The Gloucester wine call centre that's so successful it's branching out into supporting luxury brands

Laithwaites has a thriving call centre in Gloucester to cater for its wine customers. And it's proved so popular it is gearing up to provide support for luxury brands via its talented call centre staff.

SoGlos finds out more about how the new initiative is going to work. 

How many call centre staff do you have?

We have a large team of customer service experts, and a highly experienced management team delivering world class customer service.

Where is your team based?

We are based in Gloucester Business Park in Gloucester, nestled between our very own vineyard and our distribution centre full of wine.

We are also right above our Laithwaites shop which is open to the public seven days a week.

How long is your onboard training process?

From modules on enhancing customer service to difficult conversations, we have initial training which lasts for one week but our training programme is over six weeks, with on the job top up training throughout that period.

We also have an established progression structure with coaching and development throughout an individual’s journey with us.

We also offer the WSET (Wine and Spirits) qualification to all members of staff, giving them the opportunity to learn more about such an exciting product.

We prioritise training and development because we recognise its long lasting impact on customer experience.  

Have you won any awards for your customer service?

We are very proud to have won the SoGlos Customer Excellence Award in 2023 at the SoGlos Gloucestershire Business Awards.

We're also officially accredited by the Great Place to Work Programme and are proud of the recognition we achieved as a Great Place to Work for Women, and for Wellbeing in 2023. The results in these surveys speak for themselves.

We are proud member of the Institute of Customer Service, which allows us to benchmark against other companies both in our sector and across all sectors in the UK.

We have been awarded the ServiceMark with Distinction for a third time. We are the only company in the UK to achieve this recognition three times in a row.

Not only that, but in 2019 and 2023 we won some of their prestigious awards including the Employee Engagement award, recognising the amazing success of our employee engagement strategy. We also won Quality Service Provider going up against some large reputable UK businesses.

What do you pride yourself on with your customer service?

Our ethos of 'support, nurture and protect like family' is something we live and breathe.

We're incredibly proud of our workplace and feel it sets the standard for excellence in employee experience. Our culture is a shining example of how organisations can prioritise the well-being and satisfaction of their employees. 

Most importantly we feel prioritising the teams that deliver customer experience has allowed us to build a customer-centric culture, celebrating and rewarding those that champion customer excellence.

When recruiting new team members, we look for people who can have genuine conversations with our customers. We prioritise autonomy within our teams, allowing them to make the best decision to do the right thing for their customers.

We measure first contact resolution and understand the importance of getting things right first time. At Laithwaites we are wine nuts, but we’re also nutty about great customer service; it’s a passion that is present throughout the organisation.

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Why did you decide to help other brands alongside your own?

We have invested heavily and have very successfully improved our online experience for customers, this has meant that we have reduced overall contacts coming into our contact centre.

We feel now is the opportunity to not only ensure our service is outstanding on every contact, but also to share our experience and award-winning approach with others, from delivering customer service for them to collaborating and sharing ideas with other local organisations and employers.

How will you benefit luxury brands?

We have a great site here at Laithwaites Gloucester, with an on-site gym, canteen, shop, free on-site parking, great bus routes and location.

This, along with a great luxury product, attracts great candidates. We appreciate this isn’t necessarily the case for other luxury businesses, whether this is based on size, location or numbers of staff, making recruitment and retention possibly more difficult.

We are able to deliver award-winning customer service for other brands based on our great proposition and customer-centric culture.

We are also open to getting together with other luxury brands and sharing ideas, discussing our culture and the customer experience.  

What are your aspirations for the future?

We want to continue to make Laithwaites customer service the shining example of customer experience.

While we continue to invest and focus on perfecting our online customer experience as a business, we are working to ensure every inbound customer contact is one that is efficient but resonates with our customers and delivers those magic moments whenever possible.

With the support of cutting edge technology, we feel we are on the precipice of something very exciting.

We see many opportunities in our future to share our experience, passion and well-established culture with other luxury brands and we are keen to share our approach and ideas with other local businesses.

If you are keen to hear more or find out more about what we do here in Gloucester, please do get in touch with our head of customer service, Anna Tandy at Anna.Tandy@laithwaiteswine.com.