OVERVIEW

Increasingly, comparisons are made between the quality of service provided by public and private sector organisations. What can the public sector learn from a market-driven approach to customer service and satisfaction?

Getting it right first time means organisations don't have to spend time recovering from mistakes or repeating the processes that were incorrect in the first place. Good customer service is not just avoiding duplication. By engaging with local customers and communities, service providers can better understand their needs and ensure that the right conversations are made with the right groups of customers. This is key to tailoring services to meet customer needs and expectations, and identifying where savings in the system can be made.

Gathering information and sharing insight is crucial. Analysis from datasets can help organisations better understand demand on services and also offer information about situations where demand is linked with that of other services. By sharing customer insights, services can deliver real improvements for the citizen and wider communities who might otherwise have been difficult to reach.

The fast pace of technological developments in recent years has changed the ways public services are being accessed and delivered. Customer expectations of service delivery are rising in tandem with the pace of change. Many individuals want faster, more convenient services rather than enduring time-consuming telephone calls or trips to the town hall to fill in paper forms.

Social media and online channels of communication are increasingly used as tools to engage, inform, gather feedback and analyse trends. If people are unhappy with a service, comments can be picked up quickly and fed to the relevant service to respond to. Customer insight techniques offer the opportunity to reconsider current delivery and communication models to see how they could be better tailored to the needs of different groups of customers.

Services should try to match the lifestyle and expectations of the service users as the 'one size fits all' approach to public services is no longer satisfactory. Public services must keep pace to continue delivering what the citizen needs.

At Excellence in Customer Service: Supporting Quality Public Services our expert speakers will explore how customer insight tools, techniques and analysis offer opportunities to deliver greater value for money and positive outcomes for service users. The agenda is to explore how excellence in customer service can improve performance and add real value to your organisation. The programme will help equip you with the skills you need to deal with service user queries and gather feedback, quickly and efficiently.