Two major assignments commenced this month as we welcomed new clients, Arriva Trains Wales and the Richmond Housing Partnership.

Power Train has begun work with Arriva Trains, which operates passenger rail services across Wales and the borders, to develop the all-new ‘Action Stations’ training programme. These events will be targeted at station management team members with the aim of enhancing the delivery of customer service during times of normal operation and particularly when service is disrupted. Particular attention is being paid to variations between stations including geographical differences, organisational structures and the diversity of customers.

Our other new client, the Richmond Housing Partnership is a not-for-profit organisation that owns and manages a wide range of social and affordable housing in the Richmond and Hounslow areas. We will be working with the Partnership to design and deliver ‘Raising The Roof’, a programme of events to underpin and drive a radical new service ambition. These events will equip its employees with the knowledge, skills and behaviours to deliver this sector-leading ambition to all its customers in a wide range of often challenging circumstances.

On a more personal note, our Commercial Manager Mike Andrews, completed a 56 mile charity bike ride from Bristol to Weston Super Mare (and back) on Sunday 17 July. Mike made it round the entire route in the pouring rain, including tackling the gruelling gradients of the Mendip Hills, donating all funds raised to the DEC East Africa Crisis appeal. Well-done Mike, you’re a hero!!

Power Train is delighted to announce an exciting new partnership with Audi UK, commencing with the development of the ‘Driven To Delight’ series of Roadshows. Rolling out nationwide to every Audi Centre employee throughout the UK, these unique interactive events will use cutting edge audio-visual and presentation techniques to bring to life this leading automotive brand’s transformational service vision, enabling everyone participating to fully understand, be immersed in and commit to delivery of a new industry-leading customer experience.

Also during June, Power Train designed and hosted a session at the Virgin Media Shared Services Conference held at the National Space Centre in Leicester. Before a packed audience of managers from the HR, Employee Services and Billing functions, we staged a live employee performance review. The review featured our highly experienced Actor Consultants as manager and team member and graphically demonstrated how best to utilise valuable opportunities such as these to engage with employees and build a springboard from which they are able to launch their own career development.

Towards the end of the month, and following a highly successful series of engagement sessions, we began delivery of the pilot of our ActNatural Customer Experience events for Contact Centre team members at CE Electric, the Distribution Network Operator for 3.8 million domestic and business customers in the North East of England. Continuing into July, the aim is to enable CE Electric to deliver the highest quality energy infrastructure customer service in the UK.

And finally, ‘The Power of Power Train’ event on 15 June was a great success! We’d like to thank everyone who attended for travelling to our office in Bristol, in some cases from as far as Zurich. From the feedback received, the demonstrations and discussions around the theme of ‘the low effort customer experience’ were found to be extremely thought-provoking by all concerned - and we would particularly like to thank our delegates for their valuable contributions to the debate. We are now actively thinking about the next event.

Power Train would like to congratulate Mercedes-Benz UK on winning the Automotive Management (AM) Award for ‘Best Training Programme’ for their Test Drive Experience. We worked with them to design and deliver an ActNatural session for these training events, called the ‘Route To Perfection’. The AM Awards are now in their twentieth year and are designed to recognise innovation and excellence within the automotive industry, so we are delighted to hear that all of the hard work has been well rewarded.

Our ‘Special Delivery’ programme for Geodis, Paris-based global specialists in supply chain optimisation, started rollout in Frankfurt during May and continues throughout June, July and September.  As announced in our January News bulletin, these events have been designed to enable delivery of the Geodis Supply Chain Optimisation (GSCO) Customer Experience Model, by synergising organisation, process and behaviours.

Further Mercedes-Benz projects in May included the evaluation phase of its Commercial Vehicles ‘In The Spotlight’ programme. These highly popular engagement events were designed to enable managers to focus on the unique aspects of the MBCV brand, and develop an entrepreneurial mindset when it comes to identifying opportunities for growth, innovation and development.  In support of these key activities, we worked with the Road Range franchise in Liverpool to deliver very successful half-day events for the Dealership managers there; examining the key messages behind the MBCV brand and empowering the participants to create their own unique vision for their Dealership.  Each manager then took the new vision and mindset back to communicate to their staff, generating a proactive and unified approach to MBCV brand delivery.

Finally, we would like to congratulate Matt Robinson, one of our Actor Consultants, who did such an excellent job for Virgin Media on their ‘Manager Assessment Days’ that they awarded him an Oscar! These intense sessions were designed to put the managers’ skills to the test, and Matt used his ActNatural knowledge and experience to bring to life a performance management conversation between an employee (played by himself) and his manager.  It was Matt’s experience and ability to authentically convey various character traits and provide thoroughly constructive feedback that really impressed the Virgin Media teams.  Well-done Matt!

