Customer contact centres (CCCs) have an important role in the interaction between organizations and their customers. They vary in their levels of service quality and consumer protection, and work to many different levels of efficiency.

BS EN ISO 18295-1 Customer contact centres – Part 1

Requirements for customer contact centres specifies best practice for all contact centres, whether in-house or outsourced and irrespective of the service sector, on a range of areas to ensure a high level of service. These include communication with customers, complaints handling and employee engagement.

The ongoing success and development of any organisation relies on its understanding of the expectation levels and perceptions of its customers. BS EN ISO 18295-1 would be especially beneficial for customer contact centres that don’t always live up to customers’ expectations as it can help address problems such as waiting times, means of contacting organisations and meeting customer experience expectations.

Whilst the standard is voluntary in its implementation, it aims to bring the following advantages to those that adopt it:

  • Improvements in customer contact quality, which can give a competitive edge to the organization and avoid the risk of customer criticism about poor service or service failure
  • Cost efficiencies through better processes and a better understanding of the customer contact service, whilst maintaining quality outcomes and effectiveness
  • Improvements in staff retention through understanding and valuing the staff contribution to customer service and outcomes

Complementing Part 1 is BS EN ISO 18295- Customer contact centres – Part 2 

Requirements for clients using the services of customer contact centres. This part is aimed at those organizations that employ customer contact centres, whether in-house or managed by an outsourcer. A Customer contact centre is not responsible for certain aspects of products and services which remain the responsibility of the client organisation and Part 2 gives guidance on the provision and management of appropriate arrangements with their in-house or outsourced Customer contact centres.

Davies Hickman worked with the ISO team to contribute to the standard.