Friday, last week saw me spending the day at The FMB’s offices in Rothwell near Leeds. I was there with my office manager Katrina Jackson to start this exciting new course the FMB have for members.
Making time to come was a no brainer for me, as soon as I saw that it was being produced by Trudy Mackenzie and her team from Esteem. Katrina and I have worked with Esteem before, attending their NVQ level 4 for management course, so we knew it would be special.
The Yorkshire regional director Phil Parkinson introduced things and it was down to business; alongside the usual mixed bunch of FMB members, from small two man bands to medium size business.
Esteem have produced a detailed and progressive toolkit with every resource you could need to develop and improve your customer service, which is crucial to improving business. With 25 years in the business this year and a great little team, we don’t really get any problems, but over the morning section it became clear that we could do so much more. Our Investors In People and NVQ4 in management means that Kat and I already have many systems in place, but the Esteem approach really opened my eyes to how we can engage everyone with customer service, without a great deal of work.
In addition, we all came away with a USB drive, packed with helpful notes, and links to resources dedicated to improving customer service….fantastic.
We’ve set ourselves a couple of goals to work on this month, which we identified on Friday and are looking forward to the next day at the FMB office.
These are hard times in the construction industry and so many guys in micro-businesses as well as bigger ones are finding the commercial landscape harder to navigate through. The FMB have really hit the spot in developing these kinds of approaches, because whilst so many members are superbly skilled in their day to day work, they’ve often had little if any management and business development training.
I’m convinced that projecting this type of training out to as many FMB members as possible is the way to drive more members to success.
Top marks to the FMB again..teaming up with Esteem and of course Construction skills too, well done. Our membership fee has been the best subscription we’ve spent in the past few years. We’ve been members for 25 years but I can say that over the past five years or so, with the website, member benefits and courses like this, the FMB have the recipe right for the 21st century.
Bryan Hindle CSRT CSSW