We are very pleased to announce that we will shortly be working with ASDA for the first time to develop an innovative sales engagement programme to be rolled out in every store. We will also be working with another new client, CE Electric to design and rollout a series of customer experience engagement events for in excess of three hundred managers.

Furthermore, new projects with Virgin Media are also underway. We will be working with them to create a training film on ‘The One Virgin Experience’ specifically for their employees in the Philippines and India. Production will take place in May and Virgin Media’s overseas managers will then carry out the associated training in June. Virgin Media has also commissioned Power Train to design a film for showing at its brand new ‘Remedy Academy’. The film will be incorporated into a series of training sessions specifically designed to increase the company’s efficiency and responsiveness to customer needs when dealing with repair and maintenance issues

Power Train is also delighted to announce that we will be hosting our very own invitation event for senior managers, ‘The Power of Power Train’, on Wednesday 15 June at our office in Bristol. Starting at 11.00 and ending at 15.00 (with lunch provided of course!), we will be highlighting some of the key issues to consider when striving to gain employee engagement and deliver excellent customer service. We’ll be demonstrating how Power Train can successfully deliver this change and, in particular, we will draw on our extensive experience to examine ways to ensure that any training delivered in this area achieves a maximum return on investment. If you would like more information, please contact Charlotte Boston or Rebecca Green on 0117 9221500 or email info@powertrain.co.uk.

Power Train was delighted to be working with Farrow & Ball, a designer and manufacturer of high-end interior decoration products, during March to deliver training events for their Customer Service and Sales Teams. The events were designed to enable their employees to utilise ActNatural personality awareness, while successfully conveying the company’s vision and values of honesty, excellence and passion. The training explored the Farrow & Ball Customer Experience, including both telephone conversations and written communications with clients, and ways of harnessing individual strengths while conveying the company’s corporate personality.

Our work with Virgin Media also continued this month, with the addition of its TiVo training programme. Virgin Media’s new TiVo product is a Set Top Box with a difference – hosting many new features and capabilities. The training events are being delivered to every Virgin Media Field Service Engineer in the UK, providing the technical expertise they need to install and maintain the new TiVo Set Top Box. Power Train’s excellent track record with Virgin meant we were the perfect team to deliver their TiVo training.

On a different note, our very own Aly Veale, Head of Client Services, and Rebecca Green, Business Development Manager, attended the Institute of Customer Service Conference on 22-23 March, and the UK Customer Satisfaction Awards Ceremony on 22 March at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square Hotel. Power Train sponsored the ‘Quality Service Provider of the Year Award’, which Aly presented to the category winner, ChessTelecom. We would like to congratulate all the finalists of the category, including; Siemens, Teleperformance, Lloyds TSB, East Riding Leisure, and of course, the winners Chess Telecom.

February has seen much activity at Power Train.

Delivery of our 'Look Who’s Calling' programme was completed for the British Gas' Credit & Operations teams in Hattersley, with further design and planning now underway for non-operational staff. The new events will involve all non-customer-facing employees as British Gas makes excellent progress on its journey to developing a fully customer-centric business culture; they will focus on the behaviour and actions that impact favourably on both the end-user and their own colleagues.

Our work with Kraft Foods Europe continued with their three day 'Coffee Ambition' conference staged in Switzerland. Power Train was asked to design and host the interactive launch session for over 140 of their top leaders. Our remit was to introduce this key strategy whilst generating the mindset required to deliver on the new Ambition, thus confirming Kraft's leadership in this highly competitive market sector.

Our successful Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles 'CV In The Spotlight' events and NIE Energy's 'Powering Ahead' programme continued into February, with NIE Energy commissioning additional leadership and coaching events for 'Powering Ahead'.

A little bit of snow in December certainly didn't prevent Virgin Media's employees receiving essential training, with the delayed 'Simply Brilliant' events successfully rescheduled and completed in February. Power Train also ran some additional 'mop-up' events for those within the business who were unable to attend the scheduled events.

Happy New Year from all of us at Power Train!

January has seen a great start to 2011 and, with events less hampered by snowfall, NIE Energy’s ‘Powering Ahead’ programme has commenced roll-out. A Directors Cut was held in Belfast for the leadership team and key stakeholders, and three Launch events were hosted in Cookstown for Customer Service Advisors, Team Leaders and Contact Centre Managers. The customer experience events have also commenced with the focus on moving from process-heavy to customer-centric.

