Finish in sight for Benenden

Not many organisations put on a customer care programme for absolutely every employee, starting with the Chairman. Still fewer do it when their customer satisfaction ratings average over 95%. But then Benenden Hospital & Healthcare Society is not your average organisation: Best UK Healthcare Provider in 2009 and Best Healthcare Employer in the same year.

Sustaining Service Excellence, the programme Benenden commissioned from Passe Partout, is due to end in January 2011, after 26 workshops attended by over 500 managers, staff and consultants.

The focus of the programme was “staying on top”, with people from every area of the organisation invited to contribute their ideas about the future of customer service at Benenden.

As one participant put it: “Perhaps the biggest lesson is that we can’t afford to be complacent. Even though we are getting consistently excellent feedback from our patients and members, there is always room for improvement and new challenges around the corner.”

Key outcomes will include the creation of a service vision for Benenden, and the establishment of working groups to tackle what participants have identified as the most pressing service challenges. A full programme evaluation is being compiled at the time of writing.