Professional Development

North Star Housing Group, a housing association managing 4,000 properties with a team of just 100 colleagues, has always prided itself on strong relationships with its tenants. But in 2023, the leadership team recognised the need to reset what customer service truly means across the organisation.

“We were getting good satisfaction levels from the frontline,” explains Sean Lawless, Director of Customer Experience and Transformation. “But once you moved away from customer service roles, the consistency wasn’t as strong. We wanted to invest in what customer service means for colleagues across the board.”

As part of this organisational reset, North Star enrolled staff in our Customer Service Essentials certificate course. With representation from across the business, from Apprentices to Senior Managers and Directors, almost a quarter of colleagues have now completed the training. Importantly, every one of the organisation’s 12 local “Heart Beats” groups, which bring together customers and employees of North Star to build stronger community connections, had a representative involved.

The training also extended beyond North Star’s direct employees. Because the organisation relies on external contractors for repair services, the programme was delivered collaboratively with those partners too. “It was refreshing to hear their perspectives,” Sean notes.

The training provided what Sean describes as several “penny drop” moments for colleagues. Two activities in particular stood out: a video example on customer expectations, which highlighted the gap between what customers want and what organisations sometimes deliver, and the ‘moments of truth’ exercise, which helped participants see where small interactions can have a big impact on customer experience.

Reflection on the use of positive language, especially in written communication, was another powerful takeaway.
Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “The training has been fantastic,” says Sean. “People found it really worthwhile and a timely refresher for everyone.”

But for Sean and the leadership team, the training is just the beginning. Their goal is to create a clear and shared definition of what customer service means at North Star, whether for internal colleagues or external customers.

Work is already underway to ensure this learning is embedded into everyday practice. Sean is also using The Institute’s Business Benchmarking annual survey to identify areas of improvement. Looking ahead, North Star has set itself an ambitious goal: to achieve a customer satisfaction score of above 85 in its next survey.

For North Star, the training has not only refreshed colleagues’ skills but also reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to service excellence.

As a long-standing member of The Institute, Sky recently set out to shift from a culture focused on product and process to one centred around meaningful customer outcomes. The rollout of this transformation began in September 2023, starting with a bold initiative to empower leaders across customer service roles with the skills to coach more effectively and consistently.

One of the key figures in this transformation is Clare Price, a seasoned coach with over 20 years of experience, including 16 in the military. Clare was among the first to complete The Institute’s Train the Trainer programme, helping to embed a new coaching mindset across Sky’s service teams in the UK and offshore sites such as Bulgaria.

The Train the Trainer programme was part of Sky’s strategic move into their next phase: ‘Believe in Better’. Leadership roles received Coaching for Service Performance training, while advisors focused on Customer Service Essentials. This dual approach ensured that both managers and front-line staff aligned around the same service values. To date, 6 Sky trainers have been approved through The Institute’s programme, delivering over 317 Coaching for Service Performance sessions and 205 Customer Service Essentials sessions across UK and offshore locations.

Clare admits she was initially unsure what the course would add to her skillset. “I’ve been coaching for years. I thought, am I actually going to learn anything?” she said. “Day 2 really helped me get a clearer picture of my coaching style, it showed me what I’m naturally good at and where there was room for growth.”

Sky’s service operations span multiple continents, and the training had to work across diverse environments. Trainers delivered sessions both face-to-face and virtually to teams in the UK, Bulgaria, and beyond. “We cover a big stretch of the world,” Clare notes. “Having consistent coaching principles helps create a more unified customer experience.”

The impact has been clear. Leaders who have received coaching from Clare and her team have noticed strong behavioural shifts. One participant described the training as “the best session I’ve had from Sky in 18 years.” Now that initial training is complete, Sky is focused on embedding the learning into everyday practice. Clare and her colleagues are working on creating workshops and ongoing development opportunities to ensure the training continues to evolve with the business. “We’re being more intentional with our conversations now,” she says.

As Sky continues to invest in its people, the lessons from Train the Trainer are helping to redefine what customer service looks like across departments, from sales advisors and home service engineers to retail staff and the service department. Clare’s journey demonstrates the power of structured training to not only upskill teams but to fundamentally shift organisational culture.

Find out more about Train the trainer here.

National Records of Scotland (NRS), the official archive for Scotland’s government and people, has always prided itself on the delivery of reliable services. But for Customer Experience Manager Alan Jordan, true excellence in customer service meant pushing further, more than simply delivering a service to understanding and responding to the needs of every individual customer. That’s what led NRS to The Institute’s training, a decision that Alan says has been “incredibly effective.”

