Step Up Full Details
Full Course Details
Introduction
In 2001, Inspiring People created this team based customer service improvement programme and it has been used within organisations very effectively ever since to develop teamwork, creativity, and of course enhance the customer’s experience.
The philosophy of Step/up is that the best people to identify what can be improved for the customer are those people who see and speak to them every day – the team members themselves.
What is the format of Step/up?
1. Step back
The reflective step
Here, using a range of tools created by Inspiring People, the team stand back and work out exactly where they are with the service they provide, looking through the eyes of the team members, our expert facilitator and their customers both external and internal.
2. Step along
Building a plan of action
This involves the whole team – everyone takes a turn! We encourage creativity and innovation and a range of ideas from the quick hits that cost nothing, to longer-term projects that may need more time and/or investment. This step leads to a living, breathing plan of action that will propel the team forward.
3. Step forward
The implementation stage
The team work away at their plan putting in place the actions agreed and then testing the water to make sure they work.
4. Step up
Checking it all out
The team undertakes a reassessment usually helped by other people within their organisation. They will be able to see how far they have come from the first stage and continuous improvement will have become a habit for them.
How do we spend our time with you?
Again, this is really down to you the customer to decide what will suit you and your organisation best. To give you an idea, here is an example of how our programme with the London Borough of Bromley was structured.
Launch event
This involved all members of selected teams, internal support team and the Inspiring People consultant. The event was introduced by the Chief Executive or Head of Customer Service to show commitment from the top and to give everyone an opportunity to meet each other.
Half-day team session
This is with the whole team and the consultant to start the ball rolling and to “step back”.
Manager’s workshop - Managing Customer Service Excellence within a team
- To provide support to Managers and help them to understand and deliver effective service management
- To network with the Team Managers from the other teams and to share best practice
Observation day by the consultant
- To get to grips with the service offered and customer expectations
- To talk to each team member to gather their views
- To provide a starting point to be re-measured at a later stage once the plan is implemented
Action planning day
A full day event where the team gets together to look at observation and team feedback from the observation day, action planning skills and creative thinking techniques and to brainstorm areas that they wish to improve as part of the Step/up action plan.
Months 5 – 8
Ongoing reviews with the consultant to monitor progress and evaluate actions.
Final meeting with the consultant and as many of the team as possible to do concluding review of the action plan and prepare the team for the assessment and presentation stages.
Assessment
The assessment panel visited each team to talk them through their action plan to see customer service improvements for themselves.
Presentations
The final stage of the programme was when the teams presented back to each other and an invited audience including the Chief Executive, the Leader of the Council and many of the people present at the launch event. The objective of this event was to share best practice and ideas as well as to celebrate success and award a prize to the winning team.
Who is it for?
This can be used to help any type of team or service, horizontal, vertical or virtual. It is a great catalyst to help partnership working across the customer supply chain.
We can run it for one team, several as a group starting together or even roll it out across your whole organisation in tranches.
Customer feedback
We are always happy for you to approach our customers to find out for yourself, but here are a few bits of feedback.
“Like most teams we always claimed that we naturally, continually improved and initially couldn’t see what the programme could offer us. However, it very quickly proved to be a simple and practical framework to make sure our bright ideas got shared and actually put into practice. I highly recommend it.”
“The programme seems to have gone down better than we could ever have expected here. Senior Managers were delighted to see what a good understanding their staff have of their customers and their road to improvement.”
“We were like ships that passed in the night before we went through the programme, all with ideas of how to improve our service, but without the catalyst for improvement that we needed.”
How much does it cost?
Step/up is very flexible and can be tailored to your individual needs, but to give you a bit of an idea:
- An in-house programme similar to those we have run in the past assuming 8 teams participate is £25,000 plus VAT
- An individual team costs approximately £2,750 plus VAT