Events
Island’s travel hubs get learning disability training
Learning disability campaigner Dawn Gullis met with Europa staff at Anglesey airport to talk about making travel easier for people with a learning disability. Dawn has a learning disability herself, and works as Mencap Cymru’s external affairs officer. She talked about her own experiences to help staff better understand what they can do to improve travel for passengers like her.
Often, using public transport every day or going on holiday can very stressful for a person with a learning disability. Information (for example timetables) is often unclear; keeping money and tickets organised can be difficult; and individuals can also find themselves picked on by bullies or even have their learning disability mistaken as anti-social behaviour by staff. Distressing experiences on transport can meant that people are less eager to travel in future, which in turn makes it harder for them to enjoy community life, go to work, or have a holiday.
Dawn Gullis said:
"A lack of awareness can make transport very daunting, but there are some small things staff can do to make the process easier, like breaking down information, going to quiet areas, and using drawings and diagrams to explain things. Staff at Anglesey airport were very eager to learn more about learning disabilities, and we hope this will mean a better travel experience for people across Wales.”
Sam Betley, Europa’s Airport Manager at Anglesey added:
“Customer care is a top priority at Anglesey airport, and this means being flexible to people’s needs. We’ve had positive comments from people with learning disabilities and their families in the past, which is always nice to get. I invited Dawn here so that we could carry on this good work, and get a first-hand look at some of the obstacles people with a learning disability can face when they’re travelling.”
Mencap Cymru delivers free learning disability awareness sessions across Wales to professionals. Anyone wishing to book a session can call 02920 629 314 ext. 235.
National Customer Service Week 3rd - 9th October 2011
Each year Europa marks its commitment to customer service excellence by taking part in National Customer Service Week (NCSW), which is organised by the Institute of Customer Service.
National Customer Service Week is all about raising awareness of the commitment our teams give delivering service excellence and rewarding, educating, encouraging and recognising those that go the ‘extra mile’ for our customers.
Employees at Europa went to great lengths this year to promote National Customer Service Week by taking part in a number of organised activities like job swaps, quizzes/ puzzles, random acts of kindness, customer giveaways, fundraising as well as awards being presented to those that stand out when providing customer service.
Visit our Twitter page today to see some of the contributions that were made to NCSW @Europa-Services.
Click on the links below to find out what we did for National Customer Service Week:
Manchester Office
Daventry Office
Eldon Square, Newcastle
Manchester Office
Metrocentre, Gateshead
The Glades Shopping Centre, Bromley
Glasgow Office
Lakeside Shopping Centre, Grays
Europa Thurrock Council Team
Manchester Office
The Victoria Centre, Nottingham
The Manchester office held a bake sale to celebrate the end of a fantastic week of activities for NCSW. Amy Dowzell and Jennifer Delaney went around the office offering a full trolley service of hot and cold drinks as well as a series of cakes.
From the bake sale and trolley service the office managed to raise £38.10 for Doctors without Borders, which is going to be added to the money raised from the coast to coast.
The Daventry Office employees completed a series of activities in aid of National Customer Service Week. Everyone in the office participated in a series of challenges and puzzles to reinforce their participation in NCSW.
The activities that were completed during the week were as follows:
• Challenge Day’s: This is where any member of staff can be nominated by another employee to complete a specific challenge i.e. The Office Manager has to make tea/ coffee for the whole office during a specific period during the day.
Well done to Paul Witter for gracefully completing his challenge to make a cup of coffee for all of the finance team. Paul didn’t just stop there he very kindly decided he would extend his challenge and make coffee for the whole of the office.
John Quigley and Matt Carver were very successful in completing their challenge to assist the operations team with their office move. John and Matt were asked to set up a hot desk for the move.
Petsy Graham completed her challenge to eat a whole donut in one go and Joanna Hart was challenged to be tea lady providing cakes to the whole of the team.
• The Jigsaw puzzle challenge: The Europa and National Customer Service logo was chopped into jigsaw pieces, with employee’s names written on the back before they were hidden around the office.
The idea was to find a collect the pieces and then barter, bribe or just beg the person who had found your name to get your own jigsaw piece. Once collected the jigsaw was put together the task was completed.
The winner of a bottle of wine which was picked at random by Kevin McRae was Keith Moreman.
The Europa team at Eldon Square participated in National Customer Service Week by completing a series of tasks in the hope that, not only members of the public and employees get involved with the activities, but also to raise money for ‘Breast Cancer Awareness.’
The activities the team carried out during the week consists of the following:
• The customer service girls at Eldon Square raised money for ‘Breast Cancer Awareness’ by creating and selling a Charity Calendar. The calendar see’s all of the customer service girls dress up as 1950’s Pin up girls. The Calendars cost £5.00 with all proceeds going directly to the charity.
John Davies (Head of Customer Services, Europa) buying one of the Eldon Square Calendars to support Breast Cancer Awareness from Paula and Lorraine (Customer Service Representatives, Eldon Square)
• The team were on hand to provide shoppers with the best possible service they could wish to receive while visiting the shopping centre. This included anything from the customer service team patrolling the malls with red sashes on with ‘happy to help’ written on them, to giving out sweets and pens to members of the public visiting the centre.
• As well as the visitors receiving great service when visiting the shopping centre, the team were also rewarded for all of the hard work and effort they put in to provide outstanding service. Employees were rewarded with beauty treatments and a coffee morning with complimentary cakes and biscuit.
• Eldon Square also hosted a Job Swap whereby Adrian Francies (learning and development consultant, Europa) joined the Customer Service team for the day to spend a ‘day in the life of' a customer service representative.
