We are delighted to announce a significant achievement for the University of Stirling’s Information Services – the attainment of Customer Service Excellence (CSE) accreditation. This prestigious recognition is a testament to our commitment to providing exceptional service to our students, faculty, and staff.
What is Customer Service Excellence?
Customer Service Excellence is a widely recognised accreditation that assesses an organisation’s commitment to providing excellent customer service. It focuses on various aspects, including customer satisfaction, continuous improvement, and employee engagement. Attaining this accreditation demonstrates an organisation’s dedication to delivering services that meet or exceed customer expectations.
This standard is widely recognised in higher education, and the public sector generally, as a driver of continuous improvement, a validation of achievement and a route to addressing areas for improvement. It is about much more than the experience you might have in dealing with Information Services staff (though it is about that too) , it also examines the processes in place to deliver services and the experience users will have in accessing these.
It is common practice to assess a part of the service – e.g. the service point. However, we chose to expose the entirety of Information Services to scrutiny against the standard.
Across the criteria, we were assessed against 57 (yes, fifty seven!) different elements, requiring us to provide statements on how we perform against these and, crucially, to produce evidence to support our case.
The assessment involved a thorough examination from an independent assessor, examining all areas of the service, involving staff right across teams. Within each element, organisations can be partially compliant, compliant or – the equivalent of a gold star, “compliance plus”.
In meeting the standard, Information Services notched up 8 instances of “Compliance Plus”, a strong endorsement of the level of service delivered. The achievement is the work of the entire Information Services team.
This is the first of a three-year programme of assessment. Our “validation” is re-examined annually, we will need to continue to operate to the high standards we set, continue to engage meaningfully with our customers and act on their feedback. We also recognise the few areas in which we are ‘partially compliant’ and we will wish to address those and improve the offering in those areas.
While we are immensely proud to have achieved the CSE Standard, we recognise it as the beginning of a process, not the end, as we look to continually improve and develop services.
Our Customer Service Charter, KPIs and feedback routes can be found here.
