Champion customer service
Overview
This standard is part of the customer service competence area related to Impression and Image. It covers championing customer service. It includes area that covers the customer service behaviours and processes that have most impact on the way your customer sees you and your organisation. Remember that customers include everyone to whom you provide products and services. They may be external to your organisation or they may be internal customers.
Staff with high levels of responsibility for customer service have an important role to play as champions of excellent service within their organisations. You promote customer service to service partners that support your organisation to deliver reliable customer service. You also have extensive expertise that can benefit colleagues and partners.
This standard is for customer service professionals who champion customer service by being constantly alert for issues that affect customer service, analysing these issues and their implications, challenging on behalf of the customer and passing on your expertise to others.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
- identify the role of customer service within your organisation's strategic and business plans
- monitor developments in your organisation to identify those important to customer service delivery
- support the analysis of customer service developments in your organisation
- challenge customer service developments from the customer's standpoint
- influence colleagues and decision-makers to ensure that developments improve customer service
- role model how to provide customer service following your organisation's guidelines
- respond to requests for customer service advice or information from colleagues and partners
- carry out research to enhance or verify communication with customers
- communicate customer service advice and information within your organisation's guidelines
- support colleagues and partners to explore the implications of your advice or information for their own work
- identify actions for colleagues and partners you related to the advice or information explored
- monitor the actions taken related to advice or information
- evaluate the results of your advice or information
- review the way you collect information, formulate advice and communicate it to colleagues and partners
- follow the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- your organisation's strategic and business plans related to customer service delivery
- your role and responsibilities related to championing customer service delivery, including your limits of authority
- the processes for decision making within your organisation and who is involved
- how to monitor customer service developments within your organisation
- how to build relationships and use your influence and authority to affect decision making
- the types of organisational developments that are likely to affect customer service and how to analyse the implications for customer service
- the importance of empathising with customers and how to represent their viewpoint in a constructive way
- how to identify when colleagues and partners need advice and information on customer service issues
- how to use different types of research to support your advice and information on customer service
- how to provide advice and information to colleagues and partners
- the ways that you can monitor the actions taken as a result of your advice and information
- how to evaluate the results of your advice and information to identify improvements
- the legal, organisational, codes of practice and policies relevant to your role and the activities being carried out