No organization is the same. Each has its own unique needs. That’s why we consult with many of them to provide customized solutions. We carefully consider every facet of your industry, the dynamics of your internal organization, and the employee and customer experiences to craft a strategic solution specific to your business. We want a solution that doesn’t throw out the good things you’ve done before, but rather, one that takes all that is working within your organization and brings it to another level.

The following private, public, and non-profit case studies are with organizations big and small to give you a glimpse of the possibilities for how we can help you move forward.

Starwood Hotels & Resorts

In 2005, Starwood, known for Sheraton, Westin, Four Points by Sheraton, St. Regis, and W Hotels, embarked on a global revitalization of their many properties.  The challenge, as with many hotel chains, was that explosive growth during the previous decade created a multitude of different cultures, standards, and results.  For the Starwood Corporation, this complex initiative encompassed more than 125,000 employees across more than 1200 hotels around the world.

As part of a long-term strategy that included re-branded marketing and operational updates, we at World Class Benchmarking provided a comprehensive series of transformation training programs to reflect the newly clarified brands and the related recommitment to world-class guest service.  As part of this international roll-out, World Class Benchmarking designed, developed, and delivered the training that resulted, in less than a year, according to Starwood executives, in “a staggering success” in participant evaluation results, with “hundreds, perhaps thousands, of guest testimonials about significant improvements in the guest experience”.

These initial results reflect only the early stages of a fully-realized cultural transformation.  Every indicator shows dramatic improvements in the commonly accepted measures that define world-class success: leadership evaluations, employee excellence metrics, guest satisfaction and intent to return and refer, and initial improvements in operational improvements/savings with revenue trending stronger.

Case Study: Brookfield Zoo, Chicago

The Brookfield Zoo is one of the top zoological institutions in the country. Despite this, their ability to generate strong customer loyalty had dropped over several decades. In supporting the organization in moving a different direction, key leaders from Brookfield came to Orlando for a week-long retreat. From there, a customer loyalty strategy was crafted that included a number of strategies. Leaders were trained to lead customer-focused initiative. Zoo facilitators were selected and trained to deliver customer service programming. The trainers facilitated sessions for approximately 1,500 Crew Members and collectively spent over 900 hours on this effort.  Leadership tool kits were implemented so that daily conversations could occur with staff around service excellence. Though the program was implemented late in the Spring of 2005, according to summer surveys, non-member ratings for overall zoo visits – those who were “extremely satisfied” — increased 18% over 2004.  Some other significant improvements include:

  • Non-member ratings of overall value for cost – those who said the visit was an “excellent value” — increased nearly 12% over 20
  • Non-member ratings of the helpfulness of zoo staff – those who thought we “exceeded expectations” — increased nearly 8% over 2004.
  • Non-member ratings of “definitely will visit the Zoo again next year” – increased nearly 7% over 2004.
  • Nearly 65% of non-members listened to or interacted with zoo staff or volunteers regarding animals during their visit, compared to only 9% in 2004.  This shows an enormous behavioral change among staff.
Since then, Jeff has gone on to work with both the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle and the Houston Zoo.

Case Study: Office of Federal Student Aid, Department of Education

Imagine the possibilities, even the power, when everyone is pointed in the same direction with the same higher purpose in mind. If there is an example of this, it might be found in, of all places, the federal government. After being mandated by Congress into making performance improvements, the Office of Federal Student Aid set about to identify “best in business” practices on how to deliver world-class service. FSA selected The Public Strategies Group, who became their transformation partner. They then worked with Jeff Kober at the Disney Institute, whose approach to customer service is world-renowned. In early 2000, the Management Council first participated in a custom-designed program developed for FSA by Jeff and the Disney Institute in Orlando, Florida. From there, they brought Jeff Kober on board full-time through the Public Strategies Group to establish a new service mission to “Help Put America Through School”. It also identified service initiatives to implement FSA’s service standards, based on Jeff’s own experience working with other organizations at Disney to establish their service standards. Over the next few years, the following occurred:

  • FSA’s scores on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index dramatically rose.
  • Student loan default rates (close to 20%) were driven to record lows (down to 5%).
  • Collections were driven to record highs.
  • Employee satisfaction surveys shot from 38th out of 48 federal agencies to fourth, recording one of the biggest one-year improvements on a Gallup employee satisfaction survey ever recorded for a federal agency.

