The Road to More Engaged Instructors, and Better Customer Experience
It’s that time again. The time where we take a special moment to brag about the awesome achievements of our customers. Not only is it fun to celebrate their work, but hopefully an exciting read for you, as you begin to learn what’s possible for your business.
If you want to learn how to ride a motorcycle in Australia (uh, yes please), it’s likely you’ll come across Stay Upright - the country's favorite motorcycle school. For over 40 years their passionate team have been providing expert motorcycle training for commuters, adventure riders, cross country bikers and everyone in between. Stay Upright’s expert knowledge and experience has resulted in well earned growth across Australia, with over 30 schools across 3 timezones employing 160 dedicated frontline instructors.
It’s about the journey, not the destination.
Apologies for the ultimate cliché, but it’s fair to say that customer experience is paramount to Stay Upright’s success. At the end of the day, students receive the same piece of paper to say they’re able to ride a motorcycle (or not), no matter which school they choose to learn with. It’s not about the destination (the license) it's about the journey (the student experience) that Stay Upright can provide to their customers. When they can successfully and consistently deliver epic journeys, they gain a stronger brand reputation, positive word of mouth and more referrals – which is exactly what they rely on to build a strong customer base.
Instructors left in the dark
Stay Upright knew that customer feedback (both positive and constructive) was essential to guide their instructors to deliver winning experiences, and increase word of mouth referrals. However, with a growing frontline workforce of 160 instructors across over 30 locations and 3 time zones, there were some key disconnects emerging.
One: they surveyed just to survey. Nothing happened with customer feedback once they had it, and a survey doesn’t drive business results on its own.
Two: the lack of recognition frontline teams received from their managers for their awesome work. To maintain a happy, empowered and connected instructor base who felt motivated to deliver great experiences, Stay Upright needed to shift up a gear.
Stay Upright knows this significantly impacts their ability to grow through referrals, and decreases employee efficiency, with time wasted training instructors based on guesswork, not data-driven customer insights.
Monkeying around with clunky survey tools
Prior to using AskNicely, Stay Upright used clunky survey tools that would occasionally deliver customer feedback to the leadership team. Bad feedback would maybe be sent to the instructors, and good feedback would languish in an inbox. On the occasion where managers had time, not very often, they’d manually share positive feedback with their teams.
There are three key issues with this approach:
- Instructors didn’t know what was going well, what they should do more of, and what they could work on.
- Instructors couldn’t act quickly on negative feedback. By the time it reached them, if it ever did, it was obsolete.
- There was no mechanism in place to properly recognize, celebrate and support instructors when they were doing awesome work.
Not to mention, things were done manually. Without automated tools, getting customer insights to the right people was time consuming and inefficient. Which meant their teams couldn’t make informed decisions about their customer experience.
It wasn’t until an instructor on the frontline said to a manager one day “Wouldn’t it be great if we could get some initial feedback from our students, as soon as they leave the room” that AskNicely came into the picture.
Enter AskNicely
Being a face-to-face customer first organization meant that Stay Upright needed to ensure each client experience was better than the last. They had to give their instructors the right toolset to show up as the best version of themselves every day.
With AskNicely they had:
- An app on the phone of every instructor sharing direct customer feedback,
- A customer experience leaderboard for some friendly competition,
- Trends and insight dashboards for strategic planning and,
- Automated ways to send shout outs when instructors nailed it, or make things right with unhappy customers.
Which meant:
- The feedback loop is closed. Instructors receive real-time customer feedback that allows them to instantly improve the customer experience.
- Instructors are celebrated and recognized when they get things right in the moment, reinforcing the things customers love.
- Management has a clear oversight into what each instructor is doing well, and what they might need help with, paving the way for effective coaching conversations.
- Instructors loved competing for higher customer experience rankings, and the AskNicely leaderboard became a source of bragging rights across the team.
- Lowest performing instructors started to drastically improve their scores, working their way up the leaderboard and becoming more engaged in their work. “We’re really seeing a change in instructor behavior” — Annaliesse Cawood, Managing Director.
Happy instructors, happy riders.
With AskNicely, Stay Upright were able to improve the employee experience, coach for what works and ultimately deliver superior experience to their customers. Which for a business built on word of mouth, means more referrals and more sustainable growth.
"It’s a fantastic tool to see what your customers think of the service provided”— John Perrin, Stay Upright Instructor
“It’s great to get instant feedback” – Geoffrey Nocher, Stay Upright Instructor
Instructors were no longer in the dark. They had clear oversight, understood how they could improve and felt valued for the work they were doing. They were also reconnected with their managers, who were able to start meaningful coaching conversations that made an impact.
“The instructors love it! It’s also giving managers a really great way to connect with their instructors every day” — Annaliesse Cawood, Managing Director.
In just 30 days, Stay Upright integrated AskNicely with their CRM, onboarded their entire organization, and embraced a culture of winning with customer experience.
The road ahead for Stay Upright is looking promising, with new government contracts, increased referrals, partnerships and an ever growing community of safe and happy riders.
Want to win on customer experience and see results like Stay Upright? We’ve got you covered. Our Frontline Playbook will teach how you modernize your customer experience program and connect your frontline to your bottom line.
Download your free eBook today.
