved front line people in the delivery of their training, and that their customer and employee satisfaction scores had risen significantly since they started delivering their ‘Pioneers’ programme. I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with one of their trainers, a young lady who worked on the front line in one of their holiday parks and had been asked to volunteer as a trainer. This brought back great memories of my own start as a trainer, 17 years ago, when I was given the opportunity to develop my skills as a trainer after spending more than twenty years in front line customer service professional roles. So, well done Haven Holidays!

It is also worth giving the venue a mention. The Radisson Blu Edwardian Hotel at Heathrow Airport was superb. Every single member of the team that I saw working there spoke to me, and nothing was too much trouble. The food and service at the awards lunch was excellent too. A great choice of venue, Don Hales and Anne-Marie Lose.

Another award-winning company worthy of mention was Restaurant Associates. I was extremely impressed with them too. They had run focus groups involving all their front line staff and then – gone away and done what their front line people wanted them to do! One of the things that impressed me about this company was that. despite being part of a global organisation, they seemed to have the knack of treating their people – and customers – as individuals. They also had a contract between managers and their team members. Now, most companies have a contract between their people and their managers – how many do it the other way around too? One of the actions that managers had to commit to take was to be in the front line with their teams at peak service times. I thought that was amazing – how many companies have managers that do that? Not many, is the answer, and the few that do deserve to win awards.

There were many other great stories on the day – these two stood out for me. It was great to see friends from the customer service training world and to make some new ones. It was also heartening to realise that there are some quite big companies out there doing the right thing by their employees and customers, and it’s working. No-one said they had lost money by investing in training, in fact, the reverse was true.

I’ll be there again next year!