The Centrica customer experience
When UK company Centrica wanted to communicate some key messages
about customers to its staff, it chose an unusually imaginative way of
engaging ears, eyes, and bodies with a learning maze.
Centrica has expanded rapidly from a company that owned British Gas
to a broad-based services organization that includes a financial services arm,
the Automobile Association (AA), breakdown recovery and insurance services,
and various other ventures in the telecom and home security markets.
As these acquisitions and new ventures have taken place, the learning
challenge was how to get 32,000 people to understand more about
customers and opportunities, and then match their needs to the full range
of products and services available—in short, to engage all the workforce by
giving them the big picture, a story, and an interactive experience.
Purple Works, a specialist learning and communications company,
designed a learning concept that relied on bringing together customer,
product, and service information from all parts of the business and then
presenting this in the form of a mobile, interactive exhibition.
The idea, which proved to be outstandingly successful, was to create
an interactive multimedia learning experience in the form of an exhibition,
a “learnibition.” The creative team, led by Purple Works managing director
Mark Watson, drew from the best of interactive museum display
techniques, such as those adopted by London’s Science Museum, and the
most innovative practice in internal and external communication.
The design ensured that all learning styles were catered for and
there was something for every employee, no matter how experienced or
inexperienced.There were large visual panels for those who prefer to use94 Power Up Your Mind
✔colorful flipcharts
✔whiteboards
✔post-it notes
✔postcards
✔short, personalized emails
✔cartoons
✔posters
✔video
✔newsletter✔intranet
✔OHPs
✔interactive display boards
✔graffiti boards
✔music
✔role play/drama
✔team briefings
✔games
✔word of mouth