The organisation first engaged with FirstImpressions (now known as Customer Service Essentials) as part of a wider conversation about raising customer service standards and aligning practices with those of other leading organisations across the UK. The initial results were so promising that a second round of training was commissioned. This time, the cohort was intentionally diverse, bringing together staff from account-facing departments, extract services, and other key stakeholder areas. The group included both new joiners and long-serving employees, which presented a unique challenge to the trainer but created a valuable opportunity for shared learning.

“It wasn’t so much a refresher,” Alan explained, “it was just skills that they never realised were required in the first place.” Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive. “There were no negative comments – even from people who had been in a while… they actually saw the benefit.” Employees not only absorbed the content of the training but began sharing it with colleagues, creating what Alan described as “an organic best practice” culture emerging within the organisation.

The training helped NRS develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of what it means to serve customers, moving away from a transactional mindset to a more empathetic, person-centred approach.

Alan also emphasised the value of the external perspective brought by The Institute. “The Institute had recommendations we wouldn’t have thought of internally, and it was great to have that outside input.”

In contrast to the often narrowly focused in-house training, The Institute’s programme offered broader, cross-sector insights. “The external training gave us a much broader and beneficial perspective.”

Looking to the future, NRS is planning to integrate the training into its regular staff development cycle, using it to onboard new recruits and continually refresh existing team knowledge. Alan is already planning the next phase of training.

Ultimately, the training has sparked a positive shift within NRS, one that recognises the value of each customer interaction and the power of continuous learning. “This has proved to be very useful,” Alan said simply. And with plans for ongoing engagement with The Institute, the organisation is well on its way to embedding customer excellence at every level.

In today’s increasingly complex financial service environment, organisations are facing new and evolving challenges. The rising cost of living has significantly shifted the way customers interact, leading to more emotionally charged, complex and often prolonged vulnerabilities. Recognising this shift, one of our members, CA Auto Finance UK, took proactive steps to equip their teams with the tools, confidence and consistency needed to meet these demands, turning to The Institute’s ‘Handling Challenging Customer Interactions’ and ‘Introduction to Vulnerable Customers’ workshops.

CA Auto Finance UK, which had already embedded a strong training and development culture across its operations, noticed a growing number of more difficult conversations emerging in their contact centre. Through routine quality checks, it became evident that teams were finding it harder to get to the heart of customer concerns, particularly when dealing with longer-term vulnerabilities.

“Previously, we might have seen short-term vulnerability. But this is different” – said Kelly Manners, Senior Customer Operations Manager. Over the course of two weeks, 75 colleagues from across a number of customer facing departments took part in The Institute’s workshops. Team leaders and managers also joined the sessions, which provided an added layer of insight into how their teams were approaching difficult conversations.

While the organisation already enjoyed strong customer satisfaction and NPS scores, this training wasn’t about improving those metrics, it was about protecting them. “We wanted to get ahead, making sure our teams felt confident and capable, not just now, but as the landscape continued to change,” said Kelly.

Feedback from participants highlighted several standout benefits. Many valued the opportunity to revisit foundational skills in a real-world, practical context. Others emphasised the importance of having examples and scenarios that mirrored the nature of their own customer interactions.

By mixing participants across departments, the training also helped break down silos, foster greater collaboration and build a deeper understanding of the end-to-end customer journey.

Participants’ qualitative written feedback highlighted the value and relevance of the sessions, with comments such as: “Excellent course… delivered in an engaging and informative way,” “It sparked a lot of helpful discussion… gave an awareness of vulnerability internally as well as externally,” and “The trainer was fantastic -very engaging and relatable.”

Through a post-course survey, confidence ratings also increased from 7.1 to 9.3 after the Introduction to Vulnerable Customers training, and from 8.0 to 9.1 following the Handling Challenging Customer Interactions session.

Crucially, the independence and credibility of The Institute’s training helped boost agents’ confidence. “Because it was delivered by The Institute, it gave our teams reassurance that they were being equipped with best practice, particularly in situations where the right customer outcome isn’t always the easiest one.”

With eyes now set on achieving ServiceMark accreditation, CA Auto Finance UK continues to demonstrate what it means to empower their teams in a changing world.

Terri Woollard, Head of Special Projects and Training, and Lydia Scofield, Customer Care Executive, share their thoughts on training and professional development. Lydia also explains how undertaking the Institute’s FirstImpressions course has helped her develop effective communication skills and deliver service excellence through teamwork.

Andy Page, Ruth Braysher and Holly Hudson of Cambridge University Press & Assessment discuss The Institute’s Professional Development.