SIST-TS CEN/TS 16880:2016

SLOVENSKI STANDARD
SIST-TS CEN/TS 16880:2016
01-maj-2016
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Service excellence - Creating outstanding customer experiences through service
excellence
Service Excellence - Schaffung von herausragenden Customer Experiences durch
Service Excellence
Ta slovenski standard je istoveten z: CEN/TS 16880:2015
ICS:
03.080.01 Storitve na splošno Services in general
03.100.99 Drugi standardi v zvezi z Other standards related to
organizacijo in vodenjem company organization and
podjetja management
03.120.99 Drugi standardi v zvezi s Other standards related to
kakovostjo quality
SIST-TS CEN/TS 16880:2016 en,fr,de
2003-01.Slovenski inštitut za standardizacijo. Razmnoževanje celote ali delov tega standarda ni dovoljeno.

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CEN/TS 16880
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATION

SPÉCIFICATION TECHNIQUE

December 2015
TECHNISCHE SPEZIFIKATION
ICS 03.080.01; 03.100.99; 03.120.99
English Version

Service excellence - Creating outstanding customer
experiences through service excellence
Excellence de service - Exigences et lignes directrices Service Excellence - Schaffung von herausragenden
pour l'excellence de service en vue de créer Kundenerlebnissen durch Service Excellence
l'enchantement du client
This Technical Specification (CEN/TS) was approved by CEN on 7 October 2015 for provisional application.

The period of validity of this CEN/TS is limited initially to three years. After two years the members of CEN will be requested to
submit their comments, particularly on the question whether the CEN/TS can be converted into a European Standard.

CEN members are required to announce the existence of this CEN/TS in the same way as for an EN and to make the CEN/TS
available promptly at national level in an appropriate form. It is permissible to keep conflicting national standards in force (in
parallel to the CEN/TS) until the final decision about the possible conversion of the CEN/TS into an EN is reached.

CEN members are the national standards bodies of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia,
Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,
Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and
United Kingdom.





EUROPEAN COMMITTEE FOR STANDARDIZATION
COMITÉ EUROPÉEN DE NORMALISATION

EUROPÄISCHES KOMITEE FÜR NORMUNG

CEN-CENELEC Management Centre: Avenue Marnix 17, B-1000 Brussels
© 2015 CEN All rights of exploitation in any form and by any means reserved Ref. No. CEN/TS 16880:2015 E
worldwide for CEN national Members.

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Contents Page
European foreword . 3
Introduction . 4
1 Scope . 6
2 Normative references . 6
3 Terms and definitions . 6
4 Relevance and benefits of service excellence . 7
5 Principles of service excellence . 8
6 Service excellence model . 9
7 Elements of the service excellence model . 10
7.1 Designing and renewing outstanding customer experiences . 10
7.2 Service excellence vision, mission and strategy . 12
7.3 Leadership and management commitment . 13
7.4 Employee engagement . 15
7.5 Service excellence culture . 18
7.6 Understanding customer needs, expectations and desires . 21
7.7 Service innovation management . 22
7.8 Managing customer experience related processes and organizational structure . 24
7.9 Monitoring service excellence activities and results . 26
Bibliography . 29

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European foreword
This document (CEN/TS 16880:2015) has been prepared by Technical Committee CEN/TC 420 “Project
Committee - Service Excellence Systems”, the secretariat of which is held by DIN.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of
patent rights. CEN [and/or CENELEC] shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent
rights.
According to the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations, the national standards organizations of the
following countries are bound to announce this Technical Specification: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland,
Turkey and the United Kingdom.

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Introduction
The competitive world in which customer expectations and behaviour evolve has changed. Today,
globalization, new technologies, education, information, transparency and the increased choice of
products and services allow customers more freedom of choice. Every purchase and customer contact is
a moment of truth. Existing and prospective customers are influenced by the opinions of other
customers, for example by their reviews on the internet. These reviews can have a disproportionate
impact on an organization’s reputation and its success or failure.
Organizations often say they put the customer at the centre of their business. However, in competitive
markets it is essential to manage the whole organization around the customer and the experience
offered. Organizations who know and do this will flourish. It is no longer enough for organizations to
deliver the basic services and products expected by customers. To be successful and to stay ahead of
competitors, it is essential to delight customers by providing outstanding experiences. This is the
objective of service excellence.
This Technical Specification describes the principles, elements and sub-elements for creating
outstanding customer experiences. The basic foundations of implementing service excellence are the
two lower levels of the service excellence pyramid (see Figure 1). These are described in standards such
as EN ISO 9001 and ISO 10002. This document deals with the upper levels which are:
— individual service (Level 3);
— surprising service (Level 4).

