£2.1bn - Predicted tourist spend for London Olympics and Paralympics
What has 11m legs and a never ending list of demands? The expected daily visitors at this year’s London Olympics, of course!
Lloyds TSB estimate that the Olympic Games will generate £10bn in revenue for the British economy and visibility of our small island will skyrocket with an anticipated £4bn people watching the opening ceremony alone. The government hopes the Games will bolster the tourism and service industry, not only in terms of revenue but also in reputation, and seeks to galvanise business leaders and service industry workers into action and put paid to the perception that the British welcome is colder than its winters…
So, is the UK up to the challenge? The nation’s favourite blusterer, Mayor Boris Johnson, launched a Visitor Charter to encourage businesses to pledge fair pricing and practice during the Games, an enterprise that might induce the scoffing from some sceptics especially since, at time of writing, only 62 businesses, from Madame Tussauds to curry houses, have subscribed. Only a fool would expect to holiday in London at this time on a shoestring (even though a 2011 Mercer report ranked the capital as a mere 18th in its list of the world’s most expensive cities), but opportunistic greed is still evident in the findings from a report commissioned by Tessa Jowell, the Shadow Olympics Secretary, stating that hotel prices are anticipated to rise by an average of 315%. In addition, greedy landlords are routinely evicting tenants in order to gouge tourists to the tune of 15 times normal rental rates, with additional “penalty clauses” for extended stays.
Whether these bums on seats and heads on pillows belong to oligarchs or Joe Public, what can this barrage of visitors expect from the UK and its service provision? A survey by the People 1st Training Company found that 73% of business leaders have their doubts about the quality of UK customer service and only 14% think our approach to hospitality is a selling point. Grim assertions indeed especially as 86% of those interviewed admitted to making no business preparations for the Games yet a similar figure acknowledged the positive potential of doing so! (Do the maths…)
A Government Report revealed that the UK ranked sixth out of fifty countries in international tourist arrivals in 2009, ‘though one of the lowest scores in reasons for visitors to come to the UK was the anticipated welcome. With accessibility to global tourism sites such as Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu increasing, it’s time to up our game. If we are able to convince the world of the UK’s charms it can help us become a desirable location to tourists from growth markets such as China, Brazil, Russia and India. And let’s not forget the Cultural Olympiad featuring a plethora of post-modernistic entertainment from Damien Hirst to performances of 38 plays by Shakespeare. at the Globe from 38 different nations, in the same number of languages.
Sue Gill, head of skills and training at Tourism South East, told Personnel Today that all staff working in the service industry need to be coached in cultural diversity and preferably in an additional language, and employers should encourage staff to enrol in customer service courses and take part in best practice forums. A European Commission survey in 2001 found 65.9% of UK respondents only spoke their native tongue – by far the highest proportion among the EU countries polled. And though English is known as a second language by one third of the EU population, this does not take into account visitors from outside the EU, of which there will be many in 2012. In our global community, negotiating cultural boundaries and obstacles in a sensitive manner is of upmost importance – particularly when protecting brands and ensuring great customer experience. Linguistically we might not be chasing the tails of pentaglot Nick Clegg (look it up..) but we have some advantage due to the sheer number and variety of regional accents we are used to deciphering. Putting guidelines in place such as identifying colleagues with language skills, training staff on basic phrases such as “please hold/wait for a moment while I…etc” in a few of the most widely spoken languages and ultimately encouraging staff to exercise patience and courtesy can help dissipate cultural or language barriers considerably. Why not make use of some of the many online translation tools available, or consider offering chat, email or other print-based customer support alternatives.
The UK’s cultural diversity is one of the Government’s key selling points for optimising the economic benefits from the Games. In order to achieve this, improve global perceptions of the UK, and for visitors to be engaged and gain an appreciation of UK culture, those providing services must be culturally aware and able to meet the disparate needs of their clientele. Why not initiate a two-way cultural awareness education program across the industry enabling all parties involved to enjoy and benefit from the 2010 experience? Exhibiting empathy, suspending judgment and learning as much as possible about the cultural norms and values helps avoid misunderstandings and creates a fluid customer service transaction. But this should not be at the expense of exhibiting our own cultural identity. Surely the whole purpose of overseas travel is to see and experience different ways of life, so it is vital to strike the right balance between local and global culture. And as with many such vexations customer research and ethnographic insight strategies could be the answer.
There has been much discussion about the physical legacy of the Games; what will happen to all those arenas, O2 can’t take them ALL over, surely!? But this is a great opportunity for our businesses and services to truly shine and to improve the perception of London, and the UK, as a tourist destination. The UK can’t rely on its traditional draws of heritage and culture to sustain tourism and must look to up its game in the areas that lack in quality such as welcome and value for money. Tourism chiefs are hoping for an extra four million visitors to the UK in the next four years as a result of the Games, so our re-energised welcome needs to be sustained and integrated.
Visitors to the Games are hoping for a holistically seamless and satisfying experience, from transportation to accommodation, gastronomic to aesthetic. In Sydney, urban legend goes that premier John Howard sought to arrange the city’s traffic lights to go green as the 2000 Olympic Committee traversed the city. The veracity of this is, of course, doubtful and the possibility of such tactics working in our choked, miasmic capital, non-existent. But it is entirely within the realm of possibility for the UK to prove the naysayers wrong and show that the UK’s customer service is second to none and our welcome is warm and inviting – even if the weather is not.
Expolink Europe is delighted to announce the appointment of Carol Workman as our new Contact Centre Manager
A Contact Centre Manager with over 20 years’ experience, Carol has a proven record of success in building, managing and delivering outstanding call centre services.
