We were incredibly proud to have the opportunity to support the staffing of the London 2012 Olympics. The vision to deliver a world-class experience involved mobilising 800 customer service professionals at key locations across the Olympic hosting network within incredibly tight deadlines.

Using our proprietary technology platform we were able to identify and filter 6,000 applications in just 90 days resulting in 800 successful placements throughout the UK, or 80,000 shift hours across 30 sites. ‍

We are currently developing a ground-breaking team proposal for a client whereby we will develop a dedicated team of ‘revenue protection hosts’ who will start out as gate-line and push back operators and will be trained and developed jointly by us and the T over time to take on ticketing, penalty fare and on-board responsibilities. This team will be a multi-skilled and very flexible resource to complement existing small and stretched team of Revenue Protection Inspectors. We are committed to meeting resourcing gaps to the best of our ability either on a planned or last-minute basis and have built an excellent working relationship with Revenue Protection personnel at our main partner operators.
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Our current model of staffing with London Overground is based on multi-skilled individuals who can operate a gate line, run a ticket office position or conduct security and crowd control responsibilities as a platform host – either for whole shifts at a time, or on a split shift or break cover basis.

Feedback from those taking part in the course has overwhelmingly been pride in their employers for making a serious investment in their professional development, demonstrating a genuine sense of being valued as well as an alignment of shared goals. This along with the hard skills and personal coaching has also resulted in an improved focus at work, more powerful sales tools in their arsenal, increased confidence, job satisfaction, retention and ultimately job performance.
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Clients have found the sessions valuable for exactly the same reasons; a happier and ultimately better workforce who take greater pride in their job and brand ambassadorship. Clients also value the fact that, due to the mostly operational nature of the coaching sessions, training is minimally disruptive to business as usual.

Sales through Service means the command of presentation, charisma and language to productively engage with customers and either identify opportunities to make a sale or allow customers to feel comfortable enough to want to buy more. Immediate benefits withstanding, we find a better customer experience also goes a way to improving customer loyalty and grass-roots marketing.
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Our workshops have been developed as part of our in-house academy and our coaches include veteran customer service professionals with a broad combined experience building, training and managing customer host teams across the transport and hospitality sectors.

Our Ambassador concept has also been deployed very successfully with operators facing enormous challenges with disruption and/or service suspension. For GTR, for example, we deployed Ambassadors at the main stations affected by the Brighton Mainline Blockade. More than 200 agency staff were taken on to man bus stops, provide information and ensure safe conditions – but it was the Proactive team of 20 Ambassadors who had the key role of ‘roving’ and trouble-shooting as necessary, and supporting the staff at static positions when they became overwhelmed by volume or stuck with problems. They were so successful that the operator kept them on after the blockade to “welcome back” regular customers to the normal service and ensure any feedback was captured and acted up.
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It goes without saying that we will provide a dedicated Ambassador team, acting with all operators and with the City Council, to staff the central concourse and be the face of BHM to all members of the public.

Our training team is structured for ‘latent capacity’, meaning that we re-purpose unused elements of the budget into retraining and re-deploying staff, thus keeping churn low. This not only minimises costs but optimises quality: our front-line staff members are more committed and more invested as they are being trained, up-skilled and developed. A result of this approach is that most of our 30-strong HQ team members started out as associate staff members in the field.
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We have the resources, accreditation and experience to carry out training for all roles. We have a train-the-trainer model that relieves clients’ managers time and resources and most of our TOC partners prefer this.