In 2008 Ford Retail’s vision was to create a consistent service culture so that every customer’s experience was a great one – building trust and customer loyalty. They put employee engagement at the heart of the company and asked Customer Plus to create a behaviour transformation programme that could: - increase Ford Retail’s net promoter score; - involve the whole company so that everyone gained a nationally recognised customer service qualification; - reduce complaints; - improve employee morale, satisfaction and engagement; and - improve customer retention. This case study shows the outcomes of our response to that challenge.

1. Differentiating
Ford Retail in
a congested
marketplace
through driving
positive employee
behaviours

2. OUTCOMES
Our award-winning
behaviour change
programme delivered
customer experience
excellence for Ford Retail >

3. Ford Retail’s net
promoter score, one of
the key measures of
customer satisfaction
the programme set out to
address, has increased
from 81.3% to 86% for
car sales and 66% to
68% for servicing

4. On the bottom line,
through the recession
and a difficult trading
environment for autodealerships Ford Retail
grew sales by 8 per cent

5. Employee turnover has
dropped 35% since
the programme began;
employee satisfaction is
up 15%; internal survey
response rates are up
72% and the perception
of the importance of
customer service has
increased by 20% across
the business

6. Customers have
backed the programme,
making over 20,000
nominations for staff
who delivered a great
customer experience
through the ‘You make
the moment’ reward and
recognition scheme

7. Every single one of
the company’s 3,300
employees has been
trained and received
either a NVQ or a Ford
Retail Diploma in
customer service

8. The programme has won
awards year-on-year for
efficacy including the CIM
Marketing Excellence
Awards 2010, National
Customer Service Awards
2010, the MCA awards
2011 and the Customer
Service Training Network
awards 2013

9. BACKGROUND
Ford Retail is the UK’s largest Ford Dealer Group
owned by Ford Motor Company. Formed by
amalgamating independent dealerships with
widely varying operating operations and cultures,
the group encompasses several brands including
Dagenham Motors, Polar Ford, Brunel and
Heartlands. Ford Retail employs over 3,000 people
at 65 sites across the UK and Ireland.

10. CHALLENGE
In 2008 Ford Retail’s
vision was to create a
consistent service culture
so that every customer’s
experience was a great
one. They put employee
engagement first-andforemost and asked
Customer Plus to create a
behaviour transformation
programme that could:
✚✚ Increase Ford Retail’s net
promoter score
✚✚ Involve the whole
company so that
everyone gained a
nationally recognised
customer service
qualification
✚✚ Reduce complaints;
✚✚ Improve employee
morale, satisfaction and
engagement
✚✚ Improve customer
retention

11. SOLUTION
Building a behaviour
change programme to
drive customer excellence
and improve business
performance >

12. Spending time
to make it work
✚✚ Developed the Ford Retail Moments of Truth programme over 15 months
of consultation with leadership, employees, and over 500 customers
nationwide to establish the values customers expected and wanted and
devising an engagement strategy to ensure its success

13. Creating a set
of values Ford
employees believe in
✚✚ Delivered a set of six values and a value statement to act as a central pillar
of the programme and link training, communications, behaviours and
business performance together

14. Training 3,300
employees to the
highest standard
✚✚ Completed over 7,000 ‘man’ training days, 217 workshops, and 50
launch events throughout the lifetime of the programme to train
every staff member to NVQ or Ford Retail Diploma level – Ford Retail
is the only auto retailer to hold the Institute of Customer Service
TrainingMark for four consecutive years

15. Sustaining the
behaviours through
branded communications
✚✚ Developed a branded programme to reinforce the behaviours and
values, rolling out the brand across all collateral from screen savers
to training workbooks to mugs, posters and calendars. The collateral
kept the behaviours front-of-mind and reinforced their importance to
the Ford Retail operating model

16. Reinforcement through
a compelling reward and
recognition scheme
✚✚ Implemented the Ford Retail ‘You made the moment’ scheme,
encouraging customers and employees to acknowledge great customer
experience in the moment to retain employees belief in the programme
– the scheme has paid out £57,350 in high street vouchers to over
20,000 nominees so far

17. About
Customer Plus
Customer Plus is an award winning
customer experience consultancy.
We believe the world doesn’t have to
be difficult. Good customer experiences
should be every day, not every so often (if
you’re lucky).
Employee engagement – and by extension
happy employees – is critical to delivering
good customer experiences, with a great
experience for customers starting with
a great workplace for colleagues.
Contact us:
01332 840422
care@customerplus.co.uk
www.customerplus.co.uk
@CustomerPlus
We provide a full consultancy service to
our clients to improve employee
engagement, customer experience and
organisational performance, comprising:
Clear strategy
Memorable learning
Insightful research
Creative communication
So we help our customers help
their customers (both internal and
external) to improve organisational
performance.
Customer Service Training
AWARDS 2013
WINNER