12% lift in case management productivity for Auckland Transport, while improving customer satisfaction across all customer service channels

The following is from our huge library of client successes—why not discover how you can develop your team leaders capability to get better results?

Auckland Transport is responsible for transport services in Auckland, New Zealand.

“The learning and professional development I took away from the program has influenced my leadership approach and our Group performance more than any other I can recall. And, that comes from a General Electric (GE) alumni who was with GE across multiple countries during the heyday of GE being recognised as having one of the strongest leadership and learning programs of any organisation globally.

“You’re in expert hands with Blair. He draws on a multitude of evidence-based research combined with his own practical experience in leading teams and enabling results across many organisations and industries.

“Blair combines a unique set of skills. It's almost combining a management consultant with your top learning consultant and your best operational excellence consultant, all in one. And therefore, he has the ability to deliver on change.

“Blair takes a system level approach to things. The structure that Blair puts around his engagement meant that we were looking at a sustainable performance improvement as opposed to a quick learning fix.

“We've had an improvement in employee engagement. We've gone from an ENPS (Employee Net Promoter Score) of +10 to +28. In a 12-month period that is hugely significant. And attrition has reduced by 4%.

“We've seen an improvement in transactional customer satisfaction across all of our channels, from 73% to 77% in our service centers, and 80% to 85.5% in our contact center.

“And we’ve seen a 12% lift in throughput or productivity in our case management area.

“Having a tried-and-true framework for driving capability that lifts performance just saved me a whole lot of learning and failure that I didn't have to necessarily go through.

“I couldn't recommend highly enough an engagement with Blair. If you're looking for expertise around capability, and operational and sales performance, he's second to none.”

“I would like to be a people leader - I'm not in my current role - but I feel like out of all the training I've ever done, this would help me the most. And I've studied HR at University, I've done my master's degree.

“It's science-based, it's evidence-based, really practical bits and tools you can use.

“So many training courses I go to, you're taught the theory, but rarely are you sat there practicing what you learn. So practicing with colleagues in a safe environment - and then you coaching us along the way - was really beneficial.

“Using feedback and coaching as part of a skillset as a leader is so important, and it's something I noticed is so missing in organizations; we don't know how to give good feedback, and you will naturally be enhanced - in my view - as a leader, if you utilize this methodology.

“I was on another leadership course and ended up pulling out of that one. Maybe I was unfairly comparing it to yours, but your one has practical tools I can use on a regular daily basis. And the other one didn't.”

“This is my fourth leadership role within customer service. I’ve been a part of quite a few other courses. So my biggest reservation about the Accelerator was ‘will I learn something I’ve learned already?’, but that hasn’t been the case. The sessions have been so refreshing.

“I really enjoyed understanding the science behind things – the magic is in how practical your sessions have been. I now have a framework that I can take anywhere, and use with ease.

“Because I’d done so many role plays in your sessions, I was super confident to go back and practice with my team.

“I’ve seen a significant shift in motivation and behaviour within my team that’s resulted in the high-performance behaviour that we’re expecting at Auckland Transport.

“Without a doubt, I’d recommend that other managers and team leader work with you – I can’t recommend you more.”

“It was a very challenging year for us. We dealt with the biggest fare change in the company’s history. Naturally, we saw volumes increase. Team size doubled. We saw response times triple.

“Fast-forward to the end of the year, being able to drop our 4 to 5 week response times to an average of 8 days.

“Being able to see people grow and encouraged enough to step out of their comfort zone, that’s probably been my proudest result. If I was managing the way I had 12 months prior, I wouldn’t have seen that.

“When I’m having one-on-ones, my team are telling me they’re happy in this role, and they can see a difference in the way they’re being led.”

“One of the challenges I had before the Accelerator was providing corrective feedback. I was always extremely scared to go into those conversations. I was scared to offend people, or say something wrong.

“The Accelerator has given me confidence while giving positive feedback, and a lack of fear when I need to go into difficult conversations as they’re well accepted by team members.

“Your approach is extremely practical. My team’s motivation has gone up, and their self-confidence is growing.

“In April, we wanted to improve customer experience by 31st August. To achieve this, our goal was to improve average handle time of cases in our CRM queue from 8 to 7 working days. In June, after just 2 months, the average for the whole year was down to 7.6 working days.

“Another goal was to increase the average number of closed cases from 125 to 135 per month, per team member. After 2 months, in June, the average number was 136. So we’ve already beaten our goal, which is amazing.

“You’re a fabulous coach. I believe everyone in Auckland Transport should get this training. I’d 100% recommend you to other people.”

“I would absolutely recommend people work with Blair.

“I’ve been in organisations where you go through your mandatory leadership training. Everyone sits there and you get bored after a little while.

“But I think the way that our days were structured and the length of time we had - twice a week - meant that we were constantly thinking about what we were learning. It gave us time to do a little bit in-between. It forced me into practicing a lot more, which is great.

“Blair has always been really supportive and always available. He has an amazing teaching style and an approachable personality. I had an enjoyable experience.”

“The feedback process is completely different to what I’ve known as a leader, and I can see what a tremendous impact your coaching techniques that you’ve taught us have on the team.

“It’s a gentle approach to seeing results and success, and it’s not in any ways pushy or difficult.”