Spring has sprung – a little – and it is wonderful to enjoy being outside again.

With a six-year-old and one and a half horses, staying inside for the winter isn’t an option so it has been a welcome change.

It reminded me of this time last year, when we became accidental midwives for one of my neighbour’s sheep.

It provided great content for my speech at the IoD Breakfast sponsored by Rural plc Kent.

Last month members will have noticed we were concentrating on delivering business feedback on apprenticeships to the Government via surveys across the IOD, with our own Kent-specific insight.

Following this, Kent County Council held a lunch at the Kent Choices careers event last month which was made up of IoD business leaders.

We welcomed a wide range of experience, from two current apprentices right up to a successful business owner who started as an apprentice.

It is fair to say it was a lively lunch with lots of opinions but KCC listened carefully and left with a decent to-do list.

We are all well aware of the need to keep this momentum going so we have created our own advisory board to track progress and will be meeting with the skills and employability team again in the summer.

Elsewhere, our Directors’ Briefing topic for March was the customer experience, so I will share the thoughts of Micah Solomon in Forbes:

1. There is no such thing as the customer experience. You might have a process but every experience is different and seen from an individual’s perspective. Get out of your head and in to theirs.

2. Your customer experience process needs continual work to ensure it is always relevant.

3. Customer engagement is everything. Fulfilling their needs is not enough to ensure loyalty. You need an emotional connection.

4. Streamline the boring bits of the journey. If they don’t add to the experience, they get in the way. Think Apple Store, with no receipts, registers or even operators manuals. Only the great stuff is on show.

5. Be a speed freak – a perfect product, delivered late, becomes imperfect. What a waste.

I hope to see you at our next company visit to the Port of Dover.