The Moller Centre Best in the UK
June 18, 2009
On Tuesday 9th June, the Institute of Hospitality announced the Hospitality Assured Business Excellence Award winners. The winner of the Overall Highest Score for 2008 was The Møller Centre, Management Training & Conference Centre, Cambridge who have been adherents of the Scheme for more than nine years and whose performance on the Hospitality Assured Benchmark has risen year on year.
Reproduced with thanks from Hospitality Assured:
The Møller Centre cuts a stylish dash in Cambridge, recently scooping a regional 2009 RIBA Award for its contemporary architecture. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Churchill College at the University of Cambridge, which affords the centre a reputation as the only dedicated, residential executive training and conference centre in the city. Its facilities include 23 meeting rooms, 71 bedrooms, alongside restaurant, bar and leisure facilities and the centre has consistently achieved Hospitality Assured accreditation each year since it first embarked on the journey for business excellence in 1999.
In 2007, a new Study Centre development was completed, offering delegates a flexible, collaborative learning environment with state-of-the-art technology to enhance the learning process. With a Customer Service Promise firmly planted at the centre of all Director, Gillian Holdom and her team do, the sights are set admirably high as they work hard to display their genuine passion for excellence ‘to create a ‘wow’ factor’ that competes on a ‘world-class’ scale.
The Møller Centre attracted 10% of its 2007-8 business from China and with demand forecast to increase through 2009, measures have been taken to provide dedicated multi-lingual signage, materials and staff for these international guests, in addition to commendable cultural awareness training in preparation for visitors from other countries around the world.
Market price comparisons and visits to local and national venues are routinely conducted to monitor the competition and at the time of assessment, measures were underway to engage an external market research company in measuring and benchmarking The Møller Centre against other conferencing facilities. Feedback from customers continues to be reflective of the emphasis that is placed on knowledgeable and warm service and this customer-focused culture is aided in part by strategic twice-daily meetings between operational staff, where plans for the day/evening’s events are formulated and discussed.
“We started our journey in 1999 and we wanted to do something that didn’t have too much paperwork – something that could involve the whole team. It needed to be based on what we already do, but signposting key areas for improvement for the business. HA fit the bill,” said Gillian.
“As it is based on the European Foundation Quality Model, the three key aspects for us were, firstly, people. We wanted to focus on training and development, ensuring that our employees’ personal goals are aligned with the goals of the business. Secondly, we were keen to maximise our operational efficiency and thirdly, we wanted to better understand and make use of our customers’ feedback. Looking at customer feedback is so important for us. It is no good us looking from the inside out and simply assuming we are doing what we need to. We now have verification that we are improving.
“We needed advice on internal and external benchmarking, which is a valuable element of the HA assessment process. Our mission statement is to ‘support our clients to acquire knowledge for professional development and personal and business success’, so it’s essential that we are demonstrating best practice too. HA forced our organisation to ensure that the infrastructure was in place to deliver the customer service.”
With an improved score of 81%, the HA assessor was pleased to recommend continuing accreditation to The Møller Centre, to the Hospitality Assured Standard for Service and Business Excellence.
"Hospitality Assured accreditation has provided us with a regular rigorous assessment to monitor our service delivery against our customer quality promise. It drives us to innovate and implement best practice, continually developing our offering to the benefit of our clients.”
