Benchmarking customer service for the NHS
A group of service suppliers within a major government department wanted to share best practices through benchmarking activity in order to drive up service quality to end users.
They asked Leading Edge to develop an approach that would allow the group to benchmark their performance against a range of service areas. Using our web-based customer service measurement tool, ACE System, we developed a set of 18 statements. We then sent these to the end users of the suppliers, achieving a 100% response rate.
The analysis focused on the service level ‘gap’, between what the end user expects and what they think they actually received. Each supplier was provided with an analysis of their performance by statement so that they could determine which areas of service they needed to improve.
On reviewing the benchmarking presentation, a number of additional suppliers saw the benefits of this approach and came forward to take part in the project. The analysis of the responses clearly showed that there was a wide variation in performance for every service area, with no supplier performing well on all aspects. However, this variation in scores offers the opportunity for the suppliers to share best practice and improve.
The group is planning to repeat the project next year in order to determine if the improvements they are putting in place have been effective.