University Rewarded For Excellent Service Standards

The University of East London (UEL) has received the Customer Service Excellence (CSE) award for the whole of the University.

This is the UK national standard of customer service excellence for public and private sector organisations and is overseen by the Cabinet Office.

As a global learning community with over 23,000 students from over 120 countries world-wide, customer service plays a big part in each of UEL’s 10 Schools.
 

“We are really proud of our students and are always looking to improve the ways in which we treat them as customers,” says Brian Hipkin, Director of Student Services at UEL. “We’re passionate about supporting a vibrant, diverse and very busy student body and this means that we have had to be innovative with the ways that we provide information. For example, drama documentaries on You Tube illustrate the lives of new students, getting students who have missed their induction talks to get the information they need via text messaging. These are just some things that caught the eye of the CSE assessor.”

UEL’s innovative Student Charter was singled out for praise by the CSE assessor in his report. “It’s particularly pleasing when something like our Student Charter, which covers what we promise to students and they in return agree to follow, is given such a glowing report,” adds Brian Hipkin.

“We recognised the importance of applying for the Customer Service Excellence standard when it was introduced in 2008. We wanted to demonstrate to our customer groups our ambition to remain a customer-focused institution and to continuously review and improve our standards as a public sector organisation,” says Elaine Davis, School Registrar, School of Architecture and the Visual Arts.

UEL began work towards CSE by establishing a Customer Service Excellence Working Group of 20 staff members at the start of 2009, with the Group chaired by Mr. Alan Ingle, University Secretary & Registrar.

“The Working Group nominated five of its representatives to each lead one of the five CSE criteria, “says Elaine Davis. “These newly appointed Criterion Leaders worked with staff at all levels across our University to draw on their expertise in order to gather the necessary evidence to support our application for the CSE Standard."

The assessor also helped UEL to identify where there were gaps in the evidence submitted. A mock assessment was organised which proved positive and encouraging.

Brian Hipkin adds, “I would encourage any University that wished to put the student experience at the heart of its customer service to go for this national standard toshare good practice and address possible gaps in their service.”

SGS Lead Assessor, Geoff Pritchard, adds," This is a demanding standard which can only be met by those organisations who put their customers at the forefront of their operations and can demonstrate that they have a deep understanding of all those who use their various services. During a detailed assessment last December, UEL demonstrated a strong commitment to meeting the needs of its many and diverse customers and our regular annual assessment will ensure this commitment is maintained."
 

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