1)
Figure 1 — Service excellence pyramid

1) Adapted from DIN SPEC 77224.
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These two levels create an emotional connection with the customer and lead to customer delight. The
impact for the business is a strong brand image and attractiveness to new and existing customers as
well as competitive differentiation.
Individual service (Level 3) is perceived by customers as warm, genuine, personalized and tailor-made.
The customer experiences an emotional reaction by feeling valued.
Surprising service (Level 4) is tailor-made and leads to emotions of surprise and joy. It is delivered by
exceeding customer expectations. This can be achieved by delivering unexpected outstanding customer
experiences.

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1 Scope
This Technical Specification sets out guidance for the implementation of service excellence in order to
create outstanding customer experiences, exceed customer expectations and achieve customer delight.
It does not focus on the provision of basic customer service which organizations should already have in
place.
This document applies to all organizations delivering services, such as commercial organizations, public
services and not-for-profit organizations.
2 Normative references
None.
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
3.1
co-creation
active involvement of stakeholders in service design, delivery and innovation
3.2
customer
person or organization that could or does receive a product or service intended for, or required by, the
person or organization
EXAMPLE Consumer, client, end-user, patient, beneficiary and purchaser.
Note 1 to entry: A customer can be internal or external to the organization. The output of each internal process
is the input for the next process. The next process is the internal customer of the preceding process.
3.3
customer delight
emotions of pleasure and surprise experienced by the customer derived from either an intense feeling
of being valued or by expectations being exceeded
3.4
customer experience
perception by a customer about their interaction with an organization, its products or services
Note 1 to entry: An interaction is related to a customer journey or the whole relationship with an organization,
its products or services.
3.5
customer journey
complete sum of experiences of a customer when engaging with an organization, its products or
services
3.6
employee engagement
extent to which employees feel enthusiastic about their job, are committed to the organization and put
discretionary effort into their work
Note 1 to entry: Engaged employees are motivated to go the extra mile for customers and the organization.
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3.7
satisfaction
perception of the degree to which expectations have been fulfilled
3.8
service
action of an organization to meet a demand or need
3.9
service excellence
capabilities of an organization to consistently deliver outstanding customer experiences
Note 1 to entry: Capabilities reflect the nine elements of the service excellence model and their interplay.
3.10
service excellence mission
general expression of what an organization is committed to do to achieve the service excellence vision
3.11
service excellence strategy
translation of the service excellence vision and mission into solid principles, objectives and actions in
order to realize the envisaged goals
3.12
service excellence vision
future aspiration of an organization that explains its existence and how it focuses on achieving service
excellence
4 Relevance and benefits of service excellence
Some of the greatest challenges today are the growing demands, needs and expectations of customers
and their reducing loyalty. As customer needs and expectations expand, organizations should
concentrate on optimizing the experience, using innovation at all touch-points in customer journeys.
Services should be continuously and consistently improved, in co-creation with the customer and all
other interested parties.
Service excellence describes a structured approach that enables the providing of outstanding customer
experiences by individual and surprising service resulting in delighted customers. Consequently,
service excellence leads to customer loyalty and improves business success. This cause and effect chain
is shown in Figure 2.
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Figure 2 — Service excellence effect chain
Service excellence is a continuous process and requires investment in people, infrastructure and
research. The organization can benefit from this investment in a number of ways, for example:
— competitive differentiation;
— higher growth of service excellence reputation;
— establishment and strengthening of long-term customer relationships (leading to a greater
propensity to remain, repurchase and recommend);
— cost-saving potential in the long term (e.g. lower failure costs, easier sale conversions and reduced
advertising expenses for acquiring new customers);
— an excellent employer image (leading to improved recruitment opportunities, higher levels of staff
engagement and improved employee retention);
— improved customer co-operation and engagement.
5 Principles of service excellence
The seven principles of service excellence are:
a) Managing the organization from outside-in
The organization should design the desired experience from the customer’s perspective. Once
designed, resources and processes should be aligned.
b) Customer intimacy
The organization should strive for a superior level of individual personalization and be focused on
the customer needs throughout. A strong relationship can be fuelled by continuous communication,
which should reflect the customer’s desired level of interaction.
c) People make the difference
The engagement of everyone in the organization, including partners, in achieving customer delight
is of key importance.
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d) Balanced attention to customers, employees and partners
Customers, employees and partners are important and the organization should give a balanced
focus of attention to them all.
e) Integrated approach in order to deliver outstanding customer experiences
The organization should work through customer journeys with an integrated cross-functional
approach.
f) Leveraging of technology
Appropriate technology should be used to create outstanding customer experiences, for both staff
and customers.
g) Create value for stakeholders
Delivering service excellence leads to additional sustainable value for stakeholders. Co-creation
with stakeholders should be used to create enhanced value. Value can be monetary as well as non-
monetary.
6 Service excellence model
