Customer Service Excellence
The Independent Living Fund has successfully reached the Government's Customer Service Excellence standard.
The Government wants the citizen always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision and public services for all that are:
- efficient
- effective
- excellent
- equitable, and
- empowering
With this in mind Customer Service Excellence was developed to offer public services a practical tool for driving customer-focused change within their organisation.
ILF has reached the standard convincingly by complying with 53 out of the 57 different elements that are looked at as part of the assessment, with only four areas of partial compliance.
In his report about the assessment of the ILF, the assessor said, "It was clear throughout the process that the organisation has a clear and effective commitment to developing and maintaining a high level of customer service. The users of the fund are central to the work of the fund and staff recognises this and take account of it in all they do. Many staff pointed out that in processing applications and payments they are constantly aware of the person behind the file they are dealing with."
During the assessment process the assessor also identified some key areas of strength for the ILF. These are that:
- staff show a high degree of engagement and ‘buy in’ to the customer focussed ethos. All staff who were involved in the process share a passion for what they do and this comes across very clearly.
- there is a very clear understanding of the needs of service users and of the way that the service provided can impact on the quality of life of service users. Staff were keen to point out that the files they deal with aren’t just paperwork, but each file represents an individual with specific needs and expectations. This approach clearly helps staff to maintain their enthusiasm for the work and their determination to deliver consistently good services.
- the range, type and impact of user involvement is impressive, especially considering the diverse nature of the service user group and the geographical challenges involved in consulting and engaging them. Users who were interviewed as part of the assessment process were appreciative of the level of involvement they are afforded.
- there is a sense of continuous development and improvement about the organisation which is shown in many ways. Physical changes have been made to the office environment, the branding is more clearly defined, changes have been made to a lot of the literature that is available for service users and staff reports a state of constant change and development. This also adds to staff motivation and helps maintain their enthusiasm for the job they do.
We are proud of our achievement, and will build on this success to continually develop and further improve all areas of our service.