Active Tameside has received Customer Service Excellence (CSE) Accreditation, which is a nationally recognised standard, designed to drive customer-focused change. To gain accreditation, we were scored against 5 criteria, which each contained a number of elements. In addition to this, we up-skilled our Customer Service Assistants with Level 2 National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs) in Customer Service.
Assessor, Andrew Mackey, from the Centre for Assessment in Manchester, visited a range of Active Tameside centres over 2 days, following a desk top review, to assess our customer service activity and the scores were then reviewed by a panel, who awarded the accreditation.
Sarah Heaton, Head of People and Transformation at Active Tameside, said: “We are proud of the people who work here and we wanted to give them qualifications that back up their experience. We feel that our Customer Service Excellence Accreditation has helped us to showcase the great work that we do.”
During the assessment, we were given two areas in which to develop, while in three areas we met the requirements of ‘compliance plus’, which evidences our excellent standard. The accreditation summary stated: “It was clear from the evidence provided that the organisation meets the requirements of the standard. The culture of customer service is clearly communicated to staff and reinforced through effective management and training.”
Our main strengths were identified as: ‘maintaining a customer-focused approach to the development and delivery of services’; ‘making real and consistent efforts to identify and engage with those who might be considered to be hard to reach or vulnerable’; ‘the range and impacts of partnership working, which deliver real and positive impacts for local communities’ and ‘clear and effective levels of support for local communities, which go above and beyond what would be expected’.
We will keep the accreditation for 3 years and we will be surveyed annually to assess our ongoing development in customer service. In addition to the accreditation, we also have a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 51, which is strong against the industry average. An NPS is a management tool used to determine the loyalty of an organisation’s customer relationships and it acts as an alternative to traditional customer satisfaction research.
Your card, your choice. Choice is a great thing in life, so you’ve come to the right place. With so many ways to spend your Active Choice Card you’ll never be stuck for fun family times, fitness and wellbeing times, Fuel cafes catch-up times and for those activity must-haves (forgotten the goggles, stylish swimwear) you can also spend it at our in-centre stores.
