The International Customer Service Standard

The International Customer Service Standard for business enterprises has been developed as both an acknowledgement of progress made to date by some enterprises in relation to standards of service excellence and as a benchmark for others to pursue.

In developing this standard, the International Council of Customer Service Organizations is establishing benchmarks for service excellence globally that will stand the rigors of international competition and scrutiny.

Much has been written about the importance of the customer in business: this standard provides both a recognizable benchmark and a "how-to" implementation approach.

The International Customer Service Standard for business enterprises applies equally to for-profit businesses or government and not-for-profit businesses. Its aim is to help shift the business focus from Product or Service OUT to Customer IN. This means creating an environment where customer input is largely responsible for determining the product or service output, rather than where the supplier or service giver, attempts to force their product or service on the customer in the hope that it will meet customer needs and generate loyalty.

Click here to request an overview of the International Customer Service Standard

The International Council of Customer Service Organizations (ICCSO) is the international body for customer service Organizations seeking to develop and promote international service standards and professional excellence in customer service. The Council is responsible for promoting international customer service standards, professional certification and the International Service Excellence Awards.

The Council's membership include some of the world's peak Customer Service Bodies, members are the Asia Pacific Customer Service Consortium, the Hong Kong Customer Service Consortium, the Customer Service Institute of America, the Hellenic Institute of Customer Service and the Customer Service Institute of Australia which also provides secretariat services and funding for the Council.

ICCSO is dedicated to supporting the Organizations around the world which are responsible for the development of Organizations and individuals towards customer service excellence. Visit the International Council of Customer Service Organizations website at www.iccso.org.

As a member of the International Council of Customer Service Organizations, the Customer Service Institute of America has aligned itself with the best and brightest across the world to keep up to date on the trends and industry benchmarks in order to provide the best and most cutting edge information to its members.

Benefits of Using the Standard

Some of the benefits of training and becoming certified to the International Customer Service Standard include:

• Continuous improvement and benchmarking of the organization's customer service efforts through the annual audits to ICSS
• An ability to determine gaps between managements' expectations of customer service levels and actual delivery levels
• A useful tool for quantifying the performance of customer service professionals within an organization
• Greater focus on customer service throughout the organization
• Enhanced morale at all levels of the organization, brought about by greater autonomy to deal with customer complaints and an overall reduced level of complaints
• Enhanced organizational recognition, as a result of both the fact of being audited and certified, as well as being able to display the visual symbol of certification, the "Certified Customer Service Organization" logo (see below)