Building the connection between the employee and the customer.
Everything we do is designed to deepen the connection between employees and customers – with the ultimate goal of a better experience for everyone.
Everyone is born with a desire to understand – and to be understood. Whether we’re 6 or 60, we want other people to “get” us. This core human need of understanding is what drives our behaviour – and in turn, our engagement.
And that’s why it’s key to business success. We need to understand our employees and customers – and they need to feel understood by us.
When employees feel connected to your organisation, they’ll give it their all. When you show your customers you really understand them, they’ll be your biggest fans.
The Understood Experience is Effortless, Valuable and Emotional.
Our three key themes create better experiences for customers and employees.
Click one of the three areas below to discover more.
We begin by getting to grips with your organisation, your challenges and your objectives. We hear from you, your customers and your employees – and we read every bit of insight you throw at us!
We infuse our design with your reality, constructing every component carefully. We mix up lively interaction, stimulating discussion, live actors, engaging film and audio, and time for consolidation and self-reflection.
We consult with you to devise a successful communications strategy: for example, the creation of an internal brand to give your programme identity, establishing a network of programme advocates and the use of enterprise social media platforms.
We have a network of Understood consultants who deliver our training. We pick the right facilitators for your organisation and we meticulously prepare them to deliver. Or we can train up your trainers to do the job. The choice is yours.
We work with you to keep the learning alive in your organisation through targeted management training, digital learning content, support with recruitment and induction, creation of Values in Action…and more!
Every piece of work we do is different, but we have four key beliefs that we stick to, to make sure we deliver the best:
If it looks phony or a box-ticking exercise, it’s not going to go down well. We spend time understanding what matters to employees and customers.
If you want employees to dazzle customers, you’ve got to dazzle them. We obsess about delivering something that will knock their socks off.
Put your people first: employees and customers, in that order. If it’s personal to them, it means you care. And they’ll care too.
A top-notch training event can inspire people to think, feel and behave differently. But for how long? It won’t last forever without regular TLC.
Carolyn has designed customer experience and employee engagement programmes for many leading organisations. Time and time again, she saw how poor employee and customer experiences arose due to feelings of disconnection. Understood was founded to address this challenge, offering focused and engaging training, consultancy and communication solutions to help reconnect employees with their customers – and each other.
Katherine’s a project and account manager with years of experience working for high profile clients. She manages all the logistical elements of filming production and training programmes with energy and efficiency.
A former corporate strategist, Alice is the founder of Realise, an organisation specialising in employee wellbeing, performance and development. Both Understood and Realise share the aim of changing behaviour and driving engagement through top-notch training. We regularly collaborate on projects so that we can offer our clients the best possible training programme.
Claire has buckets of experience when it comes to designing and delivering top-quality training. She’s passionate about creating positive work cultures that build individual skill, untap potential and develop winning behaviours. As a coach and facilitator, Claire’s approach is compassionate, collaborative and challenging.
Jonathan has a 20-year track record delivering drama-based business training in a wide range of settings around the UK and worldwide. Though diverse, the approach is always similar – robust, engaging, flexible and with a strong focus on supporting the development of participants, building confidence and personal impact through effective communication. Jonathan has delivered Customer Excellence programmes for a wide range of organisations, and in particular programmes focused on customer satisfaction.
Customer experience and employee engagement specialist.
Vast experience in devising data-driven, strategic programmes to help organisations prioritise their customer experience. Passionate about equipping, engaging and empowering employees to do the right thing for customers, every day.
Deborah (aka Debs) Erwin is a professionally qualified youth work practitioner and consultant with over 23 years’ experience comprising youth work, youth service management, research, and programme design. As an experienced facilitator in a range of settings, Deborah brings a strong person-centred, relational, and participative approach to group work with an emphasis on starting from where people are at in any kind of group engagement.
Adrian has 40 years of sales expertise spanning FMCG, B2B, B2C, and Financial Services. He holds professional qualifications in Financial Services, coaching, and sports psychology. His ILM coaching and mentoring experience, coupled with an empathetic approach, make him a positive, growth-oriented professional always ready to help and advise.
Gabriela Weglowska is a Learning & Development practitioner with over ten years of experience working in an international business environment. She designs, develops and delivers face to face, digital and blended learning solutions on the topics of intercultural competence, soft skills and diversity & inclusion. Her passion and mission is to connect people to the right skills, knowledge and behaviours to help them thrive.
Gary has more than 25 years of experience in the field of Learning & Development. He’s highly skilled in the design and delivery of training and his expertise is helping others to learn, so that they can develop their capability and confidence to enable them to perform their roles to the best of their ability. Gary is an Authorised Partner for Everything DiSC® and The Five Behaviours®, as well as a Certified Strengths Profile Practitioner.
Nicola has 20 years’ experience as a Learning and Development Consultant. She is a highly skilled facilitator and works with clients throughout the world. Nicola also teaches business, leadership, management and coaching at the Open University Business School, teaching on their prestigious MBA programme. Nicola is a highly motivated and engaging specialist in consultative style training delivery.
Victoria builds D&I into organisations in a way that supports and enhances their best asset – their employees. She has worked across different industries from global technology companies, charities to regional government bodies. Previous client assignments include Network Rail, Transport for London, Epson and Halfords. Victoria has conducted numerous D&I health checks within the professional and technology sectors. She delivers interactive and impactful training on topics such as overcoming unconscious bias in the workplace, inclusive recruitment and selection and EqIAs.
Andy is an actor, presenter and trainer who specialises in delivering behavioural change through drama-based activities which reflect the emotional reality of the workplace. He has most recently co- devised and delivered our virtual Staging the Conversation workshop.
David worked for more than 25 years as an actor and theatre director. He now brings those skills to his work as an empathic and effective coach and facilitator, delivering group and 1:1 sessions enabling clients to discover and practise authentic communication skills with confidence, clarity and courage. He has most recently co-devised and delivered our virtual Staging the Conversation workshop.
Matt is an experienced actor and coach, who is equally at home working one to one with a client as he is with delivering forum theatre in front of hundreds of delegates. Be it scripted pieces, or improvisation, in person or on film, his enthusiasm and passion for bringing training to life results in memorable and rewarding sessions each and every time.
Ben is an experienced, award-winning director and filmmaker. A specialist in producing high-end corporate videos, Ben is extremely creative and has a keen eye for detail. Most importantly, he’s a natural when it comes to making contributors feel at ease on camera.
Will is a specialist in cinematography (lighting, framing & camera), as well as a proficient location sound recordist. He’s an award-winning filmmaker who brings creativity and original ideas to new projects.
Experienced eLearning developer and digital instructional designer with a keen eye for detail.
Specialises in creating engaging, interactive and industry-leading eLearning training modules, pulling from best practices across a range of disciplines.
Joe is a writer for stage and screen. He is Playwright on Attachment at the Finborough Theatre and First Story Writer in Residence at Landau Forte College Derby. Joe scripts and storyboards all dramatised films for Understood. Enlisting his talent and expertise has taken the production value of our content to the next level.
A Graphic Designer and Presentation Specialist, with over 16 years of experience, Jeanine’s speciality isn’t just design that looks pretty, but thoughtful design that creates long-term, scalable business value. She embraces the arts and technology equally, providing guidance to clients that pursue influential change through their products and services.
A Senior Designer with over 12 years of London Design Agency experience, Adele has experience working across a variety of industries. She specialises in the production and project management of high end proposals, investor pitches, presentations and marketing collateral in both Adobe applications and Microsoft Office.