From my time spent working in learning and development within major companies, I know that we are approaching the time of year when next year’s training budgets are being negotiated and improved. Anyone mentioning the very idea of delivering some customer service training is quite likely to see raised eyebrows from the finance department, often accompanied by the question ‘Didn’t we roll something like that out two years ago?’

Well, if you are in the hospitality, leisure, retail or public transport industries, there is a very strong chance that if you rolled out training to to your front line staff two years ago, most of the people that received that training will now have left your business, unless you are one of the enlightened few companies in those sectors who have a strong internal succession plan and are dedicated to developing and retaining your people.

So, why are so many people like me ‘banging on’ about customer service just now? Well, part of the reason is that customer service is always important, and yes, I do make part of my living from delivering customer service training. However, there is another reason. It won’t have escaped many people that we are hosting the 2012 Olympics in the U.K. next year. That means that around 500,000 additional visitors will be coming to the U.K. in 2012. What sort of an experience are they going to have while they are here?

From the time they land at our airports, or sea ports, stay in our hotels, shop at our stores, eat in our restaurants, visit our Olympic venues, travel on our trains, planes, buses and taxis, experience our tourist attractions, they will be experiencing U.K. customer service at it’s best. ‘Ah’ I hear you saying ‘but we don’t have a great reputation for customer service here in the U.K. do we?’ So maybe our best customer service is pretty average, on the whole, with some honourable exceptions?

There is help at hand. People 1st., Sector Skills Council for  leisure and hospitality businesses in the U.K. has purchased a great one-day workshop for front line customer service professionals. It was designed in British Columbia, Canada, and used to raise customer service standards in the Vancouver area prior to the last Winter Olympics. People 1st. have brought it to the U.K. I’ve seen it, and it’s great – I liked it so much I went and became accredited to deliver it.

You can find out more about WorldHost training here www.worldhost.uk.com  – if you are serious about improving the customer service that your business is delivering you need to be having a conversation about next year’s training budget now!