COMMITMENTS ARE MORE THAN JUST WORDS

How training in emotional awareness is helping to improve customer service

Better understanding ourselves and our customers has many benefits, including lower levels of stress, greater resilience, and more positive interactions with others.

This is why all frontline colleagues recently took part in training to learn more about behaviours and personality types – of themselves and our customers.

The aim is that it will help all of us respond with empathy, confidence, and the right approach in every interaction.

There were two sessions, each delivered a few months apart. The first session saw colleagues go through a behavioural profiling tool that helped them visualise their behaviour. The second training session focused on how colleagues interact with customers. The time between sessions was deliberate to allow everyone to reflect on what they had learned.

Equipping colleagues

The training was part of a wider Customer Commitments Programme, which consists of ten commitments to our customers (see them below).

Dawn Kolokotroni, customer experience strategy manager

Dawn Kolokotroni, customer experience strategy manager

“From a customer experience perspective, how we deliver our services is just as important as what we deliver,” explained Dawn Kolokotroni, customer experience strategy manager. “If you're in a customer-facing role, understanding people's behaviours, different behavioural types, and how you react to situations is really useful. If you're more aware, it can help you moderate your own behaviour.”

Pauline Lawler, customer experience strategy delivery manager

Pauline Lawler, customer experience strategy delivery manager

Pauline Lawler, customer experience strategy delivery manager, continued:“We want to equip colleagues with emotional awareness toreally understand themselves and others. This can help them with coping strategies and minimise stress at work, and they can apply it to their everyday lives too.”

Shaped by the frontline, for the frontline

The second session was shaped by feedback from peer trainer and station assistants Aftab Rakhda and Shannell Phillips-Turner. Aftab also helped to deliver the second session, ensuring it was relevant for colleagues.

“It was great helping to design the course,” said Aftab. “We wanted to demonstrate that the commitments aren’t just words – they help us do our job regardless of what position you are in.

Aftab Rakhda, peer trainer and station assistant

Aftab Rakhda, peer trainer and station assistant

“So, we went through the commitments and how they fall into each role and discussed different examples of behaviours related to them. We opened it up to everyone, and if they felt comfortable enough, asked them to share their experiences. Learning about behaviour will stay with people more than just the words.”

Looking ahead

Aftab believes the training has helped colleagues become more self-aware. “I gave an example of a passenger who is looking at the screen and asks when the next train is,” said Aftab. “They might not be able to read the time, or they might have a hidden disability. People said they’d never thought of it that way. So, it’s about having that awareness.”

The Customer Commitments Programme is part of ARL’s broader commitment to colleague development, and Pauline and Dawn hope further modules will be developed in the future.

“Eventually we want to map everything we do in terms of training back to the customer commitments,” said Pauline. “In the past, customer training initiatives have ended when the session ends, but the classroom element of it should be the beginning. So, we're trying to turn that on its head. Having a clearer understanding of other people and being able to manage our own behaviours will help us deliver positive customer experiences.”