Focus on

The Governor Development Team at Plymouth City Council Department of Children’s Services has achieved the Customer Service Excellence award. The team of three offers advice, support, information and training to 1,600 governors and head teachers in the 105 city schools in the Plymouth area.

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 e-mails reliably and promptly.

SGS United Kingdom Ltd Assessment

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

SGS auditor, Helen Donnelan, was impressed. 'This is a very small service that really focuses on its customers. It was a really good assessment. The team has a ‘can do’ attitude and it far exceeds its legal and contractual requirements.'

'Delivering excellent customer service in this team of three people means that they each have to demonstrate high standards, commitment to excellent service, and continuously deliver this. It is clear that this is established in the Government Development Team.'

Benefits of CSE

Karen Powell, Government Development Officer on the team, says: 'The new standard enables us to measure our performance and demonstrate improvement. In fact, we have found out more than that. The new standard has proved an invaluable self-development tool.'

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.