Avis Europe Plc

Director Customer Satisfaction - Europe

My background: 27 years in Rent a Car, working in operations for 20 with real live customers delivering what I thought to be great service.

3 years in the Head office customer service and quality area recovering the poor service perceived or experienced by our customers and changing processes to improve the service delivery.

4 years in Group Head office developing and succeeding in delivering a strategy for the Group Customer Satisfaction Programme. Using a pragmatic common sense approach directly with Customer Champions in our multi site renting countries, utilising data they can really use to improve customer service delivery in all areas of the business. At the same time refreshing, inventing and passionately encouraging strategic improvement across the Group for our customer service culture.

Boots UK Ltd

Head of Central Customer Care

He's a shopkeeper by trade who's spent the last 11 years transforming the way Boots customers interact with a business that serves 12M customers every week. He leads the 250 seat operation based at Nottingham and acts as consultant to the business, representing the customer in every facet of the organisation. 

He's proudest of the culture and the people who he trusts to look after Boots most valuable asset, its customers. Plus he knows the feedback captured from every contact is having a direct impact and shaping of business. The scariest thing for Graham is that he's now worked for Boots for over 34 years, but is amazed how young he still looks. Outside work, his hobbies are family orientated although he's a frustrated racing driver, with no realistic hope of ever hitting the track.

Moore Adamson Craig Partnership

I have been involved with businesses and their customers from a wide variety of perspectives for all of my working life. I have worked for companies dedicated to profits and ones who were 'not for profit'. I have been the customers' friend in a chain of shoe shops. I have done time in local government and in a civil service job. I have started businesses and closed them down. I have been hired and fired and have done the same to others. I have experienced some wonderful projects and delivered some disasters. Learning, learning, learning. As well as all this, I have been married and I have three amazing children. (photos on request)

Colin Adamson
The Moore Adamson Craig Partnership LLP
12 Clevedon Court
Clive Road
London SE21 8BT
Email: colin@mooreadamsoncraig.co.uk
Voice: 020 8670 0595 / 07785 552167

Supporting Customer Care Ltd

Managing Director

Kathy has worked in Customer Service throughout her career, initially in the retail world before moving into the motor industry, and then into the electricity supply industry. In all of these sectors, Kathy has had management responsibility for the delivery of customer service whilst involved in the delivery of cultural change programmes reflecting the need to put the customer at the forefront of the organisation.

For almost ten years, Kathy has used her skills as a practitioner of customer care to operate an independent consultancy - Supporting Customer Care Ltd. Clients include major blue chip organisations within the retail sector, telecommunications, financial services, publishing, manufacturing and engineering as well as within the public sector. Work involves every aspect of customer service, from complaint handling to quality management and includes communicating with customers, enhancing customer handling skills and working to raise customer service awareness. A graduate of Middlesex University, Kathy has a BA in English and Philosophy. As both an accredited SDI facilitator and a practitioner of NLP, Kathy uses behavioural approaches to delivering sustainable people development programmes.

Supporting Customer Care is a small training and consultancy organisation with a blue chip client base drawn from all industry sectors across the UK. We operate through a network of over thirty experienced and specialised associates who fulfil the roles of either lead or delivery consultants. All are SDI accredited practitioners and many are NLP trained facilitators.

Established by Kathy Stiff in 1996, essentially we are a 'one-stop shop' specialising in people development in the public and private sector, including:

• Assessment & Selection
• Quality Auditing
• Leadership
• Coaching & Training
• Performance Management
• Consultancy
• Strategic Direction
• Motivation & Team Building
• Communication and Customer Handling
• Telephone Sales Skills

We are able to offer "off the shelf" programmes for clients who have very specific needs and these include workshops focusing on behavioural skills such as assertiveness and handling difficult people. With new clients and in bigger organisations, we take the view that the most effective way to tackle training and development is to focus on three key stages: Familiarisation, Design and Delivery. Running alongside each of these stages is a project management strand responsible for scoping and controlling the intervention, delivered by two key office based personnel who provide expertise gained from working with blue chip clients over a ten year period.

Our programmes are designed to make the interaction memorable for the learner by appealing to a broad range of learning styles and approaches. Our delivery style is highly participative. There is typically a small amount of input and extensive opportunities to practice the key skills and behaviours, so individuals get feedback on performance. Programmes are interactive, practical and fun. Delegates will be challenged but also encouraged to develop in a safe environment. Extensive use is made of real play where delegates can work with 'live' examples they bring direct from their workplace.

We also have wide-ranging experience of working on large-scale initiatives within tight timescales. With one client, members of our team played key roles in the set-up and early running of a 600 seat call centre which took place within very stringent timeframes. From becoming involved in the initial project discussions we were designing and delivering training within three weeks.

In another example, team members were involved in the preliminary project discussions to set up an Internet based contact centre operating in the financial services arena. From this point it was a matter of weeks before we had designed relevant job profiles, competencies and key behavioural attributes and were managing the initial assessment centres.

Kathy Stiff can be contacted on 01933 651807 and via email on enquiries@supporting-customer-care.co.uk

The Royal Bank of Scotland

Tim has worked for The Royal Bank of Scotland Group for over 25 years and is responsible for monitoring and reporting on key issues from complaints and service data to the Group Chief Executive.  He has developed a number of service measurement models for local, central and national Complaints Handling Units as well as driving through action based improvement plans across the Group's business.  He has an extensive practical and theoretical knowledge of how to measure customer satisfaction/dissatisfaction and how that data can and shoule be used to drive improved performance.

Tim now lives in Central Scotland, with his wife and two children, having grown up in the North East and then working for seven years offshore on the Isle of Man.