What is this standard about?
Customer contact centres (CCCs) play an important role in the interaction between organizations and their customers. They vary in their levels of service quality and consumer protection and work to many different levels of efficiency. This new two-part standard (BS EN ISO 18295-1 and BS EN ISO 18295-2) has been created to help organizations achieve and maintain higher customer satisfaction levels.
This part of the standard, Part 1, specifies best practice for all contact centres, whether in-house or outsourced and irrespective of the service sector, in a range of areas to ensure a high level of service. These include communication with customers, complaints handling and employee engagement.
Who is this standard for?
All organizations with customer facing businesses and running or outsourcing their call centres.
Why should you use this standard?
The ongoing success and development of any organization relies on its understanding of the expectation levels and perceptions of its customers. BS EN ISO 18295-1 will be especially beneficial to customer contact centres that don’t always live up to customers’ expectations as it can help address problems such as waiting times, means of contacting organizations and meeting customer experience expectations.
The standard will bring the following advantages to those who adopt it:
- Improvements in customer contact quality, which can give a competitive edge to the organization and avoid the risk of customer criticism about poor service or service failure
- Cost efficiencies through better processes and a better understanding of the customer contact service, while maintaining quality outcomes and effectiveness
- Improvements in staff retention through understanding and valuing the staff contribution to customer service and outcomes
