Organised by the Institute of Customer Service, National Customer Service Week (NCSW) is running between 1 and 5 October 2018, aiming to raise awareness of customer services and the vital role it plays in successful business practice and the growth of the UK economy.
The Insolvency Service is using NCSW as an opportunity to highlight the importance of customer services excellence, how our services have evolved and how we assist different customers – from people considering Debt Relief Orders to workers applying to the Redundancy Payment Service for financial help.
With teams based in Leeds and Edinburgh, customer services handle more than 150,000 calls a year and are assessed annually.
For the past 19 years, we have been awarded the Customer Service Excellence standard, recognising our continued focus on meeting the needs of our customers and in 2016/17, the Insolvency Service was awarded 5 new compliance plus ratings. In total we now hold 17 compliance plus and 40 compliant ratings.
Comments received from assessors during our last assessment included:
There is full corporate commitment throughout the organisation to putting the customer at the heart of service delivery.
During discussions, staff were very enthusiastic about their participation in what is clearly a very well established customer-focused culture within the organisation.
And it’s not just the assessors who think our customer services are of a high standard as Insolvency Service staff have provided first-hand accounts of how they have turned difficult situations into favourable results.
In one case, someone going through bankruptcy called up the Insolvency Service on a Friday concerned that their bank account had been frozen. This meant they could not access their benefits and had bills to pay.
Usually, staff would just confirm if the bank was happy for the personal bank account to be used. But the customer representative was conscious that it could be a whole weekend before the person could access their account again. Thinking quickly, the Insolvency Service called the bank to release the funds, before reassuring the customer that the money would be there, which was gratefully received.
Jackie Stevenson-Coe, Head of Customer Service & Insight, said:
We make every effort to improve our customer services to benefit everyone who deals with the Insolvency Service and being awarded the Customer Service Excellence standard is a tremendous achievement both for our customers and staff who work extremely hard to make it happen.
Providing excellent customer services is absolutely crucial and we will continue to improve our offering in order to assist our customers and achieve our mission in delivering economic confidence.
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