Customer care

Looking after your customers is a key way to growing and developing your employer facing work. It costs between six to thirty times more to get a new customer than it does to service and maintain the satisfaction and loyalty of an existing customer. If you can keep your customers happy and thus increase your customer retention by 5%, and you could increase your profits by at least 25%. However to do this you will need to provide an above average service to everyone else.

Customer care is not simply for those people who are front of house i.e. reception staff or trainers. It covers the whole service you offer to an employer. For example you need to consider how well your product or service matches customer needs, the value for money you offer, your efficiency and reliability in fulfilling orders, the professionalism, friendliness and expertise of your employees, how well you keep your customers informed and the after-sales service you provide. www.businesslink.co.uk

Audit the level of customer care throughout your organisation, measure strengths and areas for improvement through the UK Government's national standard for excellence in customer service - Charter Mark, a free web-based self-assessment toolkit. www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/chartermark.

Development of provider service level standards that seek to improve communication with employers can help your organisation to ensure you agree to and meet employer’s expectations. Service level agreements should include statements such as a rapid response to requests and queries, regular updates and feedback on the training and development of a business’ staff, the introduction of simplified wherever possible, administrative processes which involve the employer, provision of qualitative and quantitative feedback to the employer, and provision of regular and formal feedback from employers on the value and service of the provider.

Materials

Case Study (2) | Checklist (1) | Flowchart (1) | Guide (1) |

Case Study (Showing 2 of 2 available)

•   Case study: Sutton Coldfield College and effective customer care for employers  (75 KB)
  Released: 06/12/2007 Downloadable file
  Case study describing how a college developed customer service standards for employers
  
•   Effective customer care for employers - projects  (315 KB)
  Released: 23/08/2007 Downloadable file
  A report on how 8 improvement projects are embedding customer care related to Train to Gain services across their respective organisations.
  

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Checklist (Showing 1 of 1 available)

•   Customer journey mapping  (101 KB)Downloadable file
  An overview of a customer journey mapping process with ideas on how to identify hots spots, looking at the customers perspective and ways of improving each step of the journey for the customer.
  

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Flowchart (Showing 1 of 1 available)

•   Customer journey mapping  (101 KB)Downloadable file
  An overview of a customer journey mapping process with ideas on how to identify hots spots, looking at the customers perspective and ways of improving each step of the journey for the customer.
  

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Guide (Showing 1 of 1 available)

•   A guide to developing effective customer service  (220 KB)Downloadable file
  Checklist on developing a customer-focused approach across an organisation from through training, service standards, monitoring quality and dealing with complaints
  

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