The service excellence model (see Figure 3) contains nine elements which lead to outstanding customer
experiences and delight.
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Figure 3 — Service excellence model
The objective of customer delight is at the centre of the model and is surrounded by designing and
renewing outstanding customer experiences (7.1).
The additional eight elements (7.2 to 7.9) are equal with no sequence of implementation, and
organizations can start from various points. These elements are grouped into four dimensions:
strategic, cultural, innovation and operational.
7 Elements of the service excellence model
7.1 Designing and renewing outstanding customer experiences
To achieve customer delight, an organization should design, implement and manage the delivery of
outstanding customer experiences. This element is divided into four sub-elements:
a) Designing and documenting the customer experience
The targeted experiences should be designed from the customer perspective, including customer
needs, journeys and the emotional results for both customers and staff. The organization should
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document these customer experiences. The document should take into consideration the objective
of achieving levels 3 and 4 (see Figure 1).
The document should include measures of success which evaluate the delivery of the targeted
experiences.
The document should be reviewed on a regular basis to ensure changing customer expectations,
competitor activities and innovation trends are reflected.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) develop and use service blueprints: these are descriptions of customer journeys delivering the
targeted customer experience;
2) research emotions during customer journeys;
3) use the critical incident technique: research customers that have experienced specific incidents
to understand them and make an in-depth analysis;
4) define service attitudes aligned with brand values and translate it into employee behaviour and
requirements for customer journeys;
5) customers participating in workshops to develop customer journeys leading to the targeted
customer experience. This should be done in close cooperation with employees (experience
based co-design).
b) Setting organizational service standards and delivering the service promise
Each interaction in the customer journey is a moment of truth. In order to deliver the desired
customer experiences, the organization should set and maintain market leading internal standards
and regularly exceed its service promise. Organizational service standards should be formulated
from the customer’s perspective and in the customer’s language (outside-in).
The management should be responsible for the implementation of internal service standards at all
levels. Staff should fully understand the importance of these standards and be kept informed of
performance.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) communicate explicitly formulated service levels or even total satisfaction to customers. This
can be done with codes of conduct such as service guarantees, service or customer charters and
service pledges;
2) use internal service standards for all customer journeys.
c) Deployment of the customer experience concept throughout the organization
The customer experience concept should document requirements for deployment. In case of large
organizations and organizations with decentralized teams, it should be adaptable for local use
where teams will jointly construct it with their customers and relevant partners. The direct
involvement and co-operation of local teams and management in any deployment is an essential
lever. The implementation of the concept requires the use of all the other elements (7.2 to 7.9).
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
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1) use creative brainstorming techniques and suggestion schemes;
2) implement continuous improvement programmes dedicated to developing attentiveness
towards the customer;
3) exchange best practices with other organizations.
d) Service recovery excellence
Helping customers with arising or existing problems and complaints in an individual and surprising
way is an important factor for creating outstanding experiences and customer delight. The
organization should design from the targeted customer experiences (7.1 a)) a service promise,
service concept and service standards for delivering outstanding experiences to customers with
problems and/or complaints. Teams in contact with the customer should have a sufficient level of
independence and autonomy to go the extra mile and to do whatever is necessary to delight
customers.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) define requirements of accessibility, ease and proactivity to deliver the targeted experiences;
2) organize forward resolution; the organization knows what problems customers are likely to
encounter and should proactively inform them to avoid such problems;
3) communicate specific service guarantees to customers on the service level of service recovery.
7.2 Service excellence vision, mission and strategy
The element of service excellence vision, mission and strategy frames and determines the
organization’s targeted customer experience. It translates the principles and the design of outstanding
customer experiences into all other elements of the service excellence model.
The service excellence vision, mission and strategy should be aligned to each other and to the
organization’s overall strategy. They should be created and reviewed by involving all stakeholders
including management, staff and customers. The vision, mission and strategy should be communicated
to and implemented by all parts of the organization to help create a service excellence culture and to
inform everyone about the decision making. This element is divided into three sub-elements:
a) Service excellence vision
The organization should have a service excellence vision which clearly states its aspiration to
consistently meet and exceed customers’ expectations and desires through exceptional service
delivery.
The vision should embrace the whole organization and be created with all relevant stakeholders.
b) Service excellence mission
The organization should have a mission which will enable the development of a service excellence
strategy that sets the goals and objectives to achieve the service excellence vision.
The organization should evaluate the proposed mission statements from a customer and a
feasibility point of view.
c) Service excellence strategy
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The organization should translate its service excellence vision and mission into a sound strategy
