The Customer Service Award in the Ely Business Awards is open to any business, no matter what sector.
Entrants must be able to demonstrate their customer service record by submitting a maximum of five testimonials.
The entry criteria:
• Staff training – How do you train your staff in customer care?
• Testimonials – How do you collect comments/feedback? And is it visible to staff and customers?
• Analysis – How do you gauge feedback including complaints and how do you go about resolving any issues?
• Strategies – What strategies do you have in place to help staff deliver the best level of customer service?
Last year the winner was Atrium Fitness, based on Newnham St in Ely, the judges said they “make a great job of welcoming new members and supporting and encouraging current ones”.
They added: “They have a comprehensive programme for eliciting customer feedback and then using it to improve existing facilities and introduce new ones.
“The result is a large and loyal band of customers, Altrium are a model example of how to create and manage customer service to great effect.”
On winning the award in 2017, a spokesman for Altrium said: “As this was our second year winning the award, we have taken it as a springboard to improve our service even further.
“We have introduced new equipment, new services and really fine tuned our offering. The team have been really driven by the recognition, which is lovely.”
The spokesman added: “The last year has been like many in our 26-year history.
“We have to respond to industry trends, but also make sure we keep our core offerings.
“Maintaining and pushing forward our memberships in an increasingly pressured environment is always the biggest challenge.
“We have plans to upgrade more of our gym equipment and buy some new spinning bikes.
“We have some of our team going to Germany to a trade show to bring back all the latest ideas and trends. We will then be bringing some of those to Ely.”
Talking about the company’s success, they said: “There have been a few, winning the customer service award was a big deal for the team.
“We didn’t know if we would win it for two years running, so to do that was really great.
“Our start to 2018 has been the biggest we have ever had. We had 567 new members join us in January, which is the biggest ever.
“It bought new challenges, which the team more than dealt with in their stride.”
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