United Kingdom - 23/10/08
Hull Building Cleaning Shines With Customer Service Excellence

In March 2008 Hull Building Cleaning (HBC) became one of the UK’s first organisations to gain Customer Service Excellence (CSE) certification.

Customer Service Excellence

Introduced in March 2008, CSE replaces and builds on the Government’s popular Charter Mark scheme.

Bob Waddle, SGS United Kingdom Ltd Assessor, says: “While upholding the principles of the Charter Mark standard, the CSE standard places more emphasis on the organisation’s in-depth understanding of its customers.”

CSE is a practical tool to help all types of organisations to provide ever better services for their customers – ever more responsive, efficient and effective. It emphasises areas that research has shown are a priority for customers: delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude. Emphasis is also placed on understanding customers and the user’s experience, and the robust measurement of customer satisfaction.

How CSE works

CSE works on four levels: as a driver for continuous improvement; as a tool for developing skills; as an independently assessed means of validating achievement; and as a way to capture best practice. CSE requires organisations to demonstrate:

• Customer insight – clearly identifying customers, understanding their needs and wants at all times, and involving them as much as possible
  
  
• A customer-focused culture at all levels, from the chief executive to frontline staff, for example by: encouraging and using feedback from customer-facing personnel; and emphasising customer service in staff recruitment, induction, training, appraisals and incentive programmes
  
  
• Accessibility and accurate, complete information for all customers, for example by publicising services available, listing contact and any charging details, and co-operating with other organisations to provide seamless services
  
  
• Constantly improving delivery, 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
  
  
• Ttimeliness and quality of service, for example by responding to customer calls and e-mails reliably, promptly and flexibly.

Hull Building Cleaning

Formed in 1989, HBC provides daily cleaning, deep cleaning, carpet and upholstery cleaning, wood floor restoration and other interior cleaning services across the city of Hull.

Known for providing high quality and value for money, HBC has won Hull City Council’s cleaning contract three times. Nationally HBC is in the top two quartiles in 17 performance indicators.

HBC provides cleaning services at around 300 locations in the city, including offices, schools, libraries, day centres, industrial premises, tourist attractions and leisure facilities. It employs 442 cleaning operatives, six cleaning officers and four administrative support staff. In addition it employs two mobile teams to clean the communal areas of low-rise flats and undertake any ad hoc cleaning. Training for HBC staff covers areas such as customer care, health and safety at work, and caring for the environment.

HBC uses the latest hand-held computers to estimate and monitor work and provide comprehensive reports for customers.

HBC is a member of the Association of Public Service Excellence and the Association of Building Cleaning Providers, which provide opportunities for networking and benchmarking.

High quality customer service

HBC first gained Charter Mark certification in 2000, and again in 2003 and 2006, demonstrating its early and continued commitment to providing high-quality customer service.

HBC is a British Institute of Cleaning Services registered centre. It also has Investors in People, ISO 9002 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management) certification.

Lesley Free, Building Cleaning Manager at HBC says: “We went for CSE at the start of 2008 because we had held Charter Mark for over seven years and wanted to build on that.”

Bob Waddle of SGS says: “While Charter Mark was aimed at the public sector, CSE is aimed at all organisations. CSE suits HBC well: it already operates in a competitive market and needs to understand and look after its customers very well in order to develop its business.”

SGS assessment

HBC chose SGS to carry out its CSE assessment. SGS is one of four independent certification bodies accredited by the United Kingdom Accreditation Service.

SGS’s new online self-assessment tool enables organisations to test their compliance with the requirements of CSE and identify areas for improvement.

Once an organisation decides to apply for a formal CSE assessment, SGS carries out a one-day pre-assessment (essentially a gap analysis), a document evidence review and then the assessment itself.

Lesley Free of HBC says: “SGS was professional in its approach, from registration through to assessment. Our application was processed efficiently and SGS was helpful when we needed advice. “SGS’s assessor had a thorough understanding of the standard and its application to our business. He put us at ease throughout the assessment process. “The assessment took place over two days and involved the assessor speaking with staff, partners and customers, reviewing evidence and visiting some of the sites we clean. He then produced a report on his findings and an action plan to guide us forward, and recommended us for CSE certification.”

CSE benefits

Lesley Free says: “HBC’s goal is to continuously learn and improve and, as a key part of this, we’re proud to have gained Customer Service Excellence certification and the CSE hallmark. CSE helps to make us ever more focused on service delivery – to put our customers first at every opportunity, always go the extra mile for them and constantly raise our game.”

Growing interest in CSE

According to Lesley Free, another local authority and various departments at Hull City Council have already expressed an interest in applying for CSE.

Kirsty Newcombe of SGS says: “We’re seeing considerable interest in CSE, at the moment particularly from public agencies, educational establishments and housing associations.”