This week is National Customer Service Week (6–10 October) – an opportunity to reflect on the important role customer experience plays in delivering high-quality public services.

In this blog, Jonathan Newby, our Head of Customer Policy & Research, outlines our new Customer Experience (CX) strategy and how it’s designed to evolve with the changing needs of our customers.

We’re committed to continuous improvement and have an ambition to deliver the best public service for Scotland.

To help us achieve this, we want to place customer needs at the centre of how we design, deliver, and improve our services.

Our strategy

Co-designed by colleagues across RoS, our new CX strategy draws on the insights of those who work directly with our customers.

It helps us to understand where we are now versus where we want to be. It is built to be flexible to ensure we can adapt as our customer expectations evolve.

The principles

The strategy is based on five key principles:

1. Understand our customers - We will use insight, data, and research to understand the needs, behaviours, and expectations of all our customers.

2. Champion the needs of our customers - We will represent the customer voice in decision-making, policy, and service design. Customer needs will be at the heart of everything we do.

3. Deliver effective digital services - We will create a simple, accessible, and intuitive digital experience. Empowering customers to self-serve confidently.

4. Empower responsive customer support - We will ensure our people and systems are equipped to respond quickly and empathetically. Blending human and digital support to meet customer needs.

5. Keep our customer promises - We will make clear, measurable commitments to our customers and we will hold ourselves accountable for delivering what we say we will, when we say we will.

The strategy is part of a wider drive to embed a customer-centric culture across RoS where CX is understood to be everyone’s responsibility.  We are hopeful that it can act as a positive first step in helping to better shape our services and ensure they fully meet the needs of the people we serve.

Next steps

We are working on key initiatives to ensure the CX strategy becomes embedded in our day-to-day work. For example, we’ve recognised the need for clear promises to our customers so we’re developing a Customer Charter to set measurable commitments. We also plan to review our contact channels to see if there are smarter, more responsive ways for customers to engage with us.

Keep up to date

We look forward to continuing our work to better support our customers.

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