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By Matt Furnell, 02/03/2011 2:34 pm

Greene King Pub Partners licensees have attended a free Get In to Shape – Business Fit event to

Clinton Horn from Exemplar Training presenting “How to make your business flourish!

help them make their pub recession proof.  The seminar held last week included talks on “How to make your business flourish” by top trainer Clinton Horn; “Easy ways to maximise social media to promote your pub” and “Focusing on Value, Service and Quality to make your pub a success”.

Fifty licensees from their North Eastern region attended the event in Darlington and had the chance to network and book further training courses with Greene King at a discounted rate.

Simon Longbottom, managing director for Pub Partners said, “This is the first of our Get into Shape Business Fit seminars which we’ll be rolling out across the country.  They’re designed to be short and sweet to allow licensees to take practical and easy solutions back to their pubs that very afternoon that will improve their profits and consumer offer.  We provide quality training courses to help licensees in the long term and these free seminars aim to give additional tactical techniques to enhance their businesses”.

Yah-li Jim & Glenn Taylor from the Brooklands Tap in Sale

Speaking about the seminar, Yah-li Jim & Glenn Taylor  from the Brooklands Tap in Sale said,  “We never get time to come out of our pub but glad we came, we felt re-motivated by the day”.

97% of licensees attending felt they could take something away from the day and immediately implement it in their business and 100% confirmed they felt inspired by the day.

Greene King’s Get into Shape – Business Fit seminars will be rolled out to more areas in the coming months.

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By Matt Furnell, 21/02/2011 3:29 pm

As a growing number of consumers latch on to the crusade for better customer service lead by the indomitable Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas, Greene King Pub Partners is helping their licensees by boosting its customer satisfaction training.

From this February Pub Partners’ licensees will be offered new training to gain invaluable skills and advice on how to serve and impress customers. Its all part of Greene King’s new ‘Retail Excellence’ course.

The training scheme has been launched to ensure all Greene King licensees offer the excellent levels of service that customers expect, helping the pubs to improve customer loyalty and profitability.

The training covers eight key areas:                                                                                      

•        Customer service and the profit chain: the commercial impact of great customer service

•        Shaping excellence: helping licensees create an excellent customer experience cycle for their pub

•        Retail service excellence: where retail excellence can go wrong, and what is needed to excel

•        Driving up performance: how to use the customer experience cycle

•        Service and standards: reviewing the customer experience against standards

•        Customer feedback: the importance of gathering feedback and using it effectively

•        Engaging people: getting staff on board to deliver excellence

•        Action: implementing best practice across all Greene King pubs

Simon Longbottom, managing director for Greene King Pub Partners, says service is undeniably essential to customer retention, loyalty and business success.

“Research has shown that a high level of customer satisfaction has a direct correlation with customer spend. And with programmes like Mary Portas: Secret Shopper, attracting an audience of three million people each week, customers are demanding better service levels than ever, and that means in pubs as well as on the high street. Our licensees need to be at the top of their game and we’re helping them to achieve that.

“The programme helps licensees understand the impact of staff training and retention on customer service, and how overall standards and offer can have an ultimate effect on how the customer feels, acts and spends.”

Greene King Pub Partners has already invested extensively in quarterly customer satisfaction surveys for each pub and believes that combining these results with effective customer service training and action plans they will improve profitability for each pub. 

The Retail Excellence training will be available to all Pub Partners licensees across the country from February.  All business development managers in the business have been through the training. 

ENDS

PRESS CONTACT: ELAINE BECKETT, PR & COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER, GREENE KING PUB PARTNERS, TEL: 07974 132844

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By Matt Furnell, 01/02/2011 12:18 pm

Just three months after launching a new programme of customer experience surveys for leased and tenanted pubs as part of their consumer led retail strategy, Greene King Pub Partners’ licensees have shown encouraging results.  Out of 1,218 pubs that have been surveyed in the last three months, the average overall score was 82.2%.

All pubs were marked on five areas:

Impressing our customers – 93.4%
Bar service with a smile – 81.7%
Fantastic Pub Food – 71.6%
Outstanding impression – 80.3%
Clean and Fresh facilities – 93.5%

Simon Longbottom Managing Director Greene King Pub Partners

Speaking about the results, managing director for Pub Partners, Simon Longbottom said, “These surveys are part of our consumer led retail strategy to ensure we focus our support in the right areas to deliver this for our licensees and they concentrate on the areas which will increase customer loyalty.  Research has already shown us that customer spend is directly influenced by the level of service a customer receives and the better the service, the more profit a licensee can make so we’re delighted by the scores.  It just shows what outstanding licensees we have running Greene King pubs.  It’s also shown we need to provide more help with food support and advice and are about to launch a whole new range of training and food packages to help licensees improve in this area”.

Greene King Pub Partners is investing heavily in quarterly customer experience surveys throughout all their pubs within the leased and tenanted estate.  The surveys are developed depending on the type of pub being visiting e.g. Premium, Mid Market and Value.   The results are discussed with each individual licensee enabling licensees to reward excellent practice and improve in the areas they need to.  The results are an integral part of any business review held with their business development manager.

