Oswaldwistle Mills

‘’Fantastic’ is how Jackie Mottershead of Oswaldwistle Mills, describes the impact of Welcome to Excellence on the business.

Oswaldwistle Mills is a shopping village in Oswaldwistle Accrington  near Blackburn.

Offering a complete day out, it is the third biggest tourist attraction in the region.

The shopping village employs 60 staff of its own – all of whom took part in Welcome Host training in addition to 70 staff employed by retail outlets based at the shopping village. ‘We set out to train staff right across the board’ says Jackie.  ‘Everyone from car park attendants up to Company Directors.’

‘I was amazed and thrilled by the scale of the impact’ she says. ‘The staff had a huge improvement in motivation and our sales increased by up to 20% in the six months following the training. Welcome to Excellence was definitely the biggest single factor in this achievement.’

‘The trainer was excellent’ continues Jackie. ‘She had really done her homework and tailored the content of the course to our business.  This meant that the staff left with a clearer understanding of what our business is aiming to achieve and what they could do to make a difference. It also got the staff working much better as a team’

Jackie says that the impact on the business has been so impressive that she has now arranged refresher training and plans to make Welcome to Excellence a key partner in future.

‘In fact’ she adds’ We now regard Welcome to Excellence as so important that we demand that any retail businesses that want a concession at the shopping village must train at least 50% of their staff through Welcome to Excellence. We see this as the best way to ensure that the experience we offer is consistently first class.’