Since then, the agency has continued to modernize and integrate its systems, secured a clean audit, was removed from the GAO’s high risk list, and has trimmed its budget. All of these initiatives had their beginnings from creating their own balanced scorecard of improved customer satisfaction, improved employee satisfaction, and reduced unit costs.

Case Study: Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise

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The Florida Turnpike became the first governmental toll agency to be given the ability to function as a private enterprise.  The Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise’s goal was to become an innovative operation built on providing value at every part of the customer experience.  As part of the “We Drive Smiles” initiative, a series of awareness and skill-building service training sessions were delivered to all 1,400 team members across the entire state of Florida.

Within one year, this groundbreaking effort resulted in many impressive operational improvements, including:

  • Dramatic improvement of employee morale (up 18%) and customer satisfaction (92% would recommend to family/friends).
  • Expanding and increasing revenue, improved efficiency, cost-effectiveness and timely project delivery.
  • Leveraging resulting additional revenue to make substantial improvements to the existing road system, delivered six expansion projects, contracted most in-house functions to the private sector, promoted customer service, maintained financial stability and improved bond ratings.
  • Expanding responsibility for all operations on every FDOT-owned and operated toll road and bridge. This represents about 600 miles of roadway and 80 percent of all toll facilities in Florida.

Based on the amazing success of this service transformation, Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise was awarded the prestigious international President’s Award for Innovation and Excellence and later won the JD Powers Seal of Approval for Excellence.

Case Study: BenchMark Rehab Partners

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BenchMark Rehab Partners is the fastest growing physical therapy brand in the nation, growing from opening their first clinic in 1995 to nearly 400 clinics across 15 states, making them one of the largest providers of outpatient rehab in the US.  Among their differentiators is an emphasis on cultivating a healthy internal culture that drives extraordinarily individualized care to their patients.

In the midst of their growth, BenchMark Rehab executives realized that they needed to identify efficiencies to improve aspects of their multi-faceted operation that were sub-optimized and establish support systems in place to guarantee effective replication of their culture – particularly as they were expanding into different regions of the United States.  World Class Benchmarking was retained to help develop the strategies and tools to reinforce their existing brand and translate that across newly-established clinics.

Working with the senior executives and, eventually, with leadership across the entire organization, World Class Benchmarking introduced proven approaches from other best-in-class businesses to create cultural alignment and enhance their patient experience.

The largest challenges included having a widely-dispersed collection of clinics (almost a dozen, to date) and unifying the many common functions in the midst of tremendous growth.

After two years of consultation, BenchMark Rehab Partners earned significant improvements to their key success indicators, with metrics that include a 99.5% patient satisfaction score and functional improvement reported by 92.3% of their patients.

Case Study:  Bangor Savings Bank

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Improve customer service, with an emphasis initially around sales, but then extending throughout the entire bank. In particular, the focus was on improving internal customer service with employees at the bank.

SERVICES PROVIDED: Over a two-year period from 2012-2103, World Class Benchmarking was asked to host a major sales rally for hundreds of its sales associates. World Class Benchmarking is the only organization who has ever been asked to come twice in a row, because of the demand of sales associates for the programming they provided. Afterwards, World Class Benchmarking developed an internal customer service program, that included agendas, leader guides, workbooks, power point, handouts and other materials. After the program was developed and piloted, train-the-trainer development was provided to their staff, so it could continue to offer the program to its employees.

 

Case Study: City of Sammamish

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Improving customer service throughout in the services provided by the City of Sammamish. Sammamish is the bedroom town to the City of Redmond, which is headquarters for Microsoft. Its residents are particular about the quality of services they should expect from city government. Therefore, it was the vision of the City Manager to improve the quality of its services to its citizens. Ultimately, In 2012, Forbes magazine ranked The City of Sammamish as the friendliest city of America.

SERVICES PROVIDED: Working with city management, a service mission and values were established, then launched across the organization. External and internal service committees were established to help improve the city’s response to both its citizens and employees. From there a wide array of 10 different training programs were offered to the city employees, from being professional to dealing with difficult citizens; from collaboration to continuous improvement. Toolkits were created to provide ongoing support to staff in the delivery of exemplary customer service. Finally, individual coaching and consulting was offered.

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