Coloplast launches customer-care qualification

Citation

(2008), "Coloplast launches customer-care qualification", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 40 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/ict.2008.03740gab.007

Coloplast launches customer-care qualification

Article Type: Notes and news From: Industrial and Commercial Training, Volume 40, Issue 7

Customer-care staff at a UK medical company are being given the chance to work towards a national customer-service qualification.

Eight staff from Peterborough-based Coloplast, a supplier of wound, continence and stoma-care medical appliances, have begun producing work to put forward for the Institute of Customer Services (ICS) professional-communications award. It is the first time that the company’s customer-care staff have been given an opportunity to achieve a qualification using the work they do in their everyday lives as examples.

To achieve the ICS award, staff need to demonstrate that they can deliver customer service consistently to a professional standard in their everyday work. The qualification assesses how staff work with customers and colleagues, how they relate to their organization and how they learn and develop.

Achievement of the award demonstrates that staff can, among other things, deliver excellent customer service consistently, build relationships with customers, resolve customer problems, understand the organization’s products and recognize how their work fits with the wider aims of the organization.

Emma Branch was one of the first members of the customer-care team to start working towards achieving the award. She joined Coloplast in 2001 and takes incoming calls to help customers with their enquiries and orders.

“Working towards the ICS award is a great opportunity to obtain a recognized qualification that demonstrates my skills and a commitment to providing a high standard of customer service,” she commented. “Coloplast is supporting everyone studying for the award in a number of ways. For example, each person is allocated a coach who is there to help him or her to track progress and to give guidance as necessary.”

Achieving the qualification will take around six months. It will involve both internal and external assessments of work, including a logbook of evidence and a personal profile.

Two Coloplast staff, customer-care manager Dawn Tocco and customer-care training manager Wendy Lister, are being trained as internal assessors.

Dawn Tocco said: “The ICS award gives staff the opportunity to be recognized as a customer-service professional. The program will complement the work we have already done to ensure our customers receive award-winning service.”