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Wyboston Lakes clinches customer service award

Written by Paula Devine | 16 Nov 2012

Wyboston Lakes, the leading conference, training and leisure venue, has won the accolade for customer service in the annual Bedfordshire & Luton ‘Rising Stars’ Business Excellence awards. The achievement underlines the company’s comprehensive commitment to the training of all employees to provide exemplary standards of service not only to external customers, but also to working colleagues.

The awards, established as a highlight of the Bedfordshire business calendar, are now in their 19th year. The latest event took place on Thursday 8 November at Bedford Corn Exchange.

>Wyboston Lakes is consistently rated very highly for customer service in independent national research. For example, it has participated for many years in the national 'Hospitality Assured' programme, and in the last three annual assessments has been placed in the top 5% of all venues across the UK. It also has its own formal processes for gathering customer feedback, which consistently show approval ratings of well over 90 per cent.The primary platform for delivering exceptional levels of service is Wyboston Lakes’ innovative ‘ALWAYS’ initiative, which embraces all staff. Launched to employees in 2009 after a detailed review of procedures and methods of communication, its continuing objective is to drive satisfaction levels still higher and to achieve consistency of delivery, so that the venue provides genuinely world class levels of service. It was decided that a personalised and creative approach would be required to optimise the understanding, the commitment and the involvement of individual employees.
From induction, Wyboston Lakes actively encourages staff - of which it has approximately 250 - to “think like a customer” but to use their own natural style rather than work to a set formula. Customer care training is a major focus at company induction sessions and all staff are also assessed for customer friendliness. The venue also has processes that ensure that it listens to and involves employees. “The input of our people is clearly vital, because the great majority are on the front line,” explained Managing Director, Mark Jones: “This latest award is therefore a tribute to everyone working on our site.”
The award was received at the Bedford Corn Exchange by Dean Hall, General Manager, Conference & Training at Wyboston Lakes Executive Centre and Chelsey Hutchinson, the venue’s Customer Services Manager.he Rising Stars 2012 Awards were sponsored by Barclays Bank and supported by Premier Newspapers. The evening raised funds for the East Anglian Air Ambulance charity

Wyboston Lakes is the UK’s largest privately owned single site specialist, hotel, spa, conference and training venue, with two dedicated venues and a hotel on its 350 acre rural site located midway between Cambridge and Milton Keynes. All venues are self-contained with their own restaurants, relaxation areas and bedrooms.

Topics: Bedfordshire, Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce, business, East Anglia, offices, Wyboston Lakes, customer service, Luton, News, SEMLEP, Uncategorized

Paula Devine

Written by Paula Devine

Paula is Head of Membership and Global Services at Bedfordshire Chamber of Commerce.

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