Carol originally worked as a Scientific Officer in South Wales before commencing her contact centre career with a direct insurance company in Bristol. From there she moved to a life insurance company to set up the outbound function, gaining a certificate in financial planning along the way. Carol has spent the last 11 years as Contact Centre Manager for a leading Bristol-based outsource company, growing the call centre from ten to 100 seats and expanding her experience working within highly regulated industries such as financial, government and utilities.
Carol brings to Expolink Europe a wealth of knowledge of managing a range of inbound, outbound and back office functions. Along with a an interest in how technology can aid and enhance the customer offering, she is passionate about developing the call centre team and strives to achieve and maintain a learning and empowering work place.
Outside of work Carol’s has recently completed a round-the-world trip, taking in USA and Australia before returning via Hong Kong. She has also grown to like a range of sports including cricket, succumbing to the consensus of a very male household! To relax she likes nothing better than settling down with a good chick lit novel.
Email: carol.workman@expolink.co.uk
LinkedIn: Carol’s Profile
The awards season is nearly upon us and with it the thrill and promise of those deserving, or otherwise, being recognised for outstanding contributions and $600k dresses. Never to be ones to miss out on a good party, we at Expolink have compiled our own whistleblowing awards.
While by no means an exhaustible list we have gone some way to honouring (and dishonouring) some of the folks who make the world of whistleblowing a more interesting place.
At 15, Enron was just a teenager when, as US’s seventh largest company, it employed 21,000 staff in 40 countries. This success, it transpired, was based on a premise of false accounting and fraud. Sherron Watkins, VP of Corporate Development at Enron was the first on the scene, alerting CEO Kenneth Lay to other whistleblowers and the seismic holes in the company reports. Critics say that Watkins’ actions don’t necessarily constitute whistleblowing as she simply gave her boss a nifty escape route from the impending meltdown – either way, she went on to become one of Times People of the Year, 2002, alongside two other whistleblowers Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and Coleen Rowley of the FBI.
Among Enron’s dubious accolades of largest audit failure and bankruptcy re-organisation in US history at that time, the play by Lucy Prebble, based on the scandal won a plethora of international awards – so, worked out well for some.
Manning was arrested in May 2010 and charged two months later for supplying an estimated 250,000 diplomatic cables to Wikileaks which were duly republished by several left-leaning papers and on the Wikileaks website. An acquaintance, Adrian Lano, subsequently blew the whistle on Manning, proving that one good turn deserves another. It is unclear whether Manning had any kind of personal relationship with Wikileaks high priest Julian Assange, but his organisation has been vocal in support of Manning’s actions saying he has “single-handedly changed hundreds of thousands of people’s lives for the better.” Conversely, the White House branded his actions as “terrorism”. Assange for his part is embroiled in a legal battle of his own for alleged sexual assault -
Manning’s trial continues…
It seems a little unfair to award one of these prized trinkets to an established actor, but back in July 2011 we were thrilled to discover that Grant had enjoyed a chance encounter with News of the World reporter Paul McMullan and secretly taped admissions of wide-spread phone hacking at the paper. Grant went on to charm all at the Levenson Enquiry and despite being branded as a “screechy, sanctimonious little (bleep)” by the not-at-all screechy Piers Morgan, seems to be enjoying some nice, credible PR and perhaps a little more peace from the press.
Jeffrey Wigand’s whistleblowing endeavours were immortalised in the Russell Crowe vehicle, The Insider. Whilst working at a large tobacco manufacturer Wigand discovered his bosses were manipulating their product blend to increase its addictive capacity. Wigand told all on the US TV show, 60 Minutes, and his employers responded with a law suit to prevent him testifying in open court. The company and others of its ilk were left fuming (ahem) when various states began their own litigations to recoup losses to public health initiatives caused by tobacco-related illness.
See also: Linda Tripp of Clinton/Lewinsky fame. More of a sticky beak than a whistleblower, but makes this list for inciting a hugely divisive argument regarding her motivations for revealing details about the affair. The movie deal it is claimed she was anticipating for her part in the scandal is yet to materialise…
Mark Felt, the whistleblower and former FBI agent was the infamous informant of Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whom together brought down the Nixon administration. Bernstein and Woodward published a series of articles on the Watergate scandal revealing corrupt activity in the Nixon stable, later a book and inevitably a film, All The President’s Men. Felt’s disclosures lead to Nixon’s resignation and jail sentences for a number of senior White House employees. Felt went by the codename ‘Deep Throat’ and enjoyed anonymity until 2005 when he confessed all in an interview with Vanity Fair, 31 years after Nixon’s resignation.
It is not always the high profile cases that have, or should have, the most enduring legacy. ‘Though Leslie Chapman was well known throughout Britain in the ‘70s, regrettably he is little remembered to this day. As a government employee he took the exceptional step of breaking Civil Service convention, if not the Official Secrets Act, and speaking out through a series of books about waste and extravagance in the British Civil Service. He then broadened his area of concern to local government and nationalised industry and, despite undoubtedly, putting a few noses out of joint along the way, he was deliberately placed on the board of London Transport as a result of his first book of revelation, tasked with rooting out abuses there. The recent raft of MP expenses scandals shows that such activities are still rife, making it all the more unfortunate that Chapman’s legacy is not secured in our national and political psyche and that decent governance systems have not always prevailed.
Expolink is delighted to announce the appointment of Val Lodge as the new Business Development Executive for our Whistleblowing Hotline. Val comes to Expolink with a wealth of experience in a variety of business sectors including real estate, further education and luxury consumer goods. Val’s experience affords our clients with top level support services and her understanding of disparate business markets makes her well placed to explore new prospective business opportunities, and help maintain Expolink’s standing as Europe’s Whistleblowing Hotline market leader.
