Issue 9 | April 2007

Over 100 London Organisations celebrate their Customer First success

Lucy Heggarty, Customer First Project Manager, Business Link 4 London writes,

To celebrate the achievement of the 119 now compliant London organisations against the Customer First Standard, an event was held at Shakespeare’s Globe on the South Bank on 7 March 2007.

It was well attended and we were entertained by three very different presentations from three very different organisations, who talked about their experiences of achieving the Customer First Standard. Firstly we heard from Peter Craddock and Chris Worts from Skipton Building Society, who gave an interesting overview of their approach to the Standard from a financial sector point of view.

We have over the last 18 months worked with the Islington Training Network (ITN) to pilot the Customer First Standard to see how it would apply to some community and voluntary organisations from 2 London boroughs. Eva Amalathas from ITN gave an overview of the pilot and some headlines from its evaluation which is currently being carried out. This overview was followed up by a presentation from one of the pilot participants - Elizabeth Oloo from the African Community Partnership. Elizabeth gave a passionate insight into how her organisation has benefited from achieving the Standard and her plans to move the organisation forward.

Finally, Matt Sims from Croydon Chamber presented his organisation’s Customer First journey and an insight into how they, as part of the Croydon Business Support Network, are working to deliver under Croydon Enterprise (Croydon LEGI programme.). Croydon Chamber were also the most recent London organisation to achieve the Standard, having had their feedback meeting earlier in the day!

Many thanks to all those who presented and were able to attend, and who made it such an enjoyable and inspirational night, for me it was a firm reminder of what it is all about – putting the customer first!

Photo: Keith Ramsay, Customer First UK Chief Executive (centre) with London Customer First organisations

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