The International Customer Service Institute Measurement Model

The key differentiator in a competitive world is more often than not the delivery of a consistently high standard of customer service. The same can be expected from organisations providing public services.

Customer satisfaction, customer retention, customer loyalty and employee commitment are factors that no organisation can ignore, TICSS focuses their attention to these crucial factors.

TICSS promotes a flexible yet measurable customer focused approach based on this 5P's Service Quality Model (Philip Forest 2009) to implementing all the elements that make up the delivery of excellent customer service.

The 5P's Service Quality Model was developed by Philip Forest (co-founder of the Institute) following a research programme at the Brunel University, London. It has subsequently been successfully applied across many sectors globally.

Pillars of the 5P's Service Quality Model

As with all organisational operations, the Service Quality Model will only deliver its full potential and value if they are embedded into the organisational infrastructure and maintained through a continuous cycle of measurement and communication, supported by the key pillars of education and training. The Model distinguishes the 5 main factors of customer service excellence, which directly impact and determine customer satisfaction:

  1. Policies - the guide of action. It is the overall enabler and conditioner of the other 4 P's and parameter for the allocation of resources (time, money and effort etc.) to the achievement of the organisation's service excellence goals.

  2. Processes - one of the most crucial elements in the delivery of service excellence and customer satisfaction. Customers expect a satisfactory outcome after completing a transaction with the organisation and it is the efficiency and effectiveness of the processes that contribute greatly to the expected outcome.

  3. People - the main resource of an organisation. Their knowledge, competence and skills can positively influence the service quality performance and the success of the organisation.

  4. Products/Services - the key reason why customers are engaging with the organisation, build loyalty or leave to the competitors.

  5. Premises - major contributory factors to the customers overall impression of the business and can act as major attractors to new customers.

Figure 3

Performance Measurement

Continuous performance measurement is a crucial factor of customer service excellence by:

  • making sure the organisation is on the right direction achieving service excellence
  • identifying strengths and areas of improvement
  • identifying customer needs and expectations
  • developing an action plan to implement improvements and fulfill customer needs and/or even succeed the expectation
  • ensure sustainability in customer service improvement

Performance measurement is also an essential part of TICSS by measuring the key elements that deliver customer service excellence. It is recommended that organisations conduct the full set of measurement to challenge the business environment and to succeed the changing customer expectations, the main elements are as follows:

  • Market Analysis
  • Competitor Analysis
  • Customer Profiling
  • Customer Satisfaction Measurement
  • Customer Complaint/Feedback System
  • Employee Satisfaction Measurement
  • Delivery Channel Assessment
  • Customer Service Assessment
  • Customer Service Excellence Benchmarking

Main strengths of the 5P's Service Quality Model

  1. Directly links to a values driven culture management model
  2. Generic and fits every type of organisation and government department
  3. Applies to every part of every organisation
  4. Easy to understand and implement

The Standard utilises the world accepted norm of PDCA throughout its adoption and implementation. The quality methodology known as "Plan-Do-Check-Act" (PDCA) is applied to all components of the Model.

PDCA can be briefly described as follows:

Plan: Establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in accordance with customer requirements and the organisation's policies.
Do: Implement the processes.
Check: Monitor and measure processes and product against policies, objectives and requirements for the product and report the results.
Act: Take actions to continually improve process performance.