Customer Service Week at Virgin Balloon Flights

It’s Customer Service Week, which means it's time to celebrate our call centre team and fully appreciate the people who are the backbone of our company, who are often seen by some as a free punch bag or therapist.

As we’re all aware, customer service can be a challenging and stressful job, often juggling many different roles and wearing different hats, depending on the problem ahead of them.

It's a challenging job on any normal day, but given the circumstances over the past year, our team at Virgin Balloon Flights has been working flat out with a large increase in workload that has come about due to numerous lockdowns.

There has been a big restructuring within the Virgin Balloon Flights company, and, to make it harder, our customer service team has been going through all of our existing customers to renew their vouchers so that they have the time needed, once the lockdowns are over, to book their flights at last.

That’s why it’s important for us to recognise the hard work that people in customer service positions do.

Every so often, we like to provide work outings for our team to destress them from the constant berating they withstand over the phone. Activities can include inviting everyone out for a barbecue or going bowling; but this past week, we decided to go for a more adrenaline-pumping activity: Go-Karting!

At first, everyone was fairly nervous, with the majority of us having never been before (or even driven, for that matter!), but as soon as we were behind the wheel and drifting our karts around corners, the nerves gave way to excitement. Turns out a lot of us are very competitive, too!

As well as karting, the customer service team has had their own internal games going on within the call centre, which has been up all week. Anytime that they receive positive reviews and feedback, or possibly make a sale on their call, they participate in a gigantic game of Jenga! The catch, however, is: that if they topple the tower, they have to play a forfeit... which often involves making coffee for everyone.

On top of the continuous Jenga game, they have also had team-building and skill-sharpening daily activities, including:

• Tuesday: The "Stop, Start, Continue Survey", where everyone from the team voices what they would do to improve the service we provide, which has resulted in many changes for the better from previous suggestions!
• Wednesday: Role-playing customer interactions to prepare for almost any possible situation. The most compelling and helpful team member wins a prize at the end of the day!
• Thursday: The customer service team picks their favourite piece of merchandise and creates their very own advert for it – and the most creative wins a prize.
• Friday: Bring Your Own Buffet! Everyone will be baking, cooking, or even providing their favourite store-bought food. The team has quite the baker – Ravi – who makes incredible coconut and chocolate cookies!

We wouldn’t be anywhere without our customer service team. They provide so much value to everyone around them, and they truly are the backbone of this company.

Remember to treat everyone with respect. Many people seem to forget that the voice on the other side of the phone is a human being, too.

We would love to hear your thoughts on our socials!