In 2016 AFI group of companies, one of the UK’s leading powered access specialists, became the only powered access company to hold the coveted Institute of Customer Service ServiceMark accreditation. This has now been retained for three more years.
ServiceMark is a national standard recognising an organisation’s achievement in customer service, and its commitment to upholding those standards. ServiceMark is awarded based on customer satisfaction feedback and an assessment of employee engagement with an organisation’s customer service strategy. It helps organisations understand how effective their customer service strategy is, and identifies areas for improvement. ServiceMark enables organisations to benchmark themselves against best practice, gain a better insight into their customers’ needs and develop strategies to meet them.
Carlo Vinci, AFI Customer Service Director, said:
“We’re extremely pleased with this result, it reflects AFI’s dedication to providing the best possible customer service to our customers. The ServiceMark accreditation demonstrates how good our customer service really is, and how we can find ways of developing further. It is a continuous process, so we are constantly striving towards taking our customer service to the next level. We will continue to put our customers at the heart of everything we do.”
The ServiceMark accreditation is based on results taken from an extensive customer survey, an assessment of employee engagement with the customer service and after a thorough on-site assessment of processes affecting customer experience and satisfaction levels.
In the report the Institute’s ServiceMark Assessor said:
“The customers truly are at the heart of everything the company does and the commitment to the customer – both internal and external – is communicated through a simple company ethos, or as it has also been referred to, the AFI Way, which is Friendly, Helpful and Professional. These words seem to have become a part of everyday language and I have heard them spoken unprompted in a number of interviews. This vision is underpinned by core business values: Teamwork, HSEQ, Customer Service and Profitability. It is further supported by their Customer Charter, which has been seen at every location I visited and referred to by many of those I spoke with.
Senior managers are seen to champion customer service, both internal and external. This was clear in my meetings with some of the leadership team members but most importantly confirmed through interviews with more junior staff members. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind as to where great customer experience sits on the list of priorities – Customer 1st.“