In the Manchester office, as part of a job swap scheme for National Customer Service Week, Group Finance Director Russell Muldoon kindly agreed to spend the day as a Europa receptionist. He carried out a number of tasks during the day which included everything from taking calls, meeting and greeting visitors to binding documents.
Below are just some of the pictures from Russell’s day as the Manchester Office receptionist.
The Europa team at the Metrocentre, Gateshead were running various campaigns throughout the week to try and raise awareness for National Customer Service Week.
The Metrocentre employees were wearing sashes all week with ‘National Customer Service Week 2011’ written on them, which they wore when carrying out their everyday tasks. As well as this, they decorated their customer service desks and reception with balloons and sweets all in the hope that both members of the public and employees would get involved with the various activities that were carried out during the course of the week.
The team also produced nomination forms which alloweed members of the public to nominate employees who they believe provide excellent customer service; this can be anyone from cleaners to, security or customer service representatives. There were three prizes up for grabs, the winner receives a £50 gift card and the two runners up will receive £25 gift card.
Deborah Bunker (Learning and Development Consultant, Europa) also provided customer service training to members of both the Customer service and Security teams to ensure that members of the public recieve the highest quality service possible.
Team members at the Metrocentre also tyed in its 25th birthday with NCSW by having a prize giveaway. The customer service team awarded customers with anything from yo-yo’s, keyrings and pens as they enter the mall on the red carpets featured at the mall entrances.
The Glades Shopping Centre in Bromley showed their dedication to NCSW by organising a number of events to help raise awareness and support for the Lymph Node Analyser Appeal Charity.
Members of the customer service team collected donations and provided shoppers with the opportunity to add a beautiful rose to their ‘Bra of Inspiration’ which cost them £1. This acts as a tribute to a friend or loved one who has been touched by Breast Cancer.
As well as this heart-warming effort to raise awareness of the cause, Mark Mullin who is the Environmental Manager at the Glades Shopping Centre raised funds by cycling 1160 miles from John O’Groats to Lands End on a simulator bike In the shopping centre. Mark completed this challenge from 1st – 13th October.
The Glasgow office flew the flag for National Customer Service Week by running various activities throughout the week to not only raise awareness of the commitment the team gives when delivering service excellence but also to raise money for charity.
The various activities that were run in the office during the week were as follows:
• All week there was a fine system in place whereby people were charged 10p if they contact anyone in the office through internal phones or email. Instead they were encouraged to make the effort to go and speak to them face to face. If anyone in the office forgot to do this they were charged 10p which was then donated to charity.
• They also had a ‘Games day’ to keep the fun factor; people in the office were encouraged to complete quizzes and wordsearches. The winners of the various activities on ‘Games day’ were awarded with various prizes.
• Greig Brown the CEO of Europa kindly agreed to manage the company’s travel for a couple of hours during NCSW as part of a job swop scheme that the Office were running during the week.
Greig Brown, Chief Executive, swops places with Laura Lumsden, Travel Administrator, for NCSW
The team at Lakeside Shopping Centre worked hard to ensure that NCSW was at the forefront of everyone’s mind during the week. They arranged a number of fun filled events to get as many people involved as possible, some of which can be found below:
• Throughout the week employees carried out 21 random acts of kindness which worked out to be 3 a day.
• The customer service team all wore sashes and they decorated the help desk with balloons and other supporting material to further emphasise NCSW.
• In addition to this team members were issued with voting forms to discover which individual from each department and overall team had delivered the best Customer Service over the past 12 months. Individuals received £25 and the team won a day working in the store that wins the Best Service Category in the Retailer Awards.
• Employees were also asked to write down their ideas about how to ‘Enhance the Customer Experience’ at Lakeside. The employee with the best innovative idea received a day off.
• Lakeside also ran a series of in house quizzes for employees such as ‘guess the manager from the distorted photograph’. The winners were awarded with £25.00.
The Europa Thurrock Council team participated in NCSW by organising a number of activities involving all team members in recognising the good work that goes on, not just during NCSW week, but throughout the year.
The team kicked off the week with a Customer Service Quiz which was distributed to all members of staff within the Europa Office. The winner whom was rewarded with a bottle of wine for receiving the most points was David Crowley, Technical Services Manager.
They also ran a number of competitions whereby staff could work in teams to complete wordsearches to find as many words as possible. The team that found the most words were awarded with a tin of chocolates.
The winners of the wordsearch challenges were the 'Traffic Team' and the 'lands Team.'
The winners at the Europa Thurrock council office.
As well as this, throughout the week they ran a scheme where if a member of staff received a written compliment they were given a ticket which entered them into a raffle. Congratulations to Jeanne Robinson from the Business Support team who won the 'compliments raffle'
Employees in the Manchester Office ran a competition to find out which individuals have delivered the best customer service in the last 12 months, as voted for by their colleagues. The winners were awarded a bottle of wine with the runner up receiving a box of chocolates.
A massive congratulations to the following winners:
Finance winner and runner up:
1st place – Terry Stewart
2nd place – Rosemarie Thompson
Central Services Team winner and runner up:
1st place – Amy Adams
2nd place – Jonathan Mitchell
Our team at the Victoria Shopping Centre in Nottingham kicked off NCSW by attempting to complete a quest to raise money for a local hospital charity as part of their contribution to National Customer Service Week 2011.
The team aimed to walk/ cycle 500 miles on both treadmills and exercise bikes throughout the malls to promote the concept of “going the extra mile” when providing service to their customers.
