Duncan Claber

Said the following about Service Quality Team SWR:

“The Service Quality team have delivered and successfully embedded a significant change programme within SWR that is well recognised and understood right across the business from Senior Leaders to frontline colleagues. The impact of which is driving significant improvement in the resulting Service Quality scores and the customer journey experience. Whilst the implementation of a Service Quality Regime was a contractual commitment of the SWR National Rail Contract, the approach to delivery was unique and focused on the people. From the outset the team engaged with their stakeholders right across the business understanding the significant impact of this change, working alongside them supporting and coaching colleagues at all levels within the organisation. The priority was to ensure that the programme was effectively utilised internally in order to drive improvements in customer experience standards across trains, stations and customer service. The team recognised that the regime allowed valuable in-depth information to be gained on the condition of all train and station environments, as well as standards in colleague/customer engagement. With the industry facing significant pressures on resources and spending, this information could be used to intelligently focus efforts on areas of underperformance or concern. In this way South Western Railway sought to address to key aims of the railway industry; that of improving the customer experience and driving efficiency. Service Quality has been a catalyst for change and the team have used this as an opportunity to review and improve numerous processes across almost all functions. Looking back over the last 23 periods since it launched the change has been revolutionary but as the approach has been one of continuously improving this has almost gone unnoticed by colleagues. Along with the rest of the industry SWR has agreed specific targets with the DfT for Stations, Trains and Customer Service. The Service Quality team have set about transforming the experience for customers and through that process continuously improved performance, exceeding expected targets consistently for the last 13 periods for Stations, Trains and Customer Service. The team does not see Service Quality in isolation and seeks to use the programme alongside the SWR ‘Voice of the Customer’ insight. This ensures that projects and work streams effectively improve the customer journey experience. Where ‘Voice of the Customer’ helps the business understand how our customers perceive and feel about certain aspects of the service, Service Quality data is used to drill down and objectively measure at a granular level what exactly is causing customers to feel this way. In this way, Customer Experience metrics have improved in a number of areas alongside Service Quality scores. The connection between Service Quality and Voice of the Customer also helps the team bring Service Quality to life for colleagues; helping them understand how improving service quality positively impacts their customers.“