Customer service excellence

The Customer Service Excellence standard is a UK Government award that “aims to bring professional, high-level customer service concepts into common currency with every customer service by offering a unique improvement tool to help those delivering services put their customers at the core of what they do.”

The standard contains 5 critera:

  1. Customer insight
  2. The culture of the organisation
  3. Information and access
  4. Delivery
  5. Timeliness and quality of service

Across these criterion there are 57 elements against which an organisation is evaluated and with which they must display compliance or partial compliance. Details of all of the elements are available from the Customer Service Excellence website.

Within the University of Portsmouth, the Sport and Recreation Department and the University Library worked together on a joint project to achieve the standard and submitted an application in late September 2016, with the assessment visit taking place in late October 2016. This assessment visit was successful and both departments now hold the standard but this is only the beginning of the journey. The standard is a continuous improvement tool, and so we will be evaluating our customer journeys each year and seeking ways in which to improve them. The award is granted for a three year period and we will be assessed in October of each year to ensure that our services have improved and we are eligible to retain the award.

If you have any suggestions for customer journeys that we should look to improve or you are interested in seeing the evidence that we submitted then please get in touch with the University Librarian.