Or anything else, for that matter!
In a week when five major banks were lambasted for their cavalier attitude to two million customers' complaints, I muse on the day my local rail franchise failed miserably to convey a few hundred frustrated commuters to the capital.
Focus for Change, among its wide portfolio of interactive workshops and seminars http://www.focus4change.co.uk/ offers valued courses in customer care and communications. Nowhere among them is included a suggestion that it's best to remain discreet about shortcomings and shy in offering explanations.
With that rather endearing British phlegm on display when those united in any kind of misfortune bond in the spirit of Dunkirk, we climbed aboard a train that was to take us part-way on a 50-mile journey. Sure enough, buses promised by explicit notices posted around the departure station waited at the destination and we were bowling happily through unfamiliar spring-refreshed countryside to a rural railway platform on another line, there to find a train to complete the trip uninterrupted by engineering works.
A thirty-minute wait was entertained by robotic warnings that unattended belongings would be destroyed and that this was designated, for our safety and convenience, a non-smoking station.
With leisure to ponder these repeated strictures you have to wonder just how safety might be compromised by casual contact with smoke. The robot might better be programmed to fear for our health and convenience. But then, it's only a robot!
As first one scheduled train then another some time later was cancelled, customer satisfaction degenerated into universal irritation with no explanation forthcoming of how not one train but two came to be wiped from the timetable by some unseen and uncaring Fat Controller. Tempers were not helped by three empty out-of-service expresses thundering by on the opposite track heading non-stop to their coastal terminus, each heralded by a helpful direction to anyone straying to that empty platform that these trains were not stopping, so to stand well clear.
Rumours gained ground that, having been abandoned at this wayside stop, we were going nowhere. Ironically in a city far away even sporting pensioners were making lively tracks towards the Marathon's finishing-post. Here, though, philosophical good-nature was well-stretched - especially by travellers whose haul-along luggage suggested this was but the first step in a long-haul journey to exotic places - until somebody in the crowd cried: "Buses in the car park will take London passengers to another station!"
Another coach, another journey through sunlit villages in their Sunday best, another rural platform and an on-time (hurrah!) train that completed our 50-minute commute in three hours.
Throughout that wait explanation came there none. Customers (er, passengers) waited in vain for reasons why their arrangements and onward connections seriously unravelled.
Somebody needs refesher courses in Customer Care and Communication. We at Focus for Change have proved helpful announcements have a wonderful way of winning understanding, tolerence and even sympathy n the most exacting of unexpected circumstances.
But I have to say the crumbling Victorian halt where we found no transport of delight would make an ideal location for a revival production of The Ghost Train!
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Friday, 16 April 2010
Keep calm dear, it's only an Election!
It's like having belligerent relatives coming to call. Or cats in a sack.
The General Election Campaign might be a feeding frenzy for the 24-hour media - but it does precious little to mend the temper of the electorate like you and me.
Go into any town or village and the mood is predominantly anxious and care-worn. Tempers are on remarkable short fuse. Good news is thin on the ground and fresh concerns arise in their battalions - the bust economy, crooked MPs, global warming, the ever-present terrorist threat and now, volcanic ash blowing around the atmosphere, all line up to threaten the wellbeing of our ordered lives.
Simply ring a customer service number and you get curt short-change. There's impatience at the post office; shopkeepers tut-tut irritably as customers carefully count out coin.
We're finding it all very stressful.
But we must neither lose our nerve - nor allow ourselves to join the angry brigade.
Stress is a useful alarm system, natural equipment to deal with the challenges that are a normal feature of life outside the cotton-wool box many of us would prefer to inhabit. Properly managed stress is an essential part of our mental armoury prompting us to overcome difficulties and hopefully inspire others to do the same.
The many strategies of stress management are daily put to good use by members of emergency services attending the specialised inter-active courses presented by Focus for Change http://www.focus4change.co.uk/
We work currently with two county fire services and, along with out anti-bullying programmes, the NHS among organisations using our many workshops and seminars.
If you have a strategy of your own for remaining placid and patient during the coming stressful days, pass it on! You have the freedom of the blog!
The General Election Campaign might be a feeding frenzy for the 24-hour media - but it does precious little to mend the temper of the electorate like you and me.
