From Service Quality to Service Excellence

Aiming at “customer delight” for each interaction with its customers has become a priority objective for companies wishing to differentiate themselves on their market through customer experience.

This is the purpose of the new ISO standard “Service Excellence”, currently being developed at the international level, in which Activeo is actively participating as a member of the Afnor standardization committee.

Its scope will aim at accompanying companies from “customer satisfaction” to “service excellence”.

This new standard will enable direct action on economic performance via :

• Developing customer loyalty, recommendation and reputation
• Strengthening employee commitment
• While waiting for the finalization of the ISO standardization committee’s work, companies can enter into a “labeling” process for service excellence.

Why should you start a Customer Relations certification process (NF345 or ISO 18295) or a service excellence labeling process?

The benefits of a certification process are multiple. We can distinguish them in two categories. On the one hand, the direct benefits for your customers, whether they are final consumers or principals, and on the other hand the internal benefits for your customer service and more broadly for your entire company.

Benefits for your customers:

• Demonstrate a high level of quality in your customer relations
• Show that the customer experience is at the heart of your concerns
• Strengthen your company’s brand image and build trust through a recognized certification

Benefits for your company and/or your Customer Service :

• Differentiate yourself in a competitive market to win new business
• Create added value by allowing you to promote the certification obtained
• Unite your teams around a common project and a rewarding process
• Structure your Customer Relations in a logic of continuous improvement of your operational performance

Zoom on the Customer Relations certification (NF 345 and ISO 18295)

Revised in 2018, the NF Service Relation Client certification is based on the international standards ISO 18295-1 & 2. Designed as a best practice guide, it takes into account new customer expectations and strengthens the link with internal and external Customer Services in order to guarantee a quality customer service regardless of the contact channel.

It aims to certify a number of commitments and services, taking into account market standards, including

• Ensuring the availability and accessibility of the various contact points
• Respecting the announced deadlines
• Providing relevant and accessible answers for customers
• Accompanying customers during interactions
• Integrate customer satisfaction and perception
• Analyze and take into account customer complaints
• Regularly ensure that employees are committed to the company and its missions

Focus on the “Service Excellence” label

The Service Excellence label is designed to recognize companies that do everything possible to promote customer delight by constantly developing remarkable and memorable experiences.

It integrates the three dimensions of service excellence: relational, operational and managerial.

It recognizes and values the degree of maturity of the organization in its transformation. It is based on an evaluation of transformation strategies, the implementation of systems and the collection of customer perceptions on a given experience.

The label is based on the European Service Excellence standard (NF EN 16880). It is awarded for a period of two years and is aimed at both private and public companies that have chosen to differentiate themselves through the personalization and emotional dimension of the customer experience and that believe that placing the customer at the heart of their strategy is a lever for their economic performance.

The label evaluates customer experiences or journeys that may concern all or part of the customer segments.

It assesses the company’s maturity in its transformation towards Service Excellence through 10 components:

• Customer experience modeling
• Deployment of a culture of service excellence
• Development of the relationship and management model
• Development of a Service Excellence strategy
• Development of leadership through service
• Employee engagement and experience
• The search for service excellence through human capital management
• The development of a collaborative and partnership approach
• Developing and sharing customer understanding and intimacy
• Innovation in the service experience

The success factors of a quality approach

As with any project that can generate organizational but also and above all cultural transformations, it must be supported by the company’s management committee.

Employees interacting with customers and their direct management being in the front line of such a project, they must imperatively be involved in the adventure. Beyond being actors of the changes and not being subjected to them, involving the employees in such a project from the beginning allows them to appropriate the associated stakes and to facilitate the support of the changes.

Nevertheless, such a project has an impact well beyond the only actors interacting with customers. This is why it is imperative to federate all the teams (operational, marketing, support) around this company project.

Finally, the normative requirements can sometimes seem abstract or lack operational application. It is therefore often necessary to be accompanied by actors who have experience in such projects, and who have a perfect command of the expectations of the certification bodies, in order to avoid going the wrong way, spreading themselves too thinly or spending energy on details.

Activeo’s support approach

Activeo accompanies you throughout your certification or labeling project, from the definition of the scope to the pre-admission audit.

Our ability to accompany you successfully in such a process is based on 3 pillars:

• Our knowledge “of the background”:
  Activeo is a member of the NF345 Customer Relationship brand committee, participated in the drafting of ISO 18295-1 & 2 and is an active member of the ISO TC 312 Service Excellence standardization commission.

• Our experience in certification processes
  For more than 15 years, Activeo has been supporting companies in their certification projects. All the companies we have accompanied have obtained their certification at the first filing.

• Our expertise in the transformation of companies through customer experience
  The positioning of Activeo for 25 years is to accompany companies towards relational excellence through its three businesses of Consulting, Integration and Application Development. In addition, Activeo is a member of the LimeBridge International Alliance. As such, we have access to best practices in terms of service excellence.