Our new assignment with Geodis, global specialists in supply chain optimisation, has commenced with the diagnostic for their ‘Special Delivery’ programme of events. The aim is to define and then enable delivery of the new Geodis Supply Chain Optimisation (GSCO) Customer Experience Model with a focus on the actions required to overcome process and organisational obstacles. This programme will ensure that all targeted personnel understand their roles and responsibilities when delivering the GSCO Customer Experience. Power Train commenced the diagnostic by holding in-depth interviews with senior decision-makers to ensure that all key issues are addressed and the events are as true-to-life as possible. Delivery is due to commence in Frankfurt in March.

January also saw us working with RIAS, another new client from the insurance sector. We led sessions at their ‘Town Hall Events’ in Belfast and Bournemouth where our Actor Consultants brought to life a Claims related conversation with a Very Important Policy (VIP) holder. Aimed specifically at enhancing the customer experience for this key client segment, each session was attended by around 120 employees.

The Virgin Media pilot Contact Centre Roadshows in December were highly successful so roll-out has continued this month for Virgin Mobile teams in Trowbridge. These ninety-minute events encourage individual team members to re-examine customer expectations and explore ways to deliver even higher levels of customer service that truly reflect the Virgin brand.

Looking ahead, Power Train is proud to be a contributor to this year’s UK Customer Satisfaction Awards hosted by the Institute of Customer Service (ICS). We are sponsors of the ‘Quality Service Provider of the Year’ award, and will be hosting a table with the finalists of the category on the evening of 22 March at the London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square.

Although the month of December saw much of the UK suffer due to the snow and ice, Power Train managed to keep busy despite the weather! These are some of the highlights.

We held a joint presentation with Kraft Foods at their ‘Momentum Through Teamwork’ conference in Barcelona on 8 December. Our session, called ‘Make My Day Delicious’, was aimed at their top 200 managers in Europe. It was high-impact, inspirational and interactive, focusing on bringing to life the company’s leadership strategy and applying it to delivery of the employee experience.

Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles hosted a National Dealer Meeting on 16 December which was attended by senior managers from across the UK. The theme was ethical, high quality customer service, delivered to re-enforce the company’s premium image whilst addressing key compliance issues. Power Train designed and led the ‘Is This Mercedes-Benz?’ workshop session where the Dealer representatives analysed a range of service challenges and developed practical improvement strategies that reflected the theme of the day.

December also saw completion of the design of NIE Energy’s ‘Powering Ahead’ programme, ready for roll-out to commence in January. As part of the preparations, we co-presented an in-company ‘Customer Centric Strategy’ day to ensure full alignment and integration with the training.

Prior to Christmas, we worked with the Collections and Virgin Mobile teams within Virgin Media, delivering pilot Roadshows in Birmingham, Nottingham and Trowbridge. These quick-fire ninety-minute sessions encouraged individual team members to re-examine customer expectations and explore ways to deliver even higher levels of customer service that truly reflect the Virgin brand.

November has been an exciting month for Power Train, with our new brand image officially launched on Monday 8 November. So far we have received lots of really positive comments, so thank you to everyone who took the time to look around the site and let us know what you thought - it is much appreciated!

In the same week as the launch of our new brand, Power Train sponsored the WOW! Awards Ceremony on 9 November at the Troxy Theatre in Limehouse, London. The WOW! Awards is an employee recognition scheme that aims to raise the standard of customer service across all industry sectors. The nomination scheme runs throughout the year and is based entirely on customer feedback, with the final ceremony awarding the best of the nominees from across the year. Power Train were sponsors of the ‘WOW! That’s What I Call Service’ Award, and Jill Dean, our Managing Director, presented this to the winner, LOVEFiLM.

Our ‘Management In The Spotlight’ events with Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles continued throughout November, with the design and rehearsal for Day 3 of the event for all Dealer Principles and Managers. Day 1 and Day 2 of these events focussed on creating the vision for customer experience and then defining and developing it to provide a unique customer service experience. Day 3 will demonstrate how to practically apply these ideals, and look at how to motivate staff to deliver this successfully.

After our very well-received contribution to Virgin Media’s customer contact conference in September, Power Train was invited to design a programme of events for their ‘One Virgin Media’ contact centre roadshows. Diagnostics and design started in November and the roadshows will be rolled out to their ‘Collections’ and ‘Mobile’ contact centres from the beginning of December.

Other diagnostic and design projects in November include further work with British Gas on their ‘Look Who’s Calling’ events for the Credit & Operations field teams. The events for the field teams will go live at the end of November.

