Achieving certification under the SCP Professional Service Standard requires organizations to meet specific criteria that represent best practices in the industry. The standard measures 14 areas of performance, each of which contains a set of business elements associated with it. Included below is a brief summary of the criteria.
Customer Feedback
Customer Feedback involves all the activities associated with collecting, analyzing and acting on feedback provided by the customer. Customer feedback is a vital tool that the management team can use to drive change and improvement in their service delivery process.
Service Delivery Processes
Service delivery processes are used to communicate with customers, manage projects and handle other aspects of the customer relationship necessary to deliver high quality service. Setting customer expectations and proactively communicating with customers are key aspects of managing these relationships.
Performance Metrics
Measuring performance is a key aspect of managing any professional services organization. Without quantitative measures for key performance indicators, it is difficult to determine how well an organization is meeting customer and business requirements. Professional services organizations should establish clear goals and track their performance against these goals. The Professional Service Standard includes specific measures unique to professional services organizations.
Employee Development
Employee development is a critical part of any professional services organization. Properly trained professional services personnel can have a significant impact on how customers perceive the quality of service provided by a company. Properly trained staff members are more efficient and effective at completing service engagements. Therefore, managing the development of the services staff is critical to the success of the organization.
People Programs
People are the single largest resource in any professional services organization. The business of delivering services is all about people and the professional services staff represents the product delivered by the company. Personnel costs also typically represent the single largest expense of most services organizations. It is critical that the staff feel they are contributing to the success of the company and that they are respected for the role they play within the organization. Professional services organizations must ensure that they have processes, procedures and programs in place to effectively manage their personnel.
Corporate Commitment and Strategy
In today's competitive marketplace, it is critical that companies demonstrate a strong commitment to delivering the highest quality services to customers. In many instances, services can be the differentiator in the product purchasing decision. Companies must ensure that they provide the highest levels of service possible and maintain a strong commitment to satisfying their customers. The strength of commitment to deliver exceptional service must begin at the executive level.
Productivity Tools
Professional services organizations need automation and productivity tools to assist in delivering quality services to their customers while simultaneously keeping an eye on the bottom line. Productivity tools provide the necessary automation to streamline access to qualified services staff members, record critical customer and product information and accurately estimate time and costs of services engagements. By defining organizational objectives and understanding how the technologies will be used within the professional services organization, management staff can ensure they have a smooth and effective process for budgeting, acquiring and implementing advanced productivity tools.
Quality Management
The quality of the services delivered by a company can significantly influence its ability to acquire and retain customers. Professional services organizations have become differentiators in the current marketplace. Companies need to implement processes and procedures that ensure that every customer engagement is a quality one that leaves the customer feeling good about the company they are dealing with. By implementing processes and procedures to monitor and improve service quality, companies can drive higher performance from the organization and generate greater customer loyalty.
Support and Product Development Interface
The relationship between professional services, support and product development organizations are a key factor in the success of any technology company. The relationship should be one of open communication and provide for knowledge transfer between the three groups. By having clear lines of communication and strong working relationships between these groups, identified issues can be addressed rapidly and changes incorporated into product updates or future releases.
Sales Interface
The relationship between professional services and the sales organization is a key factor in the success of any company. Sales, services and support are typically the most customer facing organizations in a company. Since the sales organization sets the customer's initial expectations, it is critical they have a full understanding of the capabilities of the professional services organization. By having clear lines of communication and strong working relationships between these two organizations, customer expectations can be set properly.
Project Management
Project management addresses the methods and procedures used to manage service activities and engagements in a consistent and measurable manner. A project, implementation or engagement is typically the first experience a customer has with the company's overall service delivery practices and establishes the framework for building a strong relationship moving forward. Professional service organizations should have clearly defined processes, goals and objectives in place surrounding the project management process to ensure that performance targets are met.
Financial Management
The professional services organization is considered both a net contributor to the operating costs of the company and a contributor to bottom line profitability. It is important for the professional services organization to effectively manage the tangible fundamentals of cost, revenue and profitability as well as less tangible elements such as customer satisfaction and loyalty. The professional services organization needs to examine each one of these profit contributors and ensure that effective management processes and performance indicators are in place.
Resource Planning
The professional services organization should have the means to plan, forecast and create resource models to determine staffing, systems and facility requirements to meet current and future service demand. The largest investment for most any professional services organization is the labor pool, with systems and facilities demand increasing proportionately to growth of the labor pool. A proper balance must be maintained between practicing cost management and having the right resources available at the right time to deliver service at a desired level. The key to maintaining this balance is in the planning and forecasting practices utilized by the professional services organization.
Partner Management
The professional services organization routinely depends on outside vendors and partners to carry out service activities and projects. Whatever the extent of a partner relationship, the professional services organization should have processes and programs in place to effectively set the expectations of the partner, manage the relationship and monitor the partner performance during the course of service engagements. Managing partners to service delivery guidelines and performance targets helps provide a consistent service experience for the customer.
To learn more about the SCP Professional Service Standard, please contact Service Strategies today.