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How askUCL helped us to achieving our Customer Services Excellence Accreditation

16 June 2021

Find out how askUCL helped the SEC achieve their CSE accreditation

UCL Student Enquiries Centre (SEC) has recently been awarded the Customer Service Excellence Standard, a nationwide accreditation scheme for public sector organisations and businesses. During the two-day visit, the accreditor remarked on how askUCL was an accessible platform which enables staff to deliver a timely and high-quality online service to customers. He noted how this has been especially important during the Covid-19 pandemic and how askUCL has allowed the SEC team to continue to provide an excellent service remotely.

Furthermore, recent feedback from students clearly demonstrates that many have been satisfied with the service they have received via askUCL:

‘My enquiry was well attended to in record time and the staff were super patient/helpful in pointing me [in] the right direction... It’s a 5-star for me, 100% satisfied! Thanks immensely UCL, I am super grateful...’ 

‘I find askUCL a very effective way of contact[ing] any support team at UCL, as it gives the confirmation for each enquiry received…followed by the updates regarding the answer.’ 

‘I think askUCL is excellent overall.’

The askUCL enquiry management system has been fundamental in ensuring that we can respond to enquiries within five working days, and has also streamlined how we triage enquiries when students require more specialist advice. The FAQ knowledgebase within askUCL was also a key piece of evidence for the accreditation as it allowed us to demonstrate to the accreditor, how we have improved the range, content and quality of verbal, published and web-based information, as the SEC team often refers to these detailed and extensive FAQs when advising students.  Also, having access to FAQs allows the student to ‘self-serve’ which reduces and, in some cases, negates the need to ‘log an enquiry’. The SEC team also works closely with the SIDhelp team to ensure SEC-managed FAQs are reviewed and regularly updated.

In our self-assessment, which was submitted to the accreditor prior to his visit, we cited askUCL as another key piece of evidence to demonstrate how we continually improve our service and deliver best practice. Due to the transparent set-up of the askUCL system, we have a better understanding of how the team responds to students; we conduct quality assurance audits and discuss best practice in our focus groups on a regular basis. The reporting functionality on askUCL also helps the SEC management team to identify emerging trends, report on performance metrics and monitor, maintain and continuously improve the service quality and customer satisfaction. 

The Student Enquiries Centre is extremely proud of obtaining the accreditation during this challenging period, which required contribution and collaboration with different services across UCL, and especially the SIDhelp team.  

If you would like to find out more about the Customer Service Excellence Standard, or how your area of UCL can apply, please contact Finola Gibson, Student Enquiries Centre Manager.