ncfe level 2 sample - the skills network 2 in principles of... · • other key legislation in the...

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Principles of Customer Service Introduction

NCFE Level 2Certificate in Principles of

Customer Service

Unit 1: Understanding the Organisation

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Disclaimer:This resource uses real life case studies where specifically stated and referenced. All other references to individuals, groups and companies contained within these resources are fictitious.

These learning resources and assessment questions have been approved and endorsed by ncfe as meeting the requirements of the Level 2 Certificate in Principles of Customer Service.SAMPLE

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Principles of Customer Service Introduction

Unit 1: Understanding the Organisation

Welcome to unit one.

This unit is split into five sections. These are:

Section 1: Factors affecting an organisation and the customer service role

Section 2: Rights, responsibilities and organisational procedures

Section 3: Career pathways in customer service

Section 4: How employees are supported in their role

Section 5: Understanding policies and procedures

Section 1: Factors affecting an organisation and the customer service role

Within this section, you will learn about:

• Customer service in commercial, public and third sector organisations

• The customer service role within the organisation and industry

• The organisation’s competitors

• Factors affecting the organisation’s reputation.

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Principles of Customer Service

Customer service in commercial, public and third sector organisations

The three main sectors delivering customer service are the:

1. Commercial sector

2. Public sector

3. Third sector - often called the voluntary sector.

Products and services in different sectorsEach sector has different goals therefore the products and services of organisations in each sector are also different.

Commercial sector organisations aim to make a profit by delivering a product or service to paying customers, whereas public sector organisations are funded by the government to deliver products and services to the general public. They are not aiming to make a profit although they will be expected to deliver the service in the most cost-effective way. Third or voluntary sector organisations include charities and not-for-profit organisations and their customers include the general public who donate money and people who use the service that the charity provides.

Before beginning this course, you need to identify an organisation where you can find relevant information. This could be somewhere you are working in a customer service related role, or an organisation that you are familiar with. In the space below, identify the organisation that you will use to find customer service information to enable you to complete the following activities throughout all three learning workbooks and the tutor marked assessments at the end of each unit.

The organisation I will research is:

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Activity 1: Different product and services

Think about the different products and services in each sector and make a note of some examples. There are some already done for you.

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Commercial sector Public sector Third sector

Banking

Producing IT software

Policing

Public libraries

Raising money

Delivering goods to people who need them

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Here are some more examples of products and services:

In the commercial sector every business will have a product or service that it must provide at a profit in order to survive. For example:

• Hospitality and catering services

• Advertising the products of other businesses

• Call centre services

• Gardening equipment

• Online shopping

• Electronic goods

• Car parking services

• 24 hour opening facilities

• Energy – gas, electricity.

Organisations in the public sector are mainly delivering services rather than products. For example:

• Managing and maintaining local authority housing

• Fire and rescue services

• Effective health care - shorter waiting times in health service delivery

• The armed forces

• Local authority leisure services – play areas, swimming baths

• The civil service delivering services to central government

• Education – delivering high standards of teaching.

Third sector organisations produce goods and services. For example:

• Selling goods in charity shops

• Making products to sell in order to raise money

• Delivering a voluntary service to clients – meals on wheels, delivering aid to other countries, collecting donated goods from households

• Organising fund-raising events

• Organising volunteer stewards for public events. For example, the Olympics.

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Differences in customer service across different sectors

The commercial sector

Most commercial companies provide a customer service of one type or another, and for some, customer service is the main part of the service offer. For these companies customer service aims to reflect and promote a brand.

The commercial sector approach is to ensure that individual conduct and behaviour of staff reflects the company’s ethos. This means that staff need to be trained to understand the company’s culture – what it stands for, its ‘promise’ or service offer to customers, and how they put this into practice on a day to day basis.

The aim of customer service in the commercial sector is to differentiate the business from others, to make it stand out and create a distinct business identity. This is sometimes referred as a USP or Unique Selling Point – the reason why customers should use that organisation for something that they cannot get from anyone else.