Go into any town or village and the mood is predominantly anxious and care-worn. Tempers are on remarkable short fuse. Good news is thin on the ground and fresh concerns arise in their battalions - the bust economy, crooked MPs, global warming, the ever-present terrorist threat and now, volcanic ash blowing around the atmosphere, all line up to threaten the wellbeing of our ordered lives.
Simply ring a customer service number and you get curt short-change. There's impatience at the post office; shopkeepers tut-tut irritably as customers carefully count out coin.
We're finding it all very stressful.
But we must neither lose our nerve - nor allow ourselves to join the angry brigade.
Stress is a useful alarm system, natural equipment to deal with the challenges that are a normal feature of life outside the cotton-wool box many of us would prefer to inhabit. Properly managed stress is an essential part of our mental armoury prompting us to overcome difficulties and hopefully inspire others to do the same.
The many strategies of stress management are daily put to good use by members of emergency services attending the specialised inter-active courses presented by Focus for Change http://www.focus4change.co.uk/
We work currently with two county fire services and, along with out anti-bullying programmes, the NHS among organisations using our many workshops and seminars.
If you have a strategy of your own for remaining placid and patient during the coming stressful days, pass it on! You have the freedom of the blog!
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
If at first you don't succeed ...
Just yesterday proved once again that jobs can be won the second time around.
A client, rejected after an interview procedure which failed to make an appointment clinched the high-powered executive position on a national professional body after successful coaching by one of our Focus for Change counsellors http://www.focus4change.co.uk/.
It's not uncommon for organisations to review an interview process which has failed to produce a successful candidate, advertise the post again to make a final selection. Again it's usual for unsuccessful candidates, having undertaken grooming for the interview, submit their application again - and win the job.
It's astonishing in this time of change with so many redundancies taking place organisations of all descriptions are unable to fill crucial posts - particularly at middle-management level.
Recognising the potential of existing staff and the importance of retaining them they can prefer to promote internally. But despite a good track record and confidence in the excellent job they're doing existing staff often lose out - because they fail to market themselves at interview.
This prompts an increase in our one-to-one grooming and mentoring services, preparing staff not only to move up but to recognise the need for forward thinking should they achieve the new post.
Preparation for interview is vital.The secret is in the correct planning. Having put so much energy into the application many candidates still fail the final fence. If the appointment is to an internal post it's vital to know the corporate plan for that department or subsidiary. If applying from outside it's necessary to research the organisation thoroughly. In either case interviewers must be clear on what the candidate feels he or she can bring to the post, with a vision of its future.
Image and body-language speak volumes in the first moments of an interview. So is careful speech and a confident manner in this final and crucial bid to achieve the goal of another post; a good career move.
Preparation pays - what's your tip for success? Share it with us.
A client, rejected after an interview procedure which failed to make an appointment clinched the high-powered executive position on a national professional body after successful coaching by one of our Focus for Change counsellors http://www.focus4change.co.uk/.
It's not uncommon for organisations to review an interview process which has failed to produce a successful candidate, advertise the post again to make a final selection. Again it's usual for unsuccessful candidates, having undertaken grooming for the interview, submit their application again - and win the job.
It's astonishing in this time of change with so many redundancies taking place organisations of all descriptions are unable to fill crucial posts - particularly at middle-management level.
Recognising the potential of existing staff and the importance of retaining them they can prefer to promote internally. But despite a good track record and confidence in the excellent job they're doing existing staff often lose out - because they fail to market themselves at interview.
This prompts an increase in our one-to-one grooming and mentoring services, preparing staff not only to move up but to recognise the need for forward thinking should they achieve the new post.
Preparation for interview is vital.The secret is in the correct planning. Having put so much energy into the application many candidates still fail the final fence. If the appointment is to an internal post it's vital to know the corporate plan for that department or subsidiary. If applying from outside it's necessary to research the organisation thoroughly. In either case interviewers must be clear on what the candidate feels he or she can bring to the post, with a vision of its future.
Image and body-language speak volumes in the first moments of an interview. So is careful speech and a confident manner in this final and crucial bid to achieve the goal of another post; a good career move.
Preparation pays - what's your tip for success? Share it with us.
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