Putting the customer first

Teesside University has achieved the national standard in customer service excellence and can now support businesses to achieve the same goal.

As a preferred business partner of Customer First UK, the University is now working with Stiller Warehousing and Distribution to help the company achieve the national standard.

With the support of consultant Lisa McKeown and the University’s first Knowledge Exchange Intern, Lizzie Brophy, Stiller in Newton Aycliffe is working to achieve the recognised charter mark from Customer First.

Paul Stiller, managing director of Stiller Warehousing and Distribution believes achieving Customer First status will have a real impact on the business and help them to put processes in place to ensure his staff is at the cutting edge of customer service provision.

‘Customer service is vital to our business,’ he explains. ‘We need to ensure we have proper systems, practices and training regimes to promote that culture in our business. The Customer First initiative is a way of keeping staff aware how important customer service is.

Genuinely pleased to be working with an academic institution like Teesside which has a lot to offer business ‘Working with Teesside University is about innovation, measuring the effectiveness of what we do and inspiring staff to be innovative with customers. We need to establish long term relationships with our customers based on trust and that means offering the very best customer service.’

Stiller is also taking advantage of Teesside University’s new Knowledge Exchange Internship scheme supported by the ERDF (European Regional Development Fund). The company has a graduate working for them supported by an expert at the University – offering innovative and technical expertise.

Lisa McKeown, Quality Manager at Teesside University, explains: ‘We became a bearer of the ‘Putting the Customer First’ standard at the beginning of 2010. Teesside University was one of only 30% of those that undergo external assessment to achieve it first time around. As a result of that Customer First UK asked us to be a business partner and support others to achieve the standard.

‘Having the standard has put our services to business on a wider platform and we have achieved a number of funding awards in the wake of it. It has also been fundamental in us passing the quality check to become an international provider for utility companies affiliated with Achilles, an organisation that quality controls its preferred providers.

‘Now we can help companies like Stiller to achieve a quality standard in customer service.’

Lisa visits the company for a half day consultancy once a fortnight and Teesside graduate Lizzie Brophy is employed in the company as an intern to work with customer services manager Marny Hogg.

Lizzie, who graduated from Teesside with a BSc (Hons) Psychology, supports the company on a daily basis to audit the customer services processes, look at where improvements can be made and the processes and training that need to be put in place to achieve that. She says: ‘I am really enjoying the work. It has made me realise that this is the area I want to work in.’ Stiller is hoping to apply for Customer First status within 12 months.

Paul Stiller has been in the warehousing and distribution business for 31 years, taking over as managing director from his father in 1986. He says: ‘As a small business we don’t have the skills to undertake this work in house. We need the skills the University can offer. Having an intern like Lizzie is a great opportunity for us to make improvements.

Also I am genuinely pleased to be working with an academic institution like Teesside which has a lot to offer business.’ For more information on Customer First consultancy contact Quality Manager Lisa McKeown on 01642 344328 or email l.mckeown@tees.ac.uk.

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