Customers using leisure facilities run by Hexham-based charity North Country Leisure (NCL) have seen improvements in the service they receive, following training that aimed to build on already high standards of customer care at their sites across Northumberland and Cumbria.

The efforts, investment and success of their "Making a Difference" customer care course, which was designed and delivered by NCL's training partner The Jackson Curtis Partnership during 2008 / 2009, were recognised at this year's National training Awards with a "North East Training Award for Partnership and Collaboration".

Research carried out by the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) found customers perceived staff at the not-for-profit organisation as friendlier, more helpful and more knowledgeable following the initiative.

APSE's independent survey found staff friendliness rose significantly from before the training and further improvements were recorded in helpfulness, knowledge and customer's access to information within the buildings. Further feedback came from the company's internal quality auditor, whose average quality scores rose from 73 in the three months leading up to the training to 79.5 in the three months following. NCL has also seen a significant increase in its user numbers over this period.

John Maude, Chief Executive of NCL, says the training has had a "positive and beneficial effect". For example changes have been made across the organisation to help front line staff deliver better customer satisfaction. He adds: "I was pleasantly surprised at the immediate improvement in customer satisfaction ratings and dramatic improvement in our internal quality inspections which look at our sites through the customer's eyes. This could only be achieved by an extra effort and awareness through our staff."

External audits had already rated the quality of customer service at the sites as excellent before the training started, but NCL set out to achieve even higher standards. Mr Maude said "The tough economic situation gave an extra emphasis to the need to promote excellence in customer care and judging by staff feedback, the staff response has been very positive."

The training programme highlighted to staff the importance of welcoming customers while offering clean and safe facilities. It raised awareness of its customer care policies and its customer promise, while marketing materials were improved in response to feedback from the sessions. Managers judge that staff now better understand what customers' priorities are and how to deal with their queries and comments. The one-day course ran 10 times between September and November 2008, involving a total of 136 trainees. The first workshop was used as a pilot and changes were made in response to feedback. The training was completed in July 2009 and was made mandatory for all of the organisations 240 employees. Government agency Business Link contributed £4,500 towards the cost of designing and delivering the training.

NCL's IT and Training Manager Shirley Brown and Lesley Curtis and Peter Jackson from The Jackson Curtis Partnership worked very closely throughout the project to ensure everything ran smoothly and all were thrilled at receiving the regional training award. Peter Jackson said "It is always a pleasure to work with North Country Leisure. With regard to the Making A Difference training programme, from the outset they demonstrated a willingness to collaborate with us on the design, and empowered us to deliver a programme which we customised to meet their specific needs. We were given the responsibility of designing an interesting and fun programme, and we received excellent feedback from all participants. As a training company, we were delighted to be involved in this project, as the challenge was to achieve improvements on what was already a very high standard of customer care".

NCL was founded in 1998 as a charitable leisure management organisation with the aim of providing 'excellent sports and leisure for all'. The Jackson Curtis Partnership is based in Consett. It was set up in 1996 and delivers management development as well as bespoke training programmes.

Both NCL and The Jackson Curtis Partnership are Investors in People Accredited.