Focus on

Hull City Council’s cleaning service, Hull Building Cleaning (HBC), has become one of the first organisations in the UK to gain certification to the Government’s new Customer Service Excellence standard.

Customer Service Excellence (CSE) is a new national standard and a practical tool to encourage and enable organisations to implement customer-focused change and continuously improve their services. CSE requires organisations to demonstrate:

• Customer insight, by understanding and involving customers in the drive for ever higher levels of service excellence, efficiency and effectiveness
  
  
• A customer-focused culture, for example encouraging and using feedback from customer-facing staff
  
  
• Accessibility and accurate, complete information for all customers, for example publicising the services available, listing contact and any charging details, and co-operating with other organisations to provide seamless services
  
  
• Delivery improvements, for example by: setting, monitoring, meeting and exceeding service level agreements; dealing with problems and learning from them; encouraging and acting on customer feedback; and benchmarking and adopting best practice
  
  
• Timeliness and quality of service, for example responding to customer calls and emails reliably and promptly.

SGS United Kingdom Ltd Assessment

HBC chose SGS, a United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) certification body to carry out its CSE assessment.

Lesley Free, Building Cleaning Manager at HBC, says: 'SGS was very professional in its approach, from registration through to assessment. Our application was processed efficiently and SGS was helpful when we needed advice.'

'SGS’ assessor had a thorough understanding of the standard and its application to our business. He put us at ease throughout the assessment process.'

Benefits of CSE

Lesley Free of HBC says: 'We’re proud to have gained Customer Service Excellence certification and the CSE hallmark. CSE helps to make us ever more focused on service delivery, for example our highly trained and customer focused workforce is empowered to act on customer feedback to enhance our services.'

www.uk.sgs.com

The SGS Group is the global leader and innovator in inspection, verification, testing and certification services. Founded in 1878, SGS is recognised as the global benchmark in quality and integrity. With more than 53,000 employees, SGS operates a network of over 1,000 offices and laboratories around the world.