The public sector

Public sector organisations are funded by government through tax collected from the general public. They aim to provide a public service of some form or another rather than to accumulate profit. Although organisations in the public sector aim to communicate a clear service offer to their customers or users, they are not as concerned with maximum market visibility as in the commercial sector.

For public sector organisations, such as the police force, education and health services, the focus is on the clarity of communication and access to important information. Customer service therefore concentrates on clearly directing the customer to where they can find information, or communicating issues clearly in order to change people’s behaviour, for example, health campaigns to stop people smoking or reduce obesity.

The customer service role in the public sector often requires staff to guide customers through paperwork - such as completing forms, and helping customers understand complicated rules and regulations. An effective customer service approach therefore involves ways of making the process move more smoothly, the words to choose when working with customers, body language to avoid and body language to use.

Key Fact

Given the nature of the work in the public sector, for example in housing departments, job centres, hospitals, schools and inland revenue, employees delivering customer service in the public sector may sometimes encounter rude, disgruntled, and difficult customers. Their approach must therefore include techniques for addressing challenging people and difficult situations.

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The third or voluntary sector

An important part of customer service within charities is communicating information with donors and volunteers in order to thank them for their efforts and donations.

It is important that all communication is timely, informative and provided in the way the individual has requested. With this in mind some charities implement customer service procedures to ensure they are constantly in contact with donors by providing them with one-to-one communication with a charity worker. The majority of charities offer donors and volunteers options regarding communication and interaction, for example, telephone, e-mail, post, websites and blogs.

Organisations in the third sector also must ensure that they have a good balance of communication with both donors and volunteers.

The customer service role within the organisation and industry

Without satisfied customers any organisation will struggle to survive. Customer service has an important role in an organisation and the industry generally because it is often the only contact a customer has with a company. Consequently, when they have a question or a problem, they expect a company’s customer service department to resolve it.

The specific role played by customer service in your chosen organisation will depend on what type of organisation it is, what its aims and goals are, and who its customers are.

For example, in a GP’s surgery, customer service could include introducing systems to reduce waiting times, providing easily understandable information about treatments, providing additional in-house services, such as practice nurses or a pharmacy, and providing trained receptionists to make appointments.

In a supermarket or department store, customer service could include dealing with complaints, training checkout operators to greet customers, extending opening times, saving stamps, special offers, measuring customer satisfaction, and offering additional services such as a travel agency, restaurant or money exchange.

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The organisation’s competitors

Competitors may be local, national or (through the Internet) international. In addition to existing competitors are organisations also need to be aware of new competition. Competitors can be identified by:

• Looking at local business directories in the public library

• Gathering information from the local Chamber of Commerce

• Checking advertising and the press for other companies in the same area of business

• Searching the Internet for similar products or services

• Listening to information given by existing customers.

Activity 2: Competitors

Choose an organisation (it might be your place of work). Who are the organisation’s main competitors? Can you identify why they are competition to your chosen organisation?

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Key Fact

The competitors of any organisation will be other organisations offering the same or similar products or services.

The role of customer service is to ensure that existing customers are retained and new customers are acquired in spite of any competition from others.

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Factors affecting the organisation’s reputation

A range of factors could affect an organisation’s reputation. Try the next activity to see how many you can think of.

Activity 3: Reputation

Think about an organisation that you have had contact with for services or products. Can you identify the factors that lead to a good reputation and those that may damage the organisation’s reputation? There are some examples already given to help you.

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Factors that support reputation Factors that damage reputation

The goods and services provided are of excellent quality.

The goods or services are not what they say they are.

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CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE NOW COMPLETED SECTION 1. PLEASE NOW GO TO YOUR ASSESSMENT BOOKLET AND ANSWER Q1, Q2,

Q3, Q4 AND Q5.

Key Fact

Generally, the factor that affects the reputation of an organisation is poor customer service.

Once a good reputation is lost it is difficult to regain it.

