FAQs

What is the Self-assessment Tool?

The tool is a free web-base tool designed to let you evaluate your organisation against the requirements of the Customer Service Excellence ® standard. It is intended as a starting point from which to assess your capability, identify areas for improvement and, when necessary, formulate a plan to move forward.

Are we ready for self-assessment?

The standard requires organisations to provide evidence against five criteria.

Titled:

Customer Insight
The Culture of the Organisation
Information and Access
Delivery
Timeliness and Quality of Service

On this page we ask you to critically assess your customer service against the requirements for each criterion as a starting point for completing the new Self-assessment Tool. Below are the questions you should answer in preparation for using the tool.

Criterion 1

Customer Insight: – Do you have an in-depth understanding of your organisation’s customers?; – Do you consult and engage with your customers?; – Do measure the levels of satisfaction with the service you provide?

Criterion 2

The Culture of the Organisation: – Do you have a customer focused culture within your organisation?; – Are you committed to putting the customer at the heart of policy development and service delivery?; – Do you value staff in customer service roles?

Criterion 3

Information and Access: – Do you provide accurate and complete information to customers?; – Do you make your services available to all of your customers?; – Do you work with other organisations in partnership to provide benefits for your customers?

Criterion 4

Delivery: – Do you have precise and measurable standards for your services which are met or exceeded?; – Do you deliver the service promised to the majority of your customers?; – Do you deal effectively with problems?

Criterion 5

Timeliness and Quality of Service: – Do you set and meet standards for the timeliness of response?; – Do you identify customer needs at the first point of contact and agree and overall time for response?; – Do you respond to initial enquiries promptly?

If your organisation can answer yes to all of these questions or the majority then you are ready to proceed with complete Self-assessment Tool.

How can it help with formal assessment?

The tool can help organisations to collate and allocate their evidence as part of a process of working towards formal assessment.
However it should not be considered a replacement for formal assessment, nor does the final report produced contribute to any formal assessment you may later undertake with one of our certification bodies.

How does it work?

Once you have registered you can work through the standard using a step by step approach, you can save your data as you go along and produce reports at every stage. Under each element you can provide examples of your organisation’s evidence. You then need to judge whether evidence is fits the following criteria ‘none’, ‘some’, ‘partial’, ‘full’ definitions of these terms are include in the ‘Using the Standard’ pages.
The tool does not provide an indication of the quality of the evidence. The result is based on your organisation’s judgment of the evidence.

The Self-assessment report indicates whether your organisation currently complies with the standard using a traffic-light system (green indicates yes).

Is the information confidential?

Yes, the registration process protects the information you provide from being accessed by others outside your organisation. Cabinet Office will be able to check who is using the self-assessment tool but the information will not be available to third parties.

What happens if I lose my password?

If you have lost or forgotten your password the system with help you with prompts. See registration pages.

What should I do after the self-assessment?

When you have completed your self-assessment, we recommend that you consider the following.

Recording your strengths as a baseline from which to improve and show others how effective you are in particular areas.
Analysing the results of the self-assessment tool to identify those areas that you could improve. There are always opportunities to achieve higher levels of excellence, effectiveness and efficiency.
Working with other providers, people who use the service and staff to develop and put into practice plans to continuously improve your service in the future. All public services are constantly changing and it is important for you to think ahead and work with your community to improve your services.
Use website resources to further develop your understanding

What if the Self-assessment report indicates red against most of the elements?

Don’t give up! Remember using the tool is just a starting point. The next step is to look at each element and identify where there are gaps. Remember to consult your colleagues and ask if there are other sources of possible evidence. Look at the website for further additional information which will indicate other approaches and further help, and consider talking to contacts on the holders’ directory for their support and guidance.

What if we don’t want proceed with formal assessment?

You can use the tool as a part of a continual improvement process adding to your evidence over time. We are sure that this will support the development of customer focus in your organisation. However by not proceeding with formal assessment you will miss out on the external validation and recognition provided by that assessment process.

How long will it take to complete the tool?

This depends on the number of people who are working on the tool within your organisation, whether you intend to work through the tool systematically or ‘dip in and out’ and whether you have details of the evidence to hand. Take your time to consider what evidence should be included against each element.