National Customer Service Week - Day 5

#NCSW23 – Interview with Elan Penn: Training Manager

Passive fire protection and acoustics are complicated areas of construction, and we believe that truly good customer service needs to start from a place of knowledge sharing and collective learning. Leading this charge is Elan Penn. As our Training Manager, he is responsible for delivering product knowledge training to our staff aswell as external stakeholders.

Why is internal training so fundamental to delivering good customer service?

It’s important that our staff understand the products that we manufacture and offer to market. By having good knowledge of our products’ properties, their intended application and an understanding of why they are crucial to the construction industry, they can advise customers confidently on which products and systems are suitable for a given application.

What is Siderise’s approach to this?

We invest heavily in building the knowledge of our people - internal competency is integral to our success here at Siderise. We ensure that all our customer-facing staff participate in various product training sessions. In these, they are required to show a competent understanding of our product, why it is needed and what it does. All outcomes are logged within our internal training register and the company SKEB (skills, knowledge, experience, and behaviour) helping to identify areas for improvement as well as keeping a record of our commitment to competency. Furthermore, we encourage key people within the business to undertake ASFP training with a view to achieving professional qualifications provided by the IFE (Institution of Fire Engineers), which in turn will benefit the customer.

What has feedback been like?

Everyone who has attended our internal training has said how useful it has been in helping them gain a greater understanding of the products we are manufacturing, and how they play such an important role within a building.

What does good customer service mean to you?

Hopefully providing the customer with what they want— but more importantly, always providing them with an honest response, even if it is not the most straightforward course of action. We know that there is no room for error when it comes to passive fire protection and life safety, so we want to always support our customers in doing the right thing and delivering the safest buildings possible.