Clients and Customers Engagement

Client engagement

To be our clients' trusted partner, we believe in developing a close 'fit' between our organisations. This involves taking the time to understand our clients' changing needs throughout the life of our relationship. In practice, we ensure that we:

• understand clients' expectations and align our resources to meet them

• deliver technical expertise and relevant value to our clients

• develop and nurture professional relationships between all key stakeholders

Our unique and innovative client relations programme, Clients for Life®, is designed to achieve these objectives by facilitating open dialogue. Some of the key elements of the Clients for Life® process are as follows:

• Sodexo has invested in a team of Client Relations Executives (CRE) who report into the Office of the Chief Executive. They are independent of the operational teams so that they can bring an unbiased approach to the business and accurately reflect our clients' expectations and feedback

• The Transition Meeting™ takes place on award of a new contract, but before we begin service delivery. The meeting, which involves all stakeholders in the relationship, is designed to ensure that the Sodexo team fully understands the clients' expectations and priorities and that resources are aligned appropriately.

• We actively develop the Web of Influence® in each of our contracts, ensuring that we nurture a network of professional relationships at every level.

• The Annual Expectations Meeting is similar to a transition meeting, taking place each year on the anniversary of contract commencement and is designed to review and refresh objectives and priorities for the year ahead.

• A Transition Lite™ meeting takes place when a key member of the team on either side changes, and is designed to check whether expectations and priorities are still the same.

• From time to time we ask our clients to help us take a fresh and independent look at the contract and to help us understand where we are performing well and where we need to improve. An independent Client Relations Executive conducts a 'FreshEyes Review' by interviewing as many key stakeholders as possible to get an in depth understanding of individual perspectives of Sodexo's performance.

• The Client Survey is a web based questionnaire sent to all clients on an annual basis to give the business a snapshot of client satisfaction, helping us to identify tactical issues which need resolving, as well as common themes at a more strategic level.

• In the event that a contract is terminated or not renewed, the CRE will conduct a series of interviews, similar to a FreshEyes Review, to ensure that we learn from the experience and that any mistakes are not repeated.

• Attitude & Action® is a one day training session for all levels of the business, to explain the principles of client satisfaction and retention and to engage our operational teams with the process.

Customer engagement

We make sure that we understand our customers' needs and expectations and we do our best to share our expertise and knowledge with them where it can improve their wellbeing and Quality of Daily Life, for example with nutrition information or by explaining the benefits of sustainable food products.

We use a bespoke analysis tool, PERSONIX™, to better understand the needs, expectations and behaviours of people in the workplace in terms of food service and facilities management. Use of this system is tailored to individual sites so that we can make sure we put the most appropriate solution forward.

We conduct a University Lifestyle Survey every other year to identify and track students' opinions and perceptions about non-academic life while at university. The study is based on some 2,000 on-line interviews with full-time undergraduates at around 150 Higher Education institutions across the country. The survey results are shared with a large group of interested stakeholders such as university chancellors and their teams, government ministers and the media. The findings provide Sodexo Education with a better understanding of students' needs and interested parties with key insights into students' opinions about the lifestyle issues that affect them. The fifth survey will be published in April 2012.

In our restaurants and our gym facilities, our customers are provided with free advice on healthy lifestyles and exercise, nutritional information and top tips for a balanced diet. Most of this information is made available on our dedicated website at www.sodexo-healthwise.com.

We also display and explain our commitments to sustainable food produce, like local and seasonal food or sustainably certified seafood, Fairtrade and our STOP Hunger initiative. Regular campaigns are carried out at our sites on these themes. For example, we supported the Fairtrade Foundation “Fairtrade Fortnight” in 2010 and 2011 by raising awareness about the meaning of Fairtrade and promoting their products like coffee, sugar and confectionery. In autumn 2010, we supported the Marine Stewardship Council fortnight to raise awareness about depleting fish stocks and the importance of sustainably certified seafood. We distributed a special publication, The Daily Starfish, which explained our commitment to the MSC to mark this occasion.