One Railway

One Railway is the principal train operator in the East of England, running all trains across the region to and from London Liverpool Street.

Providing great customer service is a central element of what we always aim to deliver’ says Victor Fromm, On Board Standards and Training Manager.

‘As a rail franchise holder, we are judged on punctuality, but certainly within the catering department, customer service is equally as important.’

The catering department is made up of 105 staff, who run a selection of full restaurant, café bar and trolley services on the trains running between Norwich and London. This includes the award-winning ‘one’ café, which sets out to smash the stereotypes about eating on the move and this year won the Customer Service Award at the Rail Innovation Awards, was judged the best restaurant service on the UK rail network in the annual survey by RAIL magazine and was runner-up in the Putting Passengers First award at the National Rail Awards.

In June and July 2007, more than 90 of the staff attended the one-day course ‘Welcome Host Plus’, run by a Welcome to Excellence trainer provided by East of England Tourism. The trainer was absolutely great’ said Victor. ‘We find it helps staff take it seriously when training is delivered by a third party and, of course, it helps that the trainer really understands customer service and tailors all the examples to our particular situation and business.’

Victor says: ‘The impact has been sensational. Welcome to Excellence has become engrained in what we do, it is now part of our life blood.’

He continues: ‘Many of our staff have considerable experience of customer service so we wanted to pitch the training at the right level for them. The Welcome Host Plus course met the bill. The course helped give people a fresh perspective on their role and, in many cases, re-invigorated their enthusiasm for their work as well as improved their skills levels.

‘The training on dealing with difficult customers was especially useful, with staff saying that they learnt a huge amount about how to use their own body language and what they should and should not say in difficult situations.

Another session that had a particularly beneficial impact was the one on teamwork. The staff in the stores have to work in tight liaison with the staff on the train, for example to ensure that new supplies are passed on board at the station, all within extremely fast turnaround times. The course helped everyone see that teamwork is essential to achieve this and highlighted ways that the team could work better.’

As the department has trained over 50% of its staff, it has now been accredited as a Welcome to Excellence provider.

Victor says: ‘We had a large scale event to celebrate the accreditation with newspaper photographers and VIP guests. Now, the other parts of the company have noticed the uplift in our department and are asking us about Welcome to Excellence and thinking about introducing it in their sections too.’

‘Within the catering department, we will continue to put Welcome to Excellence at the heart of our training. We plan to carry out
Welcome All’ training shortly and we will continue to carry out refresher courses. It is really clear that the staff have responded very positively. Although it is now some months since the training, they still wear their Welcome to Excellence badges with pride.

‘Taking part in the Welcome to Excellence training has given many of the staff a real boost, especially some of the more mature staff. At the end of the session, the participants “brainstormed” practical improvements we could make and came up with no less than sixty ideas! Some of these were ‘quick wins’ which we have put in place already, some are taking longer to work through and implement. It was a fantastic outcome of the course and a real bonus! This action list indicates just how much the training galvanised everyone and set us on a path toward improvement.’

The Welcome to Excellence training is helping us in a number of ways. It is of course helping our staff raise their game, so we provide a better service to customers. It is also helping the staff develop, increasing the extent to which they feel valued by the company, and contributing to staff retention. Not only do employees and customers benefit, but the East of England benefits by having more advocates for what the region has to offer.

‘Welcome to Excellence is now firmly embedded within the culture of our department and it will help provide the solid foundation from which we can face the challenges of the future with confidence.’