Joining our Customer Service Excellence journey

My reflections, as the LLC’s new(-ish) Operations Manager, on our eighth successive re-accreditation by the Customer Service Excellence (CSE) standard!

Class sizes on courses taught by the LLC are relatively small, allowing students to be well-supported by our teaching staff.

A year on from our last re-accreditation visit by an assessor from the Customer Service Excellence (CSE) standard, on 4th March 2024 they were welcomed back through the doors of the Lifelong Learning Centre (LLC) for our annual ‘surveillance visit’. This provided another great opportunity for reflection on how we’ve developed our level of customer service over the last 12 months, and to receive feedback on our progress.

We were marked against 52 criteria in five different areas:

1. Customer insight

2. Culture of organisation

3. Information and access

4. Delivery

5. Timeliness and quality of service

As a member of staff who’s relatively new to the LLC, it was really interesting to be closely involved with this process — having taken the reins from our former Adult Learners Officer Jenni Whitfield — and to gain a deeper understanding of how the CSE accreditation works.

What did the assessor think?

We received extremely positive feedback from the assessor this year, who noted that we had made great progress in the development areas they had identified in 2023.

Our focus on developing our social media, including the adoption of new platforms such as TikTok, was a particularly well-received development. We were also able to show the assessor around Beech Grove House — our second space on the University campus, which has been developed as a second front desk and resource space for our students.

Mature and Foundation-level students at Leeds can access support from LLC staff in two different spaces on the University campus — the one pictured here is located in Beech Grove House.

We provided updates on the LLC’s new Staff Training and Development Policy, and the assessor was pleased to hear about the centre-wide, collaborative team approach we take to the work that we do.

Expectations exceeded

We were very pleased to be awarded another ‘Compliance Plus’ for the work of the LLC’s Middle Ground Network, and their great achievement in being awarded a ‘Partnership Award’ from Leeds University Union.

Personal reflections

As someone who’s only worked at the LLC for seven months, I found this process a great opportunity to find out more about the Centre and the work being done by each of our staff teams. I’d never been involved in a CSE accreditation before, and feel I’ve been able to greatly develop my own skills and knowledge around process improvement thanks to this experience.

What’s next?

We’re already focusing on the new development areas identified by the assessor, and looking forward to continuing our hard work to see if we can gain further Compliance Pluses at our next visit!

If you’d like any more information about our CSE accreditation, or would like to find out more about the LLC and the work that we do, feel free to get in touch with me.