The Potteries Centre is a medium sized shopping and entertainment centre based in the heart of the city centre of Stoke on Trent.

Managed by property management firm MAPP and housing over 80 units including retail, food and beverage and a cinema it employs 80 staff and is a work environment for over 1,500 workers. Being located in the city centre it is also the hub for many city centre workers and those on the outskirts of the city centre.

To promote the benefits of bricks rather than clicks, the centre is focused on creating memorable experiences that will foster consumer loyalty and keep shoppers coming back.

Recognising the importance of strong customer service skills for her centre management team, Amy Whittaker, Centre Manager, was keen to invest in training that could inspire her team to deliver service excellence, whilst also giving them the ability to extend the skills into the wider community.

Choosing globally recognised programme WorldHost, six members of the team undertook training to become approved trainers of WorldHost customer service training. Senior WorldHost Trainer Linda Greenwood delivered the 3-day licensed trainer workshop to the team, during which they completed the WorldHost Principles of Customer Service workshop and learnt how to deliver the WorldHost programme to others.

“The course was fun yet structured and gave a very different angle on who are customers are and what they are looking for from us” said Amy Whittaker, Centre manager.

Prior to this, to ensure they had the skills to deliver training effectively, they went through a 5-day Professional Certificate in Training Design and Delivery. The train the trainer programme gave them the skills to design and deliver valuable, interactive training sessions to groups of people, and tailor it for individual interactions.

Having successfully completed both programmes, the team are now putting plans in place to transform the customer service skills of other members of the MAPP team as well as tenants within the centre, and the wider community.

Amy continues: “We are looking forward to putting our training into practice and hope our customers will soon benefit from our newfound knowledge and training.”

Find out more about becoming a WorldHost Approved Training Provider.