Adding, Longbottom said, “Investing in this service is all about providing feedback to our licensees to help them to get customers to return to their pubs more frequently, spend more money when they are there and recommending the pubs to others.  It also enables us to be able to target training requirements for each pub more specifically”.

Retaileyes, an independent company is working with Pub Partners to conduct the experience surveys.

Ends

PRESS CONTACT: Elaine Beckett, PR & Communications Manager, Greene King Pub Partners, Tel: 07974 132844.

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By Matt Furnell, 15/04/2010 4:51 pm

Greene King Pub Partners commissioned Oxford Brookes University to carry out research into their Go for Growth mandatory induction programme for new licensees.  The training course is compulsory before licensees get the keys to their pub and results show it’s an enormous success.

96% plan for the growth of their business rather than just working in it
96% review customer care as part of their ongoing strategy
96% developed and managed their staff more effectively

Speaking about the results, director of recruitment and training, Caroline Hollings said, “We developed this course for all new licensees on the back of our BII NITA Supreme Award training course, Go for Growth.  Many in the industry didn’t believe it when we said all our licensees irrelevant of their experience had to attend the course before they got the keys to one of our valuable assets.  Even some licensees were shocked but all of them get so much from the training when they attend and we know that they’re fully prepared for taking on such an important business and making a profit.  These results show that this training is right, relevant and un-mistakenly an asset to all licensees going into a Greene King pub”.

Prasong Suppadungchon, licensee of the Old Tom in Oxford took over his pub from a restaurant background, since attending the course he has increased gross profits by 50% and reduced operating profits by 10%, he says, “The course totally boosted my confidence, it focused my attention – I was so busy running the business and making it a nice place for my customers I completely forgot about profit”.

After attending the second day six months later he added, “I would definitely recommend this course to others, it makes you focus on what’s important to the business and spend time planning the way forward”.

Another attendee is Vernon Blackmore of the Anchor pub in Woodbridge.  Vernon was a chef but had never run a pub before.  Since taking on the Anchor and attending Go for Growth Induction he has seen turnover trebling, saved £2k on bank charges and improved wage percentage by 5%.  He said of the course, “It showed me a lot we were doing was right, but it also exposed some things we weren’t so good at.  It made me more confident about the business and gave me clarity of vision on how I want to take things forward”.

Adam Rainford licensee of the Welcome Inn, Eastleigh adds, “The course made me look at the bigger picture – I used to spend one hour after service thinking about the business which wasn’t quality time as I felt burnt out.  I now spend two uninterrupted hours a day”.

Other licensees have also achieved real financial success following the course with Dee and Tommy Takacs from the White Hart in Fulbourn seeing turnover double in nine months and Nigel and Gail Woodley of the Golden Ball in Littlemore having turnover increase by £3,500 per week and nearly £4,500 on costs saved in a year.

Concluding Hollings says, “It’s vital in this industry that you retain the good quality licensees you have and you can only achieve that by giving them the best start.  With Go for Growth we know that everyone will have the right level of skills to operate what is a very cash driven business but also the best platform to build it in the long term.  It’s our duty to do that but also absolute business sense”.

Ends

Press Contact: Elaine Beckett, Public Relations Manager, Greene King Pub Partners, Tel: 07974 132844

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By Matt Furnell, 02/10/2009 3:00 pm

DRIVING FOOD BUSINESS 

OVERVIEW

A one day intensive training course developed and delivered to ensure regional managers are up to date with the latest food trends and expertise to develop food opportunities with their licensees in their pubs.

Delivered by independent food consultants the food masterclass ensured regional managers could advise licensees on: 

• The mechanics of a meal deal
  • Costing
  • Size
  • Times
  • Market
  • Price
     
• Identifying your target market
• Costing an overall menu
• Developing a food menu
• Conducting successful competitor analysis
• Following the latest trends in food

 30 Regional managers attended the training 

Pub Partners continues to focus on employee training to ensure their business support is the best in the industry

The training supports the Food Made Easy package for licensees on Greene King PubPartners.net online extranet for licensees.  This includes: 

• Menu design options
• Menu templates
• Dishes bank
• Costing and wastage tables
• Health and Hygiene advice

 Alongside their buying partner, Pelican, Pub Partners are developing more menu packages with food suppliers

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By Matt Furnell, 25/09/2009 10:15 am

A recent survey conducted by Greene King, pub operator and brewer, found that one of the first things our boys from the forces do when on leave is go down their local. 84% stated that a visit to the pub when on leave was important to extremely important to them with 76% choosing the pub to reconnect with friends.

Caroline Hollings, director of recruitment and training for Greene King said, “Pubs play a vital role in our communities and none more so than now, especially with our military personnel, with 80% saying a visit to the pub is the first order of the day when they get leave. Pubs are all too often blamed for issues in our community and this couldn’t be more off the mark. These results just show that”. Eighty eight percent of those questioned felt pubs were an essential part of our culture and community.

Greene King conducted the survey at the Career Transition Partnership Northern Employment Fair in Harrogate this week, attended by over 350 service personnel who will be leaving the forces in the next 18 months. Greene King was there to promote the career opportunities they have available in the pub sector.

Ends

Press Contact: Elaine Beckett, Public Relations Manager, Greene King Pub Partners, Tel: 07974 132844