We would like to thank Everything, Everywhere for supporting and recommending Power Train to Kraft Foods Europe, one of the World’s largest food and beverage companies. Power Train will be holding a session called ‘Make My Day Delicious’ at their ‘Momentum Through Teamwork’ Conference in Barcelona on 8 December.

Power Train is very pleased to announce that we will shortly be working with NIE Energy, part of the Veridian Group, which supplies electricity to around 790,000 homes and businesses across Northern Ireland. Our 'Powering Ahead' events will be rolled out across their three sites in Belfast, Omagh and Ballymena. This behavioural change programme, designed and developed to increase retention of NIE Energy's most valuable customers in the face of accelerated competition will be delivered to 65 Contact Centre Advisors. The programme will showcase the NIE Energy Customer Experience, enabling the Advisors to recognise, emotionally engage with and respond to the individual needs of different types of customers. The first events are set to commence in January 2011.

We are also pleased to reveal the launch date of our new brand image! Having worked hard over recent months to create an accurate reflection of the Power Train concepts, methods and mindsets, we will now be able to better present the full range of services we offer. So our brand new website and corporate identity is set to launch on Monday 8 November 2010, and we will be in touch shortly afterwards to introduce it to each of our clients, suppliers and other contacts. We hope you like it as much as we do and look forward to your feedback!

Power Train was invited to present a case study at the BAE Systems 'Global Combat Services Readiness and Sustainability' conference in Stockholm this month. As the global economic climate generates significant changes in customer-supplier relationships and expectations throughout the defence industry, we were able to give the senior managers attending the conference 'warts and all' insights into the evolution and sustained delivery of an exceptional customer experience to a global cliental in an engineering based environment.

We were also pleased to contribute a key session at Virgin Media's 'Customer Contact Conference' on 15th and 16th September. 230 Team Managers working in the Customer Services and Retention Divisions attended the event, which was held at St James Park, home of Newcastle United Football Club. The focus was on 'One Virgin Media - One Team, One Goal, One Experience'. Through the surprise intervention of two Newcastle United fans - and Virgin Media customers (aka Power Train Actor Consultants) we brought to life issues which are critical to the delivery of the One Virgin Media message. The session has since been described by Virgin Media as 'pivotal in focusing managers on the Customer Experience we are committed to deliver'.

Our brand new training programme with Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles - 'Management In The Spotlight'- commenced rollout in August; with the initial Directors Cuts targeted at General Managers and their Dealer Principles. The programme has since been rolled out to their sales managers and after-sales managers across the business. We look forward to further great results over the coming months. Power Train will be attending Virgin Media's 'Customer Contact Conference' on 15th and 16th September, and is also working with the Virgin team to design the customer segment of the conference. The focus of this event will be themed around delivering the one Virgin Media experience, and Power Train will be bringing to life a selection of real-life scenarios in partnership with Virgin Media. We are pleased to announce that we are now working with a new area of British Gas; Credit & Operations. They have invited Power Train to design their own version of 'Look Who's Calling' and will be starting the roll-out of this programme at the end of September. Furthermore, British Gas Services has seen great results from our recent work with them on their 'Look Who's Calling' training programme; with a significant increase in NPS scores for those that attended the course, as well as an uplift in sales conversion rates.

Power Train's one-year rollout of 'I'm Not A Number' with Aviva concluded in July, with the Customer Experience and Leadership Events successfully completed. Virgin Media's 'Simply Brilliant' programme also came to an end, after starting 18 months ago with the initial pilot. Furthermore, our first project with WRc started and was completed this month; the focus for WRc was to improve their employee experience through delivery of Senior Leadership events. Finally, the Retention Team at British Gas Services in Uddingston also completed their part of the 'Look Who's Calling' rollout in July; however, Power Train and British Gas continue to work together, and there will be further 'Look Who's Calling' events in Uddingston in August for the British Gas Services Area Operations Team.

Power Train would like to thank everyone who took part in our Client Satisfaction Survey, we really do value the feedback we have received and look forward to seeing how we can improve our offering in the future. Our congratulations have been passed on to Simon Connolly of Virgin Media, who won the draw for the Mercedes-Benz World Driving Experience by taking part in the Survey.

On a more charitable note, our Client Services Manager, Lucy Davies, has been raising money for Oxford Cancer Care. Lucy, and 24 of her friends, completed a 10 mile sponsored walk along the Thames Path on the 17th July. The Power Train office was also treated to a charity cream tea and cakes afternoon and, thanks to Lucy's efforts, a whooping £1,457.00 has been raised so far; and there are still further donations and sponsorship trickling in. Well-done Lucy!

