Quality Assurance Services and Customer First
Within QED we have a team dedicated to quality assurance that assesses and advises on how to enhance and improve processes within organisations, looking at issues from customer service to communications and marketing.
Our team of registered advisers at QED Consulting have extensive knowledge and understanding of Customer First and are able to interpret the framework requirements to your organisational context. All our advisers have extensive assessment experience and can explain to you the steps in the assessment process and help you to prepare for the on-site assessment.
Advisers are there to support you through the assessment process and there are a number of ways in which their support can help you to prepare pre-assessment:
- Introductory workshops – aimed at raising internal awareness and understanding
- Briefing sessions to senior management teams – to gain buy-in and support
- Self-assessment workshop sessions – aimed at helping you to interpret the statements, sections and framework requirements, including how these might apply within your organisation. Sessions are aimed at facilitating discussions regarding potential evidence examples of your approach and ways of working
- Action planning sessions – supporting you to develop an action plan resulting from your initial self-assessment that will be aimed at addressing any gaps or areas for improvement
- Practical support and development – to help you to develop new approaches, methods and documentation to meet framework requirements
- Mock assessment – as part of preparing you and your people for the external assessment process
Post-assessment support
Slightly more than 75% of providers / organisations completing a first assessment do not fully meet the framework requirements. Organisations in this category achieve only partial compliance against one or several of the statements within the framework. There are 32 statements within the 3 sections of the framework and it is not often easy to fully meet these at a first assessment.
Recent research demonstrates that providers / organisations find the Customer Relationships section more difficult to comply with than the Market Awareness and People statements. (The Customer Relationships section examines the way in which you track and manage the customer journey and experience with your organisation).
Having completed your first assessment, your assessor may identify areas of development that you will need to address over the following 6 months leading up to your Monitoring Visit. The developments and improvements that you put in place will be tested during your Monitoring Visit to ensure that you then comply with the framework.
Advisory support can be used post-assessment to help you to address required development areas and improvements. Your adviser can help you to develop and refine your approaches, including supporting you through implementation and evidence collection.
Whilst such support is aimed at helping you to address development requirements, advisers will assist you in ensuring that new approaches and ways of working are practical, efficient, fit with your organisational culture and type of support delivery.
Advisers are able to use their wealth of experience, examples of good practice used by other providers / organisations and can signpost you to other sources of help and assistance, such as the on-line materials available through the CFUK website.
How to access support
You can access support through QED Consulting by calling or e-mailing us. A member of our team will discuss your needs and an adviser will make contact with you to agree an on-site meeting to discuss specific objectives and to work with you to develop a package of support that will help you.