Geoff Langston is the Founder and Managing Director of Arizion Limited, the Customer Service Training and Leadership and Management Training company with a portfolio of clients in the private and public sectors, ranging from small businesses to large corporations in the UK and mainland Europe. His passion for excellent customer service and for enabling people at all levels to realise their potential is the foundation for the success he brings through his approach.
Geoff is a member of the Institute of Customer Service (ICS); the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM); a founder member of the Customer Service Training Network (CSTN); a published author of articles about customer service and a qualified coach. He is a MBTI (Myers Briggs Type Indicator) Step 1 and Step 2 practitioner; a Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming); and formerly an Assessor for Investors in People (IIP).
With more than 30 years experience in customer facing environments, Geoff started his career in food retailing managing a variety of stores, before moving into field management and then into a central support role successfully setting up and running a communications centre for the organisation. The role expanded to include management recruitment and development including succession planning for the group resulting in reduced staff turnover, increased competence; and management productivity.
A move into Human Resources at corporate headquarters saw Geoff develop, produce and deliver a customer service training strategy and programme for the organisation. This included trainer guides; team member packs and an industry award winning video. The material is still in daily use today. In 2004, Geoff set up his own training business, Arizion Limited, delivering executive
coaching; leadership and management training; and customer service training. Geoff’s breadth of experience enables him to engage successfully at all levels within an organisation, from team members to executive management. Arizion focuses on attitudes and behaviours that to positively impact an individuals’; teams’; and therefore ultimately, on organisational performance. In 2008, Arizion developed and introduced a suite of workshops, accredited to the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), the leadership development body widely recognised in the UK. Successful completion of training provides delegates with a recognised qualification.
Geoff’s interests include cycling, music reading and travel. For more information please see attached e-brochure and contact: geofflangston@arizion.co.uk
I started my company in August 2010, before that I was the Commercial Development Director for CEMEX Materials UK one of the largest construction materials suppliers in the world. I was responsible for a Key Accounts Managers team, all major projects across the UK, market strategy and training of the sales force. This included customer service staff, sales representatives and sales managers. With the exception of a 5 year period, when I worked as the Sales Manager for Qanber Ready-mix in Saudi Arabia, I have worked for CEMEX (formerly RMC Ltd) since 1978.
I have experience as an Area Director with the responsibility for the profit and running of 30 production units. At the same time I had to ensure the health and safety and welfare of 178 employees and 49 Independent Hauliers.
Throughout my career I have been involved in training and the setting up of new Customer Service Centres the last one which entailed recruiting 50 new staff was at Rugby. Over 150 people were interviewed before enough people, with the right work ethics and commitment could be selected to be trained to carry out the customer service duties.
On leaving CEMEX I was asked to work with them as a consultant assisting in developing and delivering management training and team building programmes. At this present time I am training their Sales Agents based at one of their Customer Service Centres.
I am an Accredited Trainer with CSNT and a member of the Institute of Customer Service. I have a level 4 City and Guilds certificate for teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector plus a Level 3 City & Guilds certificate in Conflict Management. I have also been trained by UK-TEFL to teach non English speakers how to speak English.
Jo Higton is a Senior Customer Service Consultant at Customer Plus, providing services in the areas of research, training and communication. We love helping our clients to deliver great customer experience. Jo is responsible for designing and implementing learning solutions provided by Customer Plus and delivering majority of training.
Jo is an experienced trainer and manager in a range of operational environments including retail, contact centre, professional services and public sector. Jo previously worked with Argos, Homeserve and Domestic & General where she qualified as a trainer and developed her skills around the full training cycle.
Her current clients include Ford Retail, Interfleet Technology, and Rentokil Initial. Customer Plus were engaged by Ford Retail to formulate full life cycle of customer experience improvement project as well as driving employee motivation. Jo designed and delivered 116 'Moments of Truth' workshops across 8 regions and personally trained 2,359 employees across multiple employee levels. This resulted in 2,251 employees completing their workbooks achieving either NVQ Level 2 in Customer Service or Institute of Customer Service accredited Diploma. Her work with Ford Retail has won three awards:
Jo is a mathematics graduate of Sheffield University, a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development and an NLP master practitioner. Jo is an accredited customer service trainer and assessor with the Customer Service Training Network and the Institute of Customer Service. She is an Associate Lecturer in Leadership and Marketing at the University of Derby.
I believe in providing the best customer experience and in helping and supporting staff to deliver excellent service.
I am specifically responsible for the development and delivery of learning solutions and training.
I have 10 years experience as Trainer and in Training Management; in various sectors such as PR, Marketing, Digital Marketing and Publishing, Education, Translation Services and public sector.
I have previously worked with Cision, Jellyfish Online Marketing, London Computer Training Academy and I have several years experience working in California, USA for the California State University, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and various charities.
My expertise is: Marketing and Principles of Social Media and Digital Marketing, Diversity and Equal Opportunity, Communication and Writing Skills, Presentation Skills, Time Management, Principles of Customer Service, Management of People, Project Management Principles, IT bespoke systems training (Capita, Salesforce, Google Adwords, PR Management Systems), MS Office 2010 (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook).
I have a Master in Business Administration / Management of Information Systems from CSUC, I am a TAP certified Trainer in TNA and e-learning. I am certified in Diversity and Equal Opportunity and PRINCE2 for Project Management.
In my spare time I write restaurants and food creative reviews, for Fluid London website.
