Why should the public sector place more importance to customer service? The simple answer is because it has to. The government is applying an increasing amount of pressure to provide services that are effective, efficient, excellent, equitable and empowering. The direction provided by the Cabinet Office is that ‘the citizen should be always and everywhere at the heart of public service provision’ (cse.cabinetoffice.gov.uk, 2010).The public sector now has little choice but to consider its customer satisfaction because it is taken into account for inspections and is a key plank of the government’s public sector reform strategy. The 1999 white paper Modernising Government pledged commitment to meet the “needs of citizens, not the convenience of service providers”. Improving customer service has become such an important part of the reform that in 2004, Clive Grace, the then director-general of the Audit Commission in Wales called CSE the ‘Holy Grail’ for local government (idea.gov.uk, 2010).Paul Cooper, Director of Communications at the Institute of Customer Service has said that “if you don’t treat the public who use council services as someone who can walk away and take their business elsewhere you are never going to provide a good service. And that is the way it should be. People have paid for these services through their taxes and can exercise their voice through voting. They are customers and should get satisfaction” (Idea.gov.uk, Aug 2005). Sir David Varney’s review in 2006 built on these aspirations by setting goals for improvements in public sector performance by 2010. The most recent Comprehensive Spending Review issued earlier this year has again emphasized the importance of creating internal CSE to achieve external CSE. There is a growing unwillingness from both the government and society to accept the continuation of poor public services simply because historically that has been the case. There is intense pressure for strategies to become customer-led rather than service led and a call for exceeding minimum standards to achieve high quality services for less (Speller and Ghobadian, 1993, pg. 30). It has become clear that expectations of public services are rising but reaching these expectations has become particularly important because of the current volatile environment. Information empowerment has allowed for greater transparency in what customers can expect to get and what they can do if standards are below acceptable levels (strong public sector trade union presence (internal) and bodies such as the Independent Complaints Advocacy Service for NHS services and The Independent Police Complaints Commission (external). There has also been evidence of an increase in ‘service-rage’ across both the public and private sectors where anger about poor standards is globally voiced via platforms such as social networking sites and blogs (see ‘Caerphilly Council is a disgrace’ group on Facebook) (Beevers, 2010, pg. 3).
The current volatile climate has also placed more emphasis on CSE because of its potential to create efficiency savings – unsatisfied customers lead to complaints/repeated requests for service, both of which are costly and time consuming (idea.gov.uk, 2010). It has become more common for external customers to take their custom elsewhere e.g. private trade refuse services, housing associations and healthcare. A prime example of this is public transport which has to compete with ‘the convenience and ‘love affair’ that most of us apparently have with our cars. Whether a citizen will give up his or her car and use public transportation will be highly correlated with his or her satisfaction with schedules, routes, numbers or transfers needed and timeliness or stops etc.’ (Kotler&Lee, 2006 pg. 170). For internal customers, poor CSE can lead to low staff morale (which affects productivity) and can result in employees leaving the organisation for better job satisfaction (leading to a shortage of knowledge/skills and potential recruitment difficulties). Good CSE is also important at departmental level because if a client department is unhappy with the service, it may decide to take on the work itself or outsource it to an external provider thus affecting future revenues and budget allowances. There is already mounting pressure on public organisations to move away from reliance on central budgets to generate income themselves across all areas and from a non-competitive culture to a competitive approach to service delivery (Speller and Ghobadian, 1993, pg. 30). CSE is particularly important for this because the public sector has mandatory services which are non-profit areas, so if revenues are lost from profitable areas resources will become stretched. An example of the role that CSE can play in these situations is education. During this period of budget cuts and service stripping, government subsidies and school closures will be based on enrolment figures, parent/student satisfaction and results – all of which are linked to good levels of customer service (Kotler andLee, 2006, pg. 171). Levels of competition are rising both internally and externally due to shrinking budgets and encouragement from the government to open up the right to deliver services. The public sector has not had to face this level of competition before and providers will be expected to provide capital and bear significantly more risk with payment being on the basis of standard tariffs and results rather than activity based contracts and government funding – behaviour previously associated with the private sector (kpmg.co.uk). Increased levels of competition can significantly impact on revenue, profitability, staff turnover, and the stability and security of a business and its workforce (Clarke 1990, pg. 14). Evidence in literature suggests that the gap between the public and private sector is already closing with private organisations being expected to take on more social responsibility and public organisations having to focus on its customers and justify its need for existence. If the gap continues to close and services are opened up for greater competition, the public sector will have no choice but to move more in line with private sector levels of customer service or face severe losses in revenue (Jarrarand Schiuma, 2007, pg. 4).
Resource : Laura Jones B.A. (Hons) Business Studies – Customer Service Excellence module, 2010, Level 6 The New Researcher 2010, Volume 4, 2011, pp. 16-21
BEEVERS, R. 2010.Customer Service Excellence in the Public Sectorhttp://www.customerplus.co.uk/downloads/service_excellence.pdf
CLARK, A. 1992.Public Awareness – Henley Management College, p. 373 – 378
JARRAR, Y and SCHIUMA, G. 2007. Measuring performance in the public sector: challenges and trends. Measuring Business Excellence, Volume 11, No 4, pages 4-8
KOTLER, P. and & LEE, N. 2006. Marketing in the Public Sector – A Roadmap for Improved Performance. Harlow, Essex: Pearson
SPELLER, S. and GOHABIAN, A. 1993.Change for public sector. Managing service quality July, p. 29 – 32
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