Professional education comes in a variety of price-points, but the right training can have a lingering value - impacting job performance, personal development, and long-term career success. As a manager, HR or L&D professional purchasing training for others, the right choices in training can have a profound and positive impact in their organisation.
At findcourses.co.uk we believe that the best training providers take the time to reach out to training buyers who have questions. A speedy and personal response is a touchstone of attentiveness, professionalism, and respect for customers. It also helps training buyers make the right choice in education which is at the heart of our mission.
According to our survey of training buyers, 39% expect to be contacted within an hour and 33% expect to be contacted within a day about their enquiries.
Unfortunately, when we put trainers to the test in 2017, only 17% responded within the hour.
Our account management team has worked to consult with and educate our clients on getting the most value out of our service, taken a more selective approach in providers listing their courses on our site, and conducted spontaneous mystery shops for clients interested in evaluating the speed of their sales team.
Understanding that providers on findcourses.co.uk were missing out on value by missing communication with training buyers, we've also hired a customer service professional dedicated to bridging the gap between training buyers and training providers.
In order to test the responsiveness of training providers on findcourses.co.uk, we began conducting a mystery shop exercise in 2017. In the exercise, we send a test enquiry which includes a name, email address, and request to be contacted to training providers and record the response time and contact method.
We're proud to say that in 2018, 36% of findcourses.co.uk institutes responded to enquiries within the hour.
Which U.K. training providers are most attentive to their enquiries?
The following ''Top 10 Institutes in Customer Outreach'' were fastest out of the gate, calling and sending personalised emails to reach out to potential customers:
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Pareto Law
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Open Study College
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Illumine Training
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Cosensa Learning & Development
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Institute of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange
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Action & Theory
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Firm Training
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Eureka Financial
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Bayfield Training
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Huthwaite International
Details of the exercise:
- Two hundred and eighteen institutes were included in this exercise.
- Only institutes with training locations in the U.K. with enquiry forms on findcourses.co.uk were included in the mystery shop.
- All response times were calculated from business hours only.
- All enquiries were placed in the morning or early afternoon.
- All training providers received an identical enquiry which included a phone number, email address, and request to be contacted.
- Automatic emails were not counted as a response. Personal emails and phone-calls after the automatic email were counted.
Results of the exercise: Response time
Results of the exercise: Method of contact