I’m very ambitious and determined to make an impact and improve areas I work within
My background is retail and travel retail, followed by 7 years in the Private and Public Sector, as well as Call Centres.
My area of expertise is designing, authoring and delivering Customer Service, Diversity, bespoke IT, People Management and Sales Training, and I’m very experienced in employee engagement and change management.
I have two cats that were a gift from my husband. So my affection now runs along the lines of… cats… books… husband and everyone else!
You’ll always find me reading as I own over 2000 books, and that doesn’t the include the books on my Kindles (yes, I have 3 of them!) and I’m a season ticket holder to London Irish Rugby Club.
I hate any form of exercise, yet in 2009 I joined the gym to train to (successfully) Trek the Great Wall of China… (you can see my pictures at www.justgiving.com/ninaderek)
I’m also a bit clumsy and prone to accidents. Winter 2011, I managed to fall down three steps and broke a rib! (Lesson learnt! Don’t try to save yourself!) I also managed to fall down while standing still on the Great Wall and I’m still not sure how I did it!
When you need a certified customer service trainer to help you develop remarkable customer facing staff, supportive inter- department customer service, or simply help you deliver your current programmes.
Do you want your teams to achieve more for your customers?
Dave works with individuals, teams and organisations to create lasting improvements in customer service. As a coach and mentor he can further support your managers, and team leaders to think differently about the way they lead their teams to be customer focused.
Approach
Engaged people have been shown to be 50% more productive. Dave’s approach is highly interactive with 100% of participants engaged, involved, and feeling they have been able to express their ideas. He often works with actors using scenarios or forum theatre and experiential learning to supplement more usual training techniques.
Quality Assured
His practice has been independently assessed by CSTN so you can be assured he is able to design and deliver training to the highest standard or effectively deliver your programmes. As an On-Line Facilitator, certified by the Learning and Performance Institute, Dave can effectively support your people wherever they are in the world. www.liveandonlinetraining.com
"Dave is great for getting results with people; his skills of engagement to change mindsets towards the achievement of exceptional customer service are delivered through influencing and well-tuned listening skills. He is not afraid to give an honest opinion and really challenges people he works with, all the while reinforcing their self-confidence and working towards the desired outcomes!"
Claire Lawton, Senior Partner at Jolliffe Cork LLP
Speaking Services
Dave’s keynote presentations are able to inspire and entertain audiences at your conferences and team building events. www.davebradleyspeaker.com Email: dave@davebradleyspeaker.com
Tel: 07751267476
In the early 90’s I was invited to join the International Westminster Bank Training Team by their manager. He had already seconded me to train staff on a new application being introduced to the back office. After 15 years in the banking industry I had finally found something that I found rewarding, interesting, and that people said I had a particular talent for!
Did they mean I wasn’t cut out for International banking?
After leaving the NatWest group I contracted out, working in London and one week a month in NY, delivering training to clients of an IT banking software company, followed by an extended contract, staff training at GMAC in Bracknell.
Fast forward two decades and I continue to concentrate on IT training, predominantly on bespoke systems including testing, UAT script writing, fault reporting, writing training materials and of course, delivering the courses.
It’s important that the trainers get involved in projects at an early stage. Understanding the business needs, expectations and the background is vital to be able to explain to our customers the what, why, where, how and when.
Just as useful for IT applications, is knowing what isn’t yet working.
It’s all about trainers adding value to courses and showing our delegates that IT Training can be interesting, which gets their buy-in and better results for everyone.
Outside of work I squeeze in riding my bikes on and off road. Actually I try and cycle to most of our offices too, distance and time permitting. Some people will wince or think I have a collecting (and now storage) problem. I own a dozen cycles. Don’t ask why.
"I have left Family Mosaic after 10 fun years. If you are looking for an IT Trainer, or know someone who is, I can be contacted by clicking on my name above.
- Two time CSTN Training Training Team Award winner"
I am the Customer Experience Strategy Manager for Restaurant Associates, part of Compass Group UK & Ireland. I am responsible for ensuring consistently brilliant service in catering, fine dining and hospitality across a wide range of client sites, including a Michelin starred restaurant. I was a key member of the team who developed our award-winning customer experience management programme ‘Impressions’, which uses a framework of communication, training, recruitment, performance management and measurement tools to guarantee Restaurant Associates delivers the best possible service experience.
Having spent 15 years in operational roles within the catering/contract catering industry, I have a passion for customer service and employee development and use this in my training to deliver change that really sticks. Over the past three years I have been focussed on delivering service culture change training which has been rolled out to over 15,000 frontline employees. Recent projects have included training 55 frontline employees in the art of facilitation so that they may deliver service changes across their businesses. Following impressions training, customer satisfaction has shown an average increase of 25% across our sites!
I am part of the team recognised for the following awards:
www.restaurantassociates.co.uk
People Development Manager at L&G Investments for last 5 years. Previously worked in L&D and Project Management for 25 years before that. Manage a team of 6 L&D specialists, training everything from financial regulations through to management skills. Qualifications Programme Manager for ICS. President of the South Wales forum of the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investments, providing CPD for people working in the financial industry.
Brilliant team - in 2012 won "People Development Team of the Year" with the Wales Contact Centre Forum, and the "UK Training Team of the Year" for financial services with the CSTN.
Qualifications: As well as the new CSTN accreditation:
MA Education Management
BEd (Hons) Vocational Training
ICS Assessor
ICS Coach
Never too late to learn - just started studying ILM Level 7 in Coaching.
