Why an ‘outstanding’ level of customer experience is a ‘must have’ not a ‘nice to have’

Sandy Bryson is a Director at Investor in Customers (IIC) and since 2017 has worked closely with the Credit Services Association (CSA) to assess its commitment and levels of customer experience to members. In 2018 the Credit Services Association registered ‘outstanding’ customer experience levels following its first-ever assessment and Sandy reports here on some of the reasons why.

What is Investor in Customers?

Often, I start by asking clients what they think IIC do, which I find insightful as it indicates what they are either expecting or hoping for from the process. In concise terms, IIC is an independent assessment organisation that examines the customer experience of a business or organisation against four key principles; understanding customer/member needs, meeting customer needs, delighting customers and creating loyalty. Using this unique, intelligence-led assessment method, we get feedback from customers (in the CSA’s case, members), employees and the management team, which we then interpret to determine the quality of customer experience and customer relationships across several dimensions.

One of the most significant and unique things we do is to segment the assessment data to provide the senior management team (of the business being assessed) with specific business insights for different customer and staff types. Ultimately, we help the business to improve their customer experience. How do we do this? We help our customers to dissect the data and implement the assessment findings and business insights so they are ready to assess again the next year and evidence the improvements made.

IIC working with CSA

In 2018, I worked closely with the CSA with the aim of building on and improving their member experience. To do that, we make it our mission to understand their organisation better than they do. A bold statement I know but our unique methodology means that we are able to uncover an in-depth level of detail and insight to examine and assess organisations. This makes the assessment an invaluable tool to reflect and improve.

We were delighted to grant CSA a Silver Award. They demonstrated a strong desire to meet their members’ needs. CSA, through its “outstanding service, clear user-friendly information and great people” proved to be ‘delighting’ its members, and ‘engendering loyalty’ - a key asset for an organisation which prides itself on building quality relationships.

View the 2018 report

How IIC helps CSA grow infographic

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