Newcastle United scores top marks in a customer survey

ONE of the UK’s most famous football grounds has scored top marks in a secret survey.   St James’ Park – home to Newcastle United – is one of the region’s foremost conference and event venues, hosting everything from small meetings to large scale conferences and even X-Factor auditions.   Now staff at Sodexo Prestige, which manages conferencing and events at the stadium, are celebrating after being awarded maximum points in an independent customer satisfaction survey.   An inspector from Hospitality GEM, which specialises in mystery shopper-style surveys of catering and leisure companies, visited St James’ Park earlier this month (14 March) on the pretext of enquiring about holding a conference. Throughout the course of the visit they secretly scored staff on a wide range of aspects, such as the way in which their enquiry was handled, the welcome they were given and their first impressions of the staff and the venue. Staff were also rated according to their telephone manner when arranging the visit and the way in which the visit was followed up.