Power Train is delighted to announce that we will be working with Mercedes-Benz Commercial Vehicles from September onwards to deliver a leadership programme across the UK. With the primary objective of improving customer satisfaction levels and revenue generation, the programme will be aimed at targeted dealership principles, general managers and sales and after-sales managers. It will be 'a unique and inspirational leadership programme that will provide key managers with the skills and capability to improve internal service quality and external service value; thereby increasing revenue growth and profitability'.

Power Train sponsored the Trainer of the Year award at the South West Contact Centre Awards on Thursday 24th June at the Grand Thistle Hotel in Bristol. Jill Dean, our Managing Director, presented the award to the winner, Mark Dolman of Computershare.

On a sportier note again this month, our MD Jill Dean ran the Bristol 5K for the British Heart Foundation on the Tuesday 22nd June. It was a very hot day and Jill did the course in just 25 minutes, so very well done!

Our extensive assignments with Virgin Media and Aviva have continued throughout May, and British Gas Energy First commissioned a roadshow event to communicate their brand values and excellent customer service culture. Power Train will also be working with WRc, an innovative water and environmental consultancy group; we will roll-out a sustainable behavioural change programme in leadership for the senior members of their team.

We attended the long-awaited European Customer Experience World Conference at the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow on 18th and 19th May. Our round-table discussion and joint presentation with Mercedes-Benz were a great success! We chaired our round-table discussion on the 18th called 'We are Mercedes-Benz' - debating the issues, options and thinking behind employee personalities and Power Train's unique approach. On the 19th Jill Dean, Managing Director, lead a joint presentation with Mike Belk, President and CEO Daimler Middle East & Levant FZE. Jill conducted a Q&A session with Mike around our work with Mercedes-Benz, and actors were used to demonstrate the scenarios discussed by Jill and Mike. We also had a stand in the exhibition area, where we set up a bedroom scene and were offering the chance to win a Mercedes-Benz World driving experience - so congratulations to Jenni Ebben at M&S Money who will have received her prize in the post.

On a sportier note, three members of Power Train took part in the Bristol 10k Run on 8th May, and they all made it to the finish line in one piece, so well done!

April has been another busy month of new business proposal submissions.

In addition to these, Virgin Media continues to book further Induction events for the Service Engineers new to their business, and Virgin Trains has also booked another 'Very Good Leadership' event for their Supervisors.

This month Power Train has been very busy preparing for the European Customer Experience World Conference at the Renaissance Hotel at Heathrow, where we will host a round-table discussion on Managing Change and deliver a joint session with Mercedes-Benz. Jill Dean will interview Mike Belk, who is now President and CEO of Daimler Middle East and Lavant, on the key role our partnership played in turning round their customer service offering.

For further details, see www.ecew.co.uk or email Maggie Wheeler of The Focus Group on maggie.wheeler@thefocusgroup.org.uk

The onset of Spring brings more refreshing news for Power Train.

British Gas Services has awarded Power Train a contract to design and deliver a Customer Experience and Leadership programme to approximately 150 Agents and Team Managers in their Uddingston centre in Scotland. This programme will be run with a view to it rolling out further across the Services business.

During the month of March, Power Train also contributed to a series of Roadshows for the Orange UK Finance team, showcasing a new set of behaviours for the business.

We continue to develop our relationship with Visa Europe, who have commissioned Power Train to design and deliver a specialist Customer Experience programme for their Customer Support team of approximately ninety people.

We congratulate two important clients, Mercedes-Benz and Virgin Atlantic Airways, for coming top of their respective sectors in the UKCSI tables for the Automotive and Transport sectors. They picked up their awards at the recent Institute of Customer Services Awards Dinner. Jill Dean, Client Services Director, Power Train and Simon Arnold, Director of Customer, Aviva Health, ran a sixty minute session at the same ICS Conference that focused on how we are working together to ensure that staff in the Aviva Contact Centres keep the promise that, 'You Are Not A Number', in all their dealings with up to 2.5 million customers.

Looking ahead, Power Train will be hosting a Round-Table Discussion on Managing Change and also delivering a joint session on Employee Engagement with Mercedes-Benz (winner of the Automotive sector Institute of Customer Service award) at the European Customer Experience World Conference on 18-19 May 2010, to be held at the Renaisance Heathrow Hotel. For further details, see www.ecew.co.uk or email Maggie Wheeler of The Focus Group on maggie.wheeler@thefocusgroup.org.uk.