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Factors that support reputation Factors that damage reputation

Excellent quality of goods and services, reliable and efficient

Poor quality goods and services – unreliable, inefficient

Excellent value for money Poor value for money

Friendly, helpful staff Unprofessional, unfriendly approach by staff

Useful and well presented marketing materials

Unprofessional publicity and marketing material

Excellent after-sales service with attention to detail

Lack of an after-sales service

Low level of complaints / efficient and effective ways of dealing with complaints

High level of complaints

Always meet delivery deadlines and exceed in all parts of the service offered

Inability to meet delivery deadlines and other stated parts of the service offer

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Section 2: Rights, responsibilities and organisational procedures

Within this section, you will learn about:

• Rights and responsibilities at work

• Health and safety at work – rights and responsibilities

• Equality and diversity at work

• Other key legislation in the industry and organisation.

Rights and responsibilities at work

Employee rights

Employee rights

Working Time

Regulations (WTR)

Rights to equality and

equal treatment

The right to a contract of employment

Rights to parental

leave

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European Union (EU) employment law protects the rights of employees across the EU. Employers also have certain rights. Employers and employees must both adhere to their responsibilities.

The right to a contract of employment

All employees have a right to a contract of employment setting out the following information:

• The legal name of the employer’s organisation

• The legal name of the employee

• The date when the job began

• Any earlier date where work with a previous employer is regarded as ‘continuous’ with the current job for pension purposes

• Pay, how it is calculated and when it is paid

• The hours of work

• Holiday entitlement, including public holidays and holiday pay

• Job title or a brief description of the job role

• The address where the employee will be working.

In addition to the terms of employment that you agree with your employer, the contract can also contain terms such as:

• The employer’s duty to provide a safe working environment

• The employee’s duty of honesty and loyal service

• A duty of mutual trust and confidence between employee and employer

• Any terms needed to make the contract work, for example that a driver should have a valid licence.

Some terms are included automatically by law in all contracts. For example:

• The right to paid holidays

• The right not to suffer unlawful discrimination

• The right to receive the national minimum wage.

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Rights to workplace equality and equal treatment in the workplace

There are various European Union (EU) directives that make it unlawful for employers to discriminate against workers on the grounds of gender, race, religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation. This means that employees have a right to:

• Equal access to employment

• Fair and equal treatment, for example, when offered training opportunities or access to benefits

• Comfortable working conditions if they are disabled.

The European Union (EU) legislation on the equal treatment of men and women in employment covers:

• Access to employment, including promotion

• Access to vocational training

• Working conditions, including pay

• Occupational social security schemes.

Employers have the responsibility to provide equal pay, equal work, or work of equal value. Pay not only includes wages / salary but also conditions attached to pay, for example, overtime rules, and benefits such as company cars and health insurance.

Working Time Regulations (WTR)

The rules on working time, rest breaks and paid annual leave are set out in the European Union (EU) working time legislation. The WTR fix the maximum weekly working time at an average of 48 hours – however, in the UK employers can allow workers to work more than 48 hours per week or to ‘opt out’ if they choose to do so. To do this, workers need to sign an opt-out agreement between themselves and their employer which they can also terminate by giving up to three months notice.

You can find out more about WTR, and any exceptions to the 48 hour maximum or opting out of it, on the government website www.gov.uk ‘Maximum weekly working hours’.

Since April 2009, European regulations have given all workers the right to 5.6 weeks’ paid holiday per year. In the UK this means that a full-time worker has the European minimum of four weeks plus an extra eight days – the number of bank holidays in most of the UK. The annual leave entitlement for part-time workers is in proportion to the time that they normally work.

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Rights to parental leave

A key piece of legislation that affects the working conditions of employees is The Employment Act 2002. The Act:

• Increased the standard rate of statutory maternity pay and maternity allowance

• Increased the period of maternity leave to six months’ paid maternity leave followed by up to six months’ unpaid leave

• Implemented a right to two weeks’ paternity leave. This is in addition to the existing right to 13 weeks’ parental leave

• Provided similar entitlements for adoptive parents

• Implemented the right of parents with children under six years of age, or disabled children up to the age of 18, to request flexible working patterns for childcare purposes, and a duty on employers to give proper consideration to the request.

Employees’ responsibilitiesEmployers have a right to expect you to carry out certain responsibilities.

