Customer Service Excellence

Customer Service Excellence (CSE) is a government-backed industry standard that assesses in depth those areas of service which have been identified as being a priority to customers. This includes service delivery, timeliness, information, professionalism and staff attitude. 

The Library was first accredited with the CSE in 2011, as part of Infomation Services, with a full reassessment in 2015 when we gained another three years accreditation.  Following our last assessment in 2018, we gained the additional honour of achieving Compliance Plus accreditation in two areas - one for outreach and one for accessibility.

In order to be recognised as achieving Customer Service Excellence, an assessment is carried out against five criteria:

1. Customer insight
2. The culture of the organisation
3. Information and access
4. Delivery
5. Timeliness and quality of service

Gathering evidence provided us with the opportunity to reflect on the improvements we have made since our last assessment, as well as to look at any areas where we felt we could do even better. 

The Assessor identified four particular strengths:

• Customer Insight
  "The Library engages effectively with students and academic staff and through this process has developed an in-depth understanding of their needs."
• Corporate Commitment
  "The Library management team ... positively advocate the customer focused approach and encourage staff to be actively involved in the shaping of service delivery."
• Staff approach
  "Library staff are clearly committed to providing high levels of customer service. They are very positive in their approach and respond to high levels of empowerment and trust to deliver good customer care in all circumstances"
• A Partnership approach to service delivery
  "The service works well with the University’s Academic Schools, Health Trusts and local schools to offer coordinated services that bring demonstrable benefits to their customers."

Achieving the standard gives us formal recognition of our commitment to delivering a high level of customer service.  This helps confirm to current students and staff the quality of the service they receive from us. It also helps to reassure potential students about the support they will receive from Library and Learning Services staff should they come to Staffordshire University.

We will continue to assess and review all of our services to ensure we maintain the current standard of service delivery.  We will also continue to liaise with all customers and take on board any comments, complaints or suggestions for new or improved services.  

If you have suggestions for ways we could improve our services please let us know.