Focus on

Following successful onsite assessments by SGS United Kingdom Ltd, the People, Pay and Pensions Agency (PPPA) has achieved the Customer Service Excellence standard (CSE). The PPPA, providing a comprehensive range of integrated HR services to MOD civilian staff and their managers, was formed out of the Pay and Personnel Agency in 2006.

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

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

Following the successful assessment, lead SGS assessor Leon Winston commented: ‘The People, Pay and Pensions Agency really do place what their customers require at the centre of what they do. They are committed to providing an excellent experience for customers, and demonstrate that its programme of continuous improvement focuses on delivering customer satisfaction.’

‘Staff in the People Service Centre show a strong professional attitude in their dealings with customers and demonstrate a willingness to embrace the proposed service improvements to move away from a transactional approach to a more customer focused delivery.’ adds Winston.

Benefits of CSE

‘We’ve learnt some invaluable lessons.’ says George Blackley, Business Management Senior Adviser at the Agency. ‘The CSE is focusing our minds even more on Customer Service. We are already a customer facing organisation, and CSE is raising the profile of our service and acting as a benchmark with other Government departments.’

‘Now that we’ve been through the process we have also achieved Standard Bearer status, where we will work with the Cabinet Office to promote CSE within the public sector.’ adds Blackley.

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.