Want to differentiate yourself from your competitors? Are your customers important to you? Want to prove it? Customer Service Excellence is a practical tool that will be an invaluable assest to your company. A tool that enables continuous improvement by assessing and identifying your business capabilities allowing you to improve and deploy a more customer focussed delivery. Start your journey in Excellence today!

1. Assessment
And Certification
Built around your
organisation’s needs
W: www.centreforassessment.co.uk
E: enquiries@centreforassessment.co.uk
T: 0161 237 4080
Follow us on Twitter @CFALtd
Assessment and certification
built around your needs

2. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Achieve Quality with Customer
Service Excellence
The Standard for Excellence in
Customer Service

3. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
About Centre for Assessment
We are a national certification and assessment body with over 14 years experience in delivering services to organisations
throughout the UK and internationally. We provide assessment and certification against a range of nationally and internationally
recognised standards including
 ISO 9001
 ISO 14001,
 ISO 27001,
 OHSAS 18001,
 CarbonAction Standard,
 SQM (Specialist Quality Mark),
 Lexcel
 Customer Service Excellence
We are a trusted partner of ‘United Kingdom Accreditation Services Certification Body’ (UKAS) and are licensed by:
 The Law Society for Lexcel.
 The Legal ServicesCommission for the Specialist Quality Mark (branded as SQM Delivery Partnership).
 The Cabinet Office for Customer Service Excellence.
 The Environment Agency for our Carbon Action Standard.

4. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Why Join Centre for Assessment?
We have been independently assessing organisations against the Customer Service Excellence standard since its formal introduction in
2008 and its predecessor, Charter Mark prior to that.
We have successfully completed over 1000 assessment and surveillances during that time, where we have built up a large and diverse
customer base including Private, Public and Voluntary sector organisations.
In turn we have developed the expertise and adapted to the needs of different customers ranging from single site services to full Local
Authorities, NHS Trusts, Universities and Probation Trusts.
We recognise that everyone has different needs and requirements. We consistently deliver a high standard of assessment service and client
care, proven by the excellent client feedback received and the fact that our clients come back to us year after year for their assessment.
We provide a fair and objective assessment process, impartiality is at the core of our business ethos and we have rules and guidance that
regulate the implementation. As a UKAS certification body, we will only be involved in the assessment, ensuring that you receive a fair and
robust, high quality assessment and service.
We are affordable, cost effective and can help you whatever your circumstances and size of organisation. We offer free quotations and
information. We only charge for the assessment, No management fees, No transfer fees and No certification fees and best of all a contract
that doesn’t tie you in.

5. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
What is Customer Service Excellence
Customer Service Excellence is a practical tool that drives Customer –focused change within organisations. It’s aim, to bring professional,
high – level customer service concepts into common practice.
Customer Service excellence builds a picture of your organisation and how focused it truly is. It challenges you to look afresh at your
organisation from the perspective of the customer examining what you deliver and how.
A truly unique improvement tool designed to make you look deeply into your organisation and explore areas of internal and external
service, defining and meeting customer needs;
Customer Service Excellence enables you to be smarter with resources and deliver a service once the right way and not waste time, effort
and money delivering a service the way you want to but not always the way the customers want.
Posed over a series of questions around the 5 Criteria of the standard, it will make you look deeply into your organisation and explore the
areas of internal and external service and help to build a picture of your organisation to see how customer focused, it truly is.

6. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Allowing individuals and teams within the organisation to
explore and acquire new skills in the area of customer focus and
customer engagement thus building their capacity for
delivering improved services.
A skills
Development
Tool
Allowing organisations to self-assess their
capability in relation to customer focused
delivery, identify areas and methods for
improvement.
Allowing organisation to seek formal
accreditation to the CSE standard,
demonstrating their competence, identify
key areas for improvement and celebrate
success.
A driver for Continuous Improvement.
An independentValidation of
Achievement.
Customer Service Excellence operates on 3
distinct Levels :

7. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
The Customer Service Excellence Standard
Customer
Insight
Culture
Information
& Access
Delivery
Timeliness
& Quality
Customer Service Excellence is comprised of 5
Criteria:
1. Customer Insight;
2. Culture of Organisation;
3. Information and Access
4. Delivery
5. Timeliness and Quality
For you organisation to become a recognised
achiever of Customer Service Excellence you
must show how you meet and be successfully
assessed against all of the criteria within the
standard.

8. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Customer Insight
Customer Identification.
Engagement and Consultation.
Customer Satisfaction.
This criterion focuses on the importance of developing an
indepth understanding of your customers.This includes:
 Consulting customers;
 Using the information you receive to design and provide
services.
 Importance of monitoring the outcomes of services and
whether customers are satisfied with them.
Understanding customers in this way is essential for
organisations to raise their standard levels of service and
continue to build on this success.
Identifying your customers, consulting them in a meaningful
way and efficiently measuring the outcomes of your service is
a vital part of this approach.
It is not about being able to collect information, it is about
having the ability to use that information to develop a culture
within your organisation that values this kind of understanding
and constantly looks to improve.

9. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Culture of Organisation
Leadership, Policy and Culture.
Staff professionalism and
Attitude.
Building a customer focused culture, organisations can look
at how those that work within the organisation demonstrate
the necessary values and understanding as well as how the
operations and procedures meet customers needs and
expectations.
This criteria is concerned with support for customer focused
approaches throughout the organisation so that excellent
service is delivered to all customers.
Included are also two of the key drivers that relate to staff
behaviours:
 Professionalism;
 Attitude.
These are reinforced by a requirement that this approach is
fully supported by the leadership team. Together these
elements should help to build and develop a customer
focused culture that supports improved service delivered.

10. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Information and Access
Range of Information.
Quality of Information.
Access.
Co-Operative working with
other providers, partners and
communities.
Information is vital to customers, they value accurate and
detailed information and like to be kept informed about what is
happening. This criterion aims to make sure that you have this
in mind in everything you do.
Rather than a one-off exercise it is seen as part of an effective
communication plan for consulting and involving your
customers.
Here the criterion asks you to pay attention to your
communication policy. Putting your customers first can be an
important first step towards providing effective
communication.

11. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Delivery
Delivery standard.
Achieved delivery and
Outcomes.
Deal effectively with problems.
A vital part of any organisation is how successfully it
achieves its main business aims, this is equally important to
the customers of an organisation.
This criterion is designed to look at how you carry out your
main business, the outcomes for your customers, and how
you manage any problems that arise.
Research shows that many customers are satisfied with
outcomes from contact with an organisation, but fewer are
satisfied with the way the service promises and handles any
problems.
Listening to and asking for, comments, feedback and
complaints about your service can be a great way to make
small adjustments to the way your organisation operates
and both formal and informal feedback can be equally
important.

12. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Timelines and Quality of Service
Standards for timeliness and
quality.
Timely Outcomes.
Achieved timely delivery.
This criterion looks in more detail at the standards you
have relating to how you carry out your main business.
It draws heavily on research which service users have
identified as the most important factors of excellent
customer service.
Separating customer service standards from the main
business standards makes the requirements for setting
and monitoring standards in these areas much more
strict. This plays a major part in developing the customer
focused culture discussed in Criterion 2.
This is not meant to be a full list of every factor that
affects how your service is run, but past experience shows
that the speed of your initial contact with customers and
your ability to keep to agreed timescales are vital.

13. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
The Scoring Process & Elements
Split into 57 elements which focus on different aspects of a successful organisation, not only one that delivers
great customer service but also builds an effective and realistic strategy that centres on customer service.
In order to be recognised as achieving Customer Service Excellence you must be successfully assessed against the criteria. The following
will define how the criteria can be scored:
1. Compliance Plus – behaviours or practices that exceed the requirements of the standard and are reviewed as exceptional or as an
exemplar for others – either within the applicant’s organisation or in the wider public, private and voluntary service arena.
2. Compliant – your organisation has a variety of good quality evidence that demonstrates that you comply fully with this element. The
evidence which reflects compliance is consistent throughout and embedded in the culture of the organisation.
3. Partial Compliance – your organisation has some evidence but there are some significant gaps.The gaps could include:
(a) Parts of the applicant organisation which are currently not compliant and/or areas were the quality of the evidence is poor or
incomplete and/or;
(b)Areas which have only just begun to be addressed and are subject to significant further development and/or;
(c) Areas where compliance has only been in evidence for a very short period of time.
4. Non – Compliant – your organisation has little or no evidence of compliance or what evidence you do have refers only a small (minor)
part of your organisation.

14. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Criterion
Number of
Elements
Maximum
Number of
Partial
compliances
1 11 2
2 11 2
3 12 2
4 13 3
5 10 2
Passing Mark and Elements - Under the current scheme, it
allows applicants a maximum number of partial compliances
around 80% for all criteria. No non-compliant areas are allowed.
The maximum number of partial compliances for each criterion
shown below.
In order to be scored as ‘Compliance Plus’ you must show that
your practices in in relation to a specific element covers the
following:
(a) Exceeds the standard – evidence needs to show how you are
going beyond the basic requirements of the standard for
that specific element.
(b) Exceptional Practice of Delivery - there needs to be
evidence to show that what is being done by the client is
exceptional (doing things that are not common within your
sector).
(c) Exemplar for Others – what you are doing in relation to that
element can be seen as an example of good practice that
could be used effectively by other service providers.
The Scoring Process & Elements Cont.

15. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Applying for an Assessment Against CSE
Initial enquiry followed
by, information packs and
supporting documents
regardingCSE.
Application form for Free
formal no obligations
quotation included.
Client returns application
form to CfA who then
scope and provide cost
and time needed for
assessment services.
If proposal is accepted,
client returns acceptance
form agreeing toT&C’s
allowing CfA to start
making preparations for
Assessment.
Once acceptance
received,CfA allocate a
lead assessor to project.
Who will ensure you are
ready to proceed and
book suitable dates for the
assessment to take place

16. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
CfA’s Assessment Process
Desktop Review
The assessor will review you
self-assessment and supporting
evidence against the elements
of the standard.
Preparation & Planning
The assessor will contact you to
discuss the outcome of the
desktop review and agree the
assessment plan. A plan is then
drawn up and sent to you in
advance of the onsite
assessment
Onsite Visit
The assessor will speak to a
sample of people form your
organisation as well as
stakeholders and customers,
review further evidence onsite
to verify how you deliver
services and identify areas of
good practice and areas for
improvement. At the end of the
onsite visit the assessor will
provide verbal feedback on
your position against the
standard.
Report Writing and Post
Certification
Following the onsite visit the
assessor will write a detailed
report outlining your
performance in relation to the
standard. The report will
provide feedback on areas for
improvement and make
recommendations about how
you could improve the
performance of your
organisations. The report is put
through a rigorous panel
process to ensure the quality of
information within.

17. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
To ensure that CSE is used effectively as a tool for
continuous improvement we need to pay attention to
what happens after certification. A requirement of the
scheme is that all applicants have a regular reviews,
known as SV’s (surveillance visits). Their purpose is to
give assurance that compliance is maintained. These
take place every 12 months.
Our approach to your assessment is to provide a value
added service , one that will give practical and useful
feedback at every stage and help your organisation to
make improvements. At every surveillance will provide
an assessment record that will help you to track your
activity and outcomes across time.
If you are successful in meeting the standard, you will
then be issued certificates and authority to use copies of
the logo’s to identify your self as a member of the
standard. The certificate is valid for 3 years (as long as
adherence to the surveillance visits and terms and
conditions are met.
CSE Post Certification
Surveillance
1
Surveillance
2
Full Re-
assessment

18. Assessment and certification
built around your needs
Benefits of CSE
Gaining the Customer Service Excellence standard will be an invaluable asset to your company. Cost benefits can be
achieved as this certification is a driver for continuous improvement, by assessing and identifying your business
capabilities this enables you to improve and deploy a more customer focussed delivery
Customer Service Excellence is a well-recognised, independent standard which validates your company’s competence regarding business target
market. Well research concepts around customer insight and delivery are at the heart of this standard, enabling you to deliver a truly customer
focused service.
The customer service excellence certificate will not only contribute to your bottom line and improved delivery but will also develop staff by
allowing individuals and teams to explore and acquire stronger customer focussed and customer engagement skills.
This standard provides a whole range of advice and guidance on techniques that can be used to deliver excellence.
In addition CSE can:
1. Recuse costs;
2. Improve customer satisfaction;
3. Better equip staff and make the more customer focused when dealing with enquiries;
4. Provide a simple solution to ensure customer needs and expectations are met accordingly;
5. Increase customer retention;
6. Improve consultation with users
7. Engage and re-focus staff;
8. Improve complaints handling.
One of the great things about Customer Service Excellence is that it has been designed to benefit all organisations regardless of their size or the
sector that they work in. If you would like to become a member of the scheme today or are considering moving to Centre for Assessment, then
please contact us to start your journey in achieving the Customer Service Excellence Accreditation on 0161 237 4080 or
enquiries@centreforassessment.co.uk and request a copy of our short application form.