Why should the public
sector place more importance to customer service? The simple answer is because
it has to. The government is applying an increasing amount of pressure to
provide services that are effective, efficient, excellent, equitable and
empowering. The direction provided by the Cabinet Office is that ‘the citizen
should be always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision’ (cse.cabinetoffice.gov.uk,
2010).The public sector now has little choice but to consider its customer
satisfaction because it is taken into account for inspections and is a key
plank of the government’s public sector reform strategy. The 1999 white paper
Modernising Government pledged commitment to meet the “needs of citizens, not
the convenience of service providers”. Improving customer service has become
such an important part of the reform that in 2004, Clive Grace, the then
director-general of the Audit Commission in Wales called CSE the ‘Holy Grail’
for local government (idea.gov.uk, 2010).Paul
Cooper, Director of Communications at the Institute of Customer Service has
said that “if you don’t treat the public who use council services as someone
who can walk away and take their business elsewhere you are never going to
provide a good service. And that is the way it should be. People have paid for
these services through their taxes and can exercise their voice through voting.
They are customers and should get satisfaction” (Idea.gov.uk, Aug 2005). Sir David Varney’s review in 2006
built on these aspirations by setting goals for improvements in public sector
performance by 2010. The most recent Comprehensive Spending Review issued
earlier this year has again emphasized the importance of creating internal CSE
to achieve external CSE. There is a growing unwillingness from both the
government and society to accept the continuation of poor public services
simply because historically that has been the case. There is intense pressure
for strategies to become customer-led rather than service led and a call for
exceeding minimum standards to achieve high quality services for less (Speller
and Ghobadian, 1993, pg. 30). It has
become clear that expectations of public services are rising but reaching these
expectations has become particularly important because of the current volatile
environment. Information empowerment has allowed for greater transparency in
what customers can expect to get and what they can do if standards are below
acceptable levels (strong public sector trade union presence (internal) and
bodies such as the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service for NHS services and
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (external). There has also been
evidence of an increase in ‘service-rage’ across both the public and private
sectors where anger about poor standards is globally voiced via platforms such
as social networking sites and blogs (see ‘Caerphilly Council is a disgrace’
group on Facebook) (Beevers, 2010, pg. 3).
The
current volatile climate has also placed more emphasis on CSE because of its
potential to create efficiency savings – unsatisfied customers lead to
complaints/repeated requests for service, both of which are costly and time
consuming (idea.gov.uk, 2010). It has become more common for
external customers to take their custom elsewhere e.g. private trade refuse
services, housing associations and healthcare. A prime example of this is
public transport which has to compete with ‘the convenience and ‘love affair’
that most of us apparently have with our cars. Whether a citizen will give up
his or her car and use public transportation will be highly correlated with his
or her satisfaction with schedules, routes, numbers or transfers needed and
timeliness or stops etc.’ (Kotler&Lee,
2006 pg. 170). For internal
customers, poor CSE can lead to low staff morale (which affects productivity)
and can result in employees leaving the organisation for better job
satisfaction (leading to a shortage of knowledge/skills and potential recruitment
difficulties). Good CSE is also important at departmental level because if a
client department is unhappy with the service, it may decide to take on the
work itself or outsource it to an external provider thus affecting future
revenues and budget allowances. There is already mounting pressure on public
organisations to move away from reliance on central budgets to generate income
themselves across all areas and from a non-competitive culture to a competitive
approach to service delivery (Speller
and Ghobadian, 1993, pg. 30). CSE is particularly important for this because
the public sector has mandatory services which are non-profit areas, so if
revenues are lost from profitable areas resources will become stretched. An
example of the role that CSE can play in these situations is education. During
this period of budget cuts and service stripping, government subsidies and
school closures will be based on enrolment figures, parent/student satisfaction
and results – all of which are linked to good levels of customer service (Kotler andLee, 2006, pg. 171). Levels of competition are rising both
internally and externally due to shrinking budgets and encouragement from the
government to open up the right to deliver services. The public sector has not
had to face this level of competition before and providers will be expected to
provide capital and bear significantly more risk with payment being on the
basis of standard tariffs and results rather than activity based contracts and
government funding – behaviour previously associated with the private sector (kpmg.co.uk). Increased levels of competition can
significantly impact on revenue, profitability, staff turnover, and the
stability and security of a business and its workforce (Clarke 1990, pg. 14). Evidence
in literature suggests that the gap between the public and private sector is
already closing with private organisations being expected to take on more
social responsibility and public organisations having to focus on its customers
and justify its need for existence. If the gap continues to close and services
are opened up for greater competition, the public sector will have no choice
but to move more in line with private sector levels of customer service or face
severe losses in revenue (Jarrarand
Schiuma, 2007, pg. 4).
Resource : Laura Jones B.A. (Hons) Business Studies – Customer
Service Excellence module, 2010, Level 6 The
New Researcher 2010, Volume 4,
2011, pp. 16-21
BEEVERS, R. 2010.Customer Service
Excellence in the Public Sectorhttp://www.customerplus.co.uk/downloads/service_excellence.pdf
CLARK, A.
1992.Public Awareness – Henley
Management College, p. 373 – 378
JARRAR, Y
and SCHIUMA, G. 2007. Measuring performance in the public sector: challenges
and trends. Measuring Business Excellence,
Volume 11, No 4, pages 4-8
KOTLER, P.
and & LEE, N. 2006. Marketing in the
Public Sector – A Roadmap for Improved Performance. Harlow, Essex: Pearson
SPELLER,
S. and GOHABIAN, A. 1993.Change for public sector. Managing service quality July, p. 29 – 32
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