As any member of the Facebook group Maj’s List can attest, complaints of poor service are common in Bermuda.

Retail, hospitality, service providers, transportation … the industries that haven’t been called out for their shortfalls are few.

Patrice Frith Hayward’s company, Level Up Professional Development, designs and facilitates workshops according to a company’s specific needs.

She has been doing it since 2009, first for the Bermuda Employers’ Council and then branching out on her own.

It has been her experience that office parties and dinners are a great way for staff to bond. Christmas offers plenty of opportunities.

“I organise fun events, games and things like that. They’re looking to have fun during that time and do some team building without calling it team building,” she said.

“[You can even] turn your office Christmas event into a whole production. You decide the topics. I write a script. You put a cast together. I will direct and produce. Lights. Stage. Action! Throw in lunch or dinner and you have … a whole Christmas production.”

The end goal is a unified team, which is a win for the company and its customers.

“If your team's customer service skills are poor and [as a result customers] say, ‘OK, well, I'm not coming back’, then they're messing with the company's bottom line,” she said.

“The hiccup is, if a company is making a lot of money they often don't even realise that customers leave or, sometimes, they don't even care if they leave. But customer retention should be the number one goal, followed by customer referrals.”

It’s an effort addressed in Ms Frith Hayward’s “signature event” which focuses on customer service specifically.

Although each workshop is customised to meet a company’s specific needs, all of them include lessons in basic skills such as please, thank you and good morning; why it isn’t a great idea to be focused on your phone in front of clients, and the importance of responding to customers in a timely manner.

“Why is it all kneejerk or reactive instead of being proactive? When service providers know a problem is going on, why not contact [the customer] and let them know instead of having them call and complain? That's where you keep your customers.”

Ms Frith Hayward also offers workshops aimed at conflict resolution, and diversity, equity and inclusion. One-on-one coaching is possible and there are workshops that teach emotional intelligence at work and how to “nurture teams through leadership”.

“If a company has an employee who is struggling with their productivity because of what's going on in their personal lives – if it's affecting their output, or affecting how they are treating customers or their colleagues – the company would hire me to coach [them], to provide personal support without giving all the details to the company,” she said.

“And then I have an intergenerational workspace, where we are working with different generations, recognising what each generation could possibly contribute to an organisation and [how they might work best] together.”

Like many baby-boomers, the 61-year-old feels “very capable of working and making a contribution” although her approach might be different to that taken by someone who is a millennial or a Gen X.

“I take notes on a notepad and they are putting everything in their phone, but we can work together,” she said.

Banks, international businesses, government, retailers and service providers have all benefited.

The workshops can be a one-off or part of a scheduled series. Ms Frith Hayward can custom fit them for companies of all sizes and types.

“I always have fun activities. I believe that when people are coming to a workshop, they don't want to be sitting up like they're in school all day. So I like to have fun. But if you had a team of say, 60, I don't want to host 60 in the class at the same time. I would cut that in half and maybe come back on a different day for the other team.”

Where possible, she prefers that groups are as diverse as they can be, with management and non-management staff members of different ages pulled from different departments within the company.

“My classes are not ‘one size fits all’. I customise for whatever the organisation's vision and mission is and whatever their concerns might be,” she said.

Sometimes the concerns stem from a misunderstanding and can quickly be addressed through a simple conversation.

Ms Frith Hayward highlighted her own experience with a woman she hired many years ago. Handed an assignment on her first day, the twentysomething-year-old sat staring at her phone.

“I didn't say anything. I left it. Half an hour later, she e-mailed me what I asked for. She did it on her phone. That's how they operate,” she said.

“We tend to judge our young people, but maybe they're working. How many opportunities are we missing because we didn't realise that?”

• Contact Patrice Frith Hayward on 535-8829 or vipnetwork@northrock.bm