Breakdown and emergency assistance firm River Canal Rescue
has won the Customer Services accolade at this year’s Express & Star
business awards. The event, held at Wolverhampton racecourse on 11 June and run
by the local paper, recognises outstanding businesses based in the ‘black
country’ and south Staffordshire.
More than 120 companies entered 12 categories in the hope of
picking up an award; these were then whittled down to 37 finalists. River Canal
Rescue scooped the Customer Service gong after impressing judges by repeatedly
achieving ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ ratings during its 4,000 plus call-outs
last year, peaking at an average of 140 per week in the summer.
Judges, councillor and deputy council leader Peter Bilson,
Express and Star editor Keith Harrison and Wolverhampton City Council managing
director Keith Ireland, congratulated RCR and the other shortlisted finalists
on their unrivalled levels of customer service, which they said ‘demonstrated a
desire to put customers’ needs as the very heart of their decision-making’.
RCR’s initial submission detailed its customer service
policy - ‘to go above and beyond the call of duty’, service standards - with
customers within four hours, update on ETA within 45 minutes and courtesy call
following call-out within 24 hours, customer service ratings – ‘very good’ or
‘excellent’ near on 90% more for every month in 2014, including 100% in three, staff
training/well-being initiatives – appraisals, mentoring, progression plans,
courses, competitions, training and ‘time-out’ days, employee loans/team events
and IT innovation – a web-based database, waterway mapping system and cloud
computing.
During the judging process, managing director Stephanie
Horton hosted an onsite visit, gave a presentation and undertook a Q & A
session. She comments: “We’re all so thrilled; this is a team effort and the
Award is recognition of the all the hard work we put in over the year – and
every year – to ensure boaters are moving again as soon as possible with the
minimum of disruption and cost. We’re very proud of our customer service
ratings and will continue to endeavour to improve them.”
The event was compered by Midlands Today tv presenter Nick
Owen who described the finalists as the ‘cream of the crop’. This year, River
Canal Rescue has been shortlisted and ‘highly commended’ for its customer
service and skills development in the
Birmingham Chamber of Commerce Awards and ‘commended’ in the Staffordshire
Business Awards.
