Background
Eurotunnel wanted to support its passenger and freight teams through the new situations created by a change in the group's commercial strategy and a stronger premium positioning for the brand.
The goal: extend a classroom programme that was already well received in France but limited in frequency and durability, using a digital solution that could be industrialised across the whole of Eurotunnel.
The challenge
- Connect theory and practice: increase practice time in training roughly tenfold so the right reflexes stick.
- Consistent, measurable feedback: give quality feedback to the 15 to 20 learners in each class without overloading trainers.
- Innovate pedagogically: keep new joiners engaged, both in the classroom and remotely.
Working with Face Up
Format: Face Up is used in the classroom during in-person training sessions, then as e-learning so staff can keep practising on their own.
One priority scene was chosen: the information desk during a train delay. Every multi-skilled member of staff has worked that desk and faced anxious passengers arriving with a heavy emotional load. On top of that, 80% of the group's customers are British, which creates a double demand on French-speaking staff: adopt the right behaviours in a crisis and handle the exchange in English.
The skills worked on in the programme are:
- Greet the customer to the SBAM standard — smile, hello, goodbye, thank you — and keep a warm tone despite the pressure.
- Adapt verbal and non-verbal communication using the DISC model: quickly read the customer's communication profile and adjust the approach to reassure them and direct them effectively.
The learner experience chosen:
- Interaction with anxious AI avatars across different DISC profiles, each with their own emotions, pace and objections.
- An immediate AI debrief, annotated by the trainer who wrote the scenario: strengths, priority areas, examples of how to rephrase.
- Guided practice through to mastery, with difficulty varied by DISC profile, time pressure, footfall and tension.
Rollout and integration
- Start with immersive role-play on the "information desk — train delay" scene, then extend to every key moment of the passenger and freight journey.
- Build scenarios specific to the Eurotunnel context, designed from the outset to be industrialised across the group in both France and England.
- Track improvement in customer-facing skills and feed the findings back into the training offer.
First results, autumn 2025
- 100% satisfaction in the first sessions.
- A wow effect and strong learner engagement.
- Objective measurement of customer-relations behaviours: greeting, clarity, DISC adaptation, handling emotion.
- Rollout under way, with new scenes being added across other points of the passenger and freight journey.
What comes next
- Add variants covering languages, operational constraints and peak footfall.
- Connect practice to field indicators — NPS on disrupted days, complaints, escalations — to evidence the impact.
- Equip managers with team rituals: reading the debrief together, sharing good practice, setting team objectives.
Want to discuss something similar for your own organisation?
Write to us at contact@face-up.fr
