Assessing customer focus using the EFQM Excellence Model: a local government case

Abstract

Purpose

A critical problem for managers in South Staffordshire Council's one‐stop‐shop customer contact centre, known as South Staffordshire Solutions, was how to assess the achievement of “customer focus” in local services. The purpose of the paper is to view how managers adopted a model of self‐assessment to address the problem.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper shows how the EFQM Excellence Model enabled managers to effectively self‐assess critical performance issues relating to customer focus. It also shows how the assessors used the fundamental concepts of the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) Excellence Model to identify a range of service interrelationships affecting customers.

Findings

The paper finds that the assessors need to take account of the interrelationships between customer focus, results and learning to assess delivery of value to external customers. The EFQM Excellence Model provided South Staffordshire Council with an effective way of self‐assessing customer‐related issues.

Practical implications

The paper shows that self‐assessment enabled managers in the customer contact centre to assess customer focus within the broader context of the Council's Balanced Scorecard commitment to enhancing performance under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA).

Originality/value

In this paper the assessors used the EFQM model to develop a narrative about sustained customer value creation by combining the fundamental concepts of the model with thinking about the unique value proposition offered to customers by the service.

Citation

Jacobs, B. and Suckling, S. (2007), "Assessing customer focus using the EFQM Excellence Model: a local government case", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 19 No. 4, pp. 368-378. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780710756250