Activity 4: Your responsibilities as an employee

What are your responsibilities at work? Spend 5 minutes thinking about what you are expected to do – or not to do, and jot down your ideas below.

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You might have thought of the following employee responsibilities:

• Not to do anything that would put your own or anyone else’s health and safety at risk

• To follow the employer’s instructions and training

• To behave with honesty and integrity

• To safeguard property and information

• Not to do anything that could damage the reputation or interests of the organisation

• To report anything that could be a risk to other people or the organisation

• Not to engage in discriminatory behaviour towards others.

You may have thought of other examples.

Employer rightsThe employer has the rights to expect that employee’s will carry out their responsibilities to the best of their ability.

Employer responsibilitiesThe employer has the responsibility to honour the rights of their employees by providing a contract of employment, by ensuring they have workplace equality and equal treatment in the workplace, rights to rest breaks and paid annual leave and the right to parental leave.

The importance of having rights and responsibilities at workIt is important that employees have rights at work. If they did not have these, they could be exploited or forced to work in unsafe conditions. Over a long period of time, Trades Unions have fought to establish rights for workers in order to prevent exploitation and ensure a healthy and safe workplace.

In addition to rights, employees also have responsibilities as identified earlier. It is important employers have the right to expect employees to carry out their responsibilities so that the workplace is safe for other workers and that the organisation is not damaged by irresponsible behaviour.SAMPLE

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Key Fact

It is important to recognise and exercise your rights at work but you also have a duty to carry out your responsibilities to your employer and other employees.

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Health and safety at work – rights and responsibilities

The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (or HASAWA) provides the basis for all other health and safety regulations in the workplace. While those regulations may relate to a range of health and safety issues they are all ‘enabled’ by the HASAWA.

STOP AND THINK!

Speak to an appropriate person, look in a staff handbook or use the Internet to find out about the rights and responsibilities of employers and employees under the HASAWA.

www.hse.gov.uk is the website for the Health and Safety Executive and you can find out more by typing ‘rights and responsibilities’ into the HSE search facility.

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Employees have the right to a safe and healthy workplace including:

Implementation of risk assessments to prevent risks.

Personal protective equipment (PPE) free of charge.

Safe procedures in the event of fire or other emergencies.

Training in safe methods of working.

Adequate welfare, first aid facilities and personnel.

Safe equipment.

Reporting and monitoring of dangerous occurrences and certain work-related illnesses and diseases.

Appropriate health, safety and security personnel.

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Under HASAWA all employees have responsibilities to their employer not to endanger themselves or others. This includes the responsibility to:

HASAWA

Use the machinery and

equipment correctly

Cooperate with the

employer over health and

safety issues

Follow instructions

and training in safe ways of

working

Safeguard their own and others’ health

and safety

Report risks, hazards,

accidents, illnesses and work-related

diseases as required

Use PPE as instructed

Key Fact

Employees’ rights concerning health and safety are important to prevent the law being broken and to ensure that the workplace is safe for everyone.

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Health and safety - procedures and documentation at work

All organisations must have someone who is responsible for implementing health and safety in the workplace. They will be responsible for providing procedures and documentation related to all health and safety issues.

STOP AND THINK!

Use the sources of information you identified in the previous STOP AND THINK to find out about your organisation’s health and safety procedures and documentation. For example, the procedures for dealing with an accident, and the documenting of the event in the accident book.

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You should have found that health and safety procedures have documentation that goes with them so that health and safety issues and actions are recorded. For example, the procedure for dealing with an accident will entail the use of documents to record what happened and what actions were carried out as a result.

Your own organisation may have specific health and safety procedures and documentation depending on the nature of the work, for example, some health and safety procedures in a nuclear power station will be different from those in an insurance company. However, you should have found out about some procedures and documentation that are common to all workplaces. These include:

• Reporting work-related illnesses, diseases and dangerous incidents

• Dealing with emergencies and evacuation

• Providing first aid

• Checking electrical and fire safety equipment

• Carrying out risk assessments.

Key Fact

Health and safety procedures and documentation are required by law so that accidents, illness and dangerous occurrences can be recorded, monitored and prevented.

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