For many sales and service organisations, satisfying and retaining existing customers – and creating a high level of customer advocacy – is a critical business objective. However, all too often, organisations spend heavily on updating their physical infrastructure (such as store design or till systems) and revitalising their visual brand image, without considering how they can engage front-line customer staff to deliver the brand experience to customers.

Here at cda we have a great deal of experience of working with clients to engage and equip staff to deliver outstanding customer service. We deliver a proven range of improvements to team structures, recruitment processes, performance management processes and reward schemes, supported by highly effective training and development programmes, to make a real difference to sales performance, customer satisfaction and staff morale.

Our experience spans a wide range of retail, financial services and leisure organisations, plus public sector service providers in areas such as housing, education and central government. It includes both face-to-face and call centre operations.

Allied Domecq Inns planned to grow sales in their 2,000 unbranded pubs across the UK through improvements in customer service. We worked with ADI's top team to develop the ‘Going for Growth’ (G4G) change programme, which was aimed at delivering great, distinctive customer service. We developed new team structures and delivered supporting leadership and customer skills training for over 14,000 staff through a team of 50 'Team Trainers'. Over the three-year life of the programme we also introduced a range of other supporting changes - such as new bonus schemes for pub staff and new assessment and development for Field Teams. The programme resulted in significant improvements to sales and customer service and also won industry awards for excellence.

Barclaycard were keen to use the opportunity provided by the introduction of a new call-handling system to develop customer service skills in their call centres in the UK and India. We worked with a team of Barclaycard managers to understand the Barclaycard brand and customer experience and develop 'SOLVE ; a programme which developed the skills and behaviours needed to deliver outstanding customer service. The 'SOLVE' skills and behaviours were integrated into a wide range of recruitment and performance management processes, aimed at ensuring that they became part of 'business as usual' rather than a short-term change programme.

GNER’s Service Vision (‘to deliver the UK’s ultimate travel experience’) was supported by the On-Station Development Programme, devised and delivered by cda. We used the Service Vision as the starting point for the programme, supported by information gathered during our own market research with customers. Over 50 managers and 300 customer service team members attended the 'Leading Customer Service' and 'Delivering Customer Service' courses with consequent improvements in customer satisfaction levels and reduced numbers of complaints.

Toyota Retail Academy Europe (TRA) asked cda to work with them to develop their curriculum to meet the strategic priorities of Toyota Europe. We developed a curriculum which was built around three strategic priorities: 1) providing a clear understanding of the Toyota Way for retailer staff across Europe, 2) developing sales and customer service skills to equip retailer staff to deliver a consistent brand experience to customers and 3) developing the ability of the organisation's managers to manage in the Toyota Way to deliver customer satisfaction and business performance. We will work with TRA to develop and roll out the curriculum.

We worked with Toyota GB (TGB) over an extended period to deliver 'Retail Concept'; a new vision for TGB's 200+ retailers across the UK. The aim of Retail Concept was to deliver an outstanding customer service experience through improvements to the design of Toyota Centres and the skills and behaviour of customer-facing staff. We worked with TGB to translate the visual brand experience into a clear set of competencies (skills and behaviours) for customer facing staff. These were rolled out through a training programme which included every member of the retailer team. We also worked with retailer managers to develop their ability to recruit and manage their teams against the new competencies. The programme has been highly successful and has now been adopted by Toyota's European network.

T Mobile UK asked us to work with them to develop an innovative programme aimed at supporting the rapid expansion of their UK retail network. We developed 'Retail Revolution'; a change programme focused on delivering the T Mobile brand experience through a mix of training and development for retail teams. The programme was built around a clear set of 'Brand Behaviours' developed in conjunction with T Mobile's Marketing team to mirror the T Mobile brand. It included a two-day training course, plus a range of supporting development activity led by Store Managers aimed at embedding key skills and behaviours. 'Retail Revolution' was highly successful and subsequently rolled out into other parts of the T Mobile business around the UK.

• Delivering the brand
• cda customer relationship

• Home front case study - Training Journal (February 2006)
• The Toyota Way - Personnel Today (June 2004)
• Living out the brand - People Performance Magazine (Jan/Feb 2004)

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