This is the 14th continuous year of our Customer Service Excellence (CSE) journey. This year we worked with a new Assessor. We also involved the whole staff team in considering together all the evidence we wanted to submit – an important development.
www.customerserviceexcellence.uk.com
https://www.customerserviceexcellence.uk.com/media/1080/updatedcontacts_csestandard_2024.pdf
We secured an exceptional 15 areas of Compliance Plus for our work in 2023-24!
There were no partial compliances. We retained all 12 areas of Compliance Plus from last year and added 3 new ones:
SIS is meeting the current standards for timeliness and quality of service. However, the strength found by the Assessor was the openness of the performance being publicised. The website contains a wealth of performance data, which is accessible to all Stakeholders. In addition, the annual report and annual general meeting provide the platform for performance to be publicised / promoted. (5.3.2)
Unsolicited feedback gained from Service Users, Interpreters and Practitioners is consistently positive, indicating that staff are friendly, polite, and professional. This was echoed throughout the interviews, whereby Service Users stated, “Staff are really wonderful, and go above and beyond”, “The Staff are really friendly, and polite, and put the Service User at ease”. The survey comments from Service Users are also highly positive and refer to staff as helpful and friendly, and at least 98% of responders indicate that they are highly satisfied with how the service is delivered. (2.2.2)
The Organisation consistently delivers the service as promised to individual Service Users; this was evident through the quantitative satisfaction levels of the different groups and the number of positive testimonies. There were minimal complaints upheld last year, and learning was gained from formal and informal complaints. Interviews with all Stakeholders, Service Users, Linguists, Practitioners, Commissioner and Staff were very complimentary of SIS and how it supports and works with a broad range of organisations and people. (4.2.2)
To put this in perspective, our long standing CSE Assessor Neil commented at our AGM in November 2023 that only 3 of his portfolio of 36 clients secured Compliance Plus in 10 or more areas.
In 2022 he described our 11 areas of Compliance Plus as a remarkable achievement, commending us for the quality of our submission.
Neil presented our CSE Journey at the AGM. Here is some of what he said:
“They don’t just stick to interpreting and translating and that’s been evident from the very start. They have a much wider remit and much wider desire to help people… SIS treats its Service Users, Linguists, Funders and Staff as customers, and that gave me a very positive message. To have four distinct customer groups… They don’t just signpost or give a link on a website, they want to take accountability to make sure that person’s needs are being looked after even though it might be by another partner.
They meet new challenges head on, they thrive on new challenges, again with Service Users at the heart of everything…. They really do care passionately about the lives of their Service Users. I see that every time I come down. And as a result, all stakeholders including Commissioners rate SIS highly. It’s a high-quality provision, the depth that SIS go to… As a result they are a key influencer and coordinator, they are constantly adding to their “Big Heart” map, they leave no stone unturned to find that niche provider, to help the Service Users.
So, it has been a privilege to witness their journey, continually improving and evolving, but that journey is by no means complete. There will be many challenges to face…I am confident that SIS will face those challenges and be successful, so I would like to wish them every success in the future. I’m sure of one thing though, they will always put their customers first. That’s in their genes, it’s a given. Thank you very much for listening and enjoy the rest of the AGM”.
We are a little lost for words as to how to describe our latest success!
We are deeply proud of our collective achievement in delivering language services at the heart of our communities.
We have continued to adapt, innovate, to stay focussed and motivated.
This year we will take the opportunity to review and set stretching performance indicators as we examine options for a new booking system.
Congratulations to everyone involved in SIS who works so hard to deliver our services!
We look forward to celebrating together at our AGM in November, which will mark 30 years of service delivery!
We welcome your feedback:
https://sussexinterpreting.org.uk/feedback/
https://sussexinterpreting.org.uk/complaints-form/
Vikki Gimson – Quality Assurance Manager vikki@sussexinterpreting.org.uk
Arran Evans – SIS Director arran@sussexinterpreting.org.uk