which is documented. This is an integral part of the organizational strategy and describes what the
organization will achieve and how it will realize these objectives
The strategy should be based on the seven principles and the other eight elements to achieve the
results described in Clause 4 and Figure 2. The strategy should be translated into actionable
objectives, goals, programmes and other measures. Responsibilities and how the organization plans
to implement these should be defined.
The strategy should be deployed to all parts of the organization and reviewed regularly.
Appropriate practices for implementation of the service excellence vision, mission and strategy
include, for example:
1) produce an inspiring vision document which is widely circulated and gains acceptance by all
stakeholders;
2) realize strategy workshops with all stakeholders in order to develop a service excellence
strategy;
3) set up customer advisory boards.
7.3 Leadership and management commitment
All managers, including board members, have a vital role in determining, implementing and sustaining
the service excellence strategy.
The philosophy and commitment of top management to create an environment which allows employees
to realize their full service potential is critical in order to achieve service excellence. Leadership should
focus on the development, growth and wellbeing of employees and the community within an
organization. The leader delegates responsibility, puts the needs of others first and helps people
develop and perform as much as possible. Employees can attain their full service potential through
factors such as empowerment, enthusiasm, organizational pride and engaged personal leadership.
This element is divided into four sub-elements:
a) Leadership
Managers, through strong leadership and leading by example, should create an environment in
which employees are able to deliver outstanding customer experiences.
Managers should consistently focus on the management of service excellence over a long period of
time. This involves creating a culture that supports employees to develop autonomy and
responsibility. Managers should support each employee to plan and organize their individual
development. This means that management should promote a way of working that allows for
mistakes to happen in order to enhance learning.
An important aspect is receiving feedback from customers as well as the rest of the organization to
enable employees to reflect on opportunities and risks.
Managers should support employees by providing regular feedback. To support this, managers
should actively listen to customers and act on their feedback. In addition, they should regularly
engage with employees to ensure that they see, hear, feel and understand what is happening
internally.
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Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) implement organizational development programmes for service excellence conceived and/or
delivered by a dedicated structure (e.g. service academies);
2) use mentoring programmes and coaching for service excellence;
3) organize 360 degree feedback involving also customers, peers and employees;
4) share and promote best practices.
b) Shared efforts, defined responsibilities and objectives
Leadership is fuelled by an organization functioning as a community, encouraging everyone to take
ownership in shared activities and results.
This should not be confused with shared responsibility, which does not lead to intrinsic motivation.
Management should deploy programmes that ensure the acknowledgement of all employees’
efforts as part of the result obtained. Translating the service excellence strategy (7.2 c)) into its
organizational objectives with a balanced top down/bottom up approach should be part of the
organization’s regular planning and control cycle.
The outcome of such a process is that each department, team and employee is able to link their own
objectives and individual actions with the service excellence strategy. All employees should be able
to regularly review their objectives and results.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) personal development programmes for all competencies and behaviours (e.g. training of
emotional and social competence);
2) the use of storytelling (e.g. recounting good or bad stories of service excellence).
c) Employee empowerment
Employees are expected to go the extra mile for customers in order to deliver outstanding and
tailor-made experiences. This means that employees should have the freedom to act.
In order to achieve this, management should encourage, support and enable employees to reach
their full potential by delegating authority and duties. To support ownership and responsibility,
management should encourage employees to input to the decision-making processes.
It is also crucial to provide the necessary resources, training and continuous feedback to employees
to support personal development. Managers should deal with conflicts in a constructive and fair
way.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) delegate resource authority/customer compensation (e.g. budget authority);
2) set up team building;
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3) enhance the acceptance of empowerment by integrating this aspect into the reward system of
managers;
4) training of management in dealing with empowerment measures.
d) Enthusiastic employees
To achieve customer delight, employees are one of the most important factors. Their satisfaction
and enthusiasm should be measured in a structured way. The organization should create an
environment of physical and emotional balance between work and leisure for every single
employee.
Employees can become enthusiastic by working on demanding tasks, by other outstanding job
characteristics or by the employer itself. Challenging and innovative work are two of the most
important requisites to encourage feelings of enthusiasm. Enthusiastic employees have a more
stable positive attitude towards the organization.
Appropriate practices for implementation include, for example:
1) integrate employee enthusiasm indicators in employee surveys;
2) organize workshops on emotional intelligence and employee enthusiasm.
7.4 Employee engagement
The organization should use human resource processes and tools to stimulate and maintain shared
values, beliefs and practices to create outstanding customer experiences at all levels and in all areas of
activity in the organization. Management should ensure employees are enthusiastic and motivated to
provide outstanding customer experiences and to delight their customers. Employees should have a
genui
...