Hovertravel is celebrating the anniversary of the highly regarded HoverCare initiative by announcing major enhancements to its customer assistance provision. HoverCare was launched last September with the first ever age simulation training on a hovercraft, in conjunction with Barclays Accessibility Team.

“The response to HoverCare over the past year has been extremely positive,” explains Loretta Lale, Head of Commercial at Hovertravel, “This initiative was originally planned to bring all our customer assistance provisions under one banner and strengthen our skills base for persons of reduced mobility. We are now adding the next level of training and looking to learn from how other organisations are upskilling their workforces.”

Hovertravel is training its staff to understand and appreciate a broad range of issues including autism, loss of sight, loss of hearing and dementia awareness. With help from leading experts in each of these fields, the teams at Hovertravel are becoming more skilled in providing meaningful assistance to a broader range of customers. Hovertravel is working with specialist trainers from a diverse set of organisations such as Edinburgh Airport, Medina School’s Makaton training, Admiral Nurses, Dementia UK and the Guide Dogs for Blind, seeking insights into best practice as it is applied as well as learning the fundamental principles.

In addition to this internal tuition programme, Hovertravel is planning a series of themed coffee mornings to give customers the opportunity to see the HoverCare initiative in action and to familiarise themselves with the terminals.

Loretta continues, “With our staff training underway, we wanted to dedicate a series of morning sessions to customers, so they can ask questions, explore the facilities at the terminals and learn how Hovertravel can make their journey as straightforward as possible.”

The two-hour planned coffee morning sessions will run between 10am and 12noon and planned for the following dates:

Wednesday 19th Sept Autism Awareness

Thursday 18th Oct Support for Sight

Monday 19th November Support for Hearing

Wednesday 5th December Dementia awareness

Although there is a theme for each event, all are welcome to attend any dates and if you cannot attend a specific date, please come along to one of the other sessions. There is more information on HoverCare on the Hovertravel website.