News in Brief

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We’re taking the ASEAs ONLINE!

This year, with the challenges of COVID-19, CSIA has decided to take the annual ASEAs gala celebration and presentation online.

We’re currently in planning for a live studio broadcast of the awards on October 22 nd .

And we’re welcoming back Michael Pope to host the event, and he will be joined in the studio by selected (and social distanced) VIPs and special guests.

When: October 22, 2020 from 6pm - registration details coming soon -

Join us for a public training program this August

CCHE Public Training Program Online via Zoom

Join us for our Certified Complaints Handling Excellence (CCHE) program online on Thursday, 13 August.

The CCHE program focuses on understanding why complaints are so valuable, how they should be handled, and what skills are needed to turn angry customers into happy customers.

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CCSL Public Training Program Online via Zoom

Join us for our Certified Customer Service Leader (CCSL ) program online on Thursday, 20 August .

The program is all about equipping customer service leaders with practical tools and techniques to motivate their teams to deliver great customer experiences. This is great opportunity to become a certified customer service leaderso secure your place now.

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2020 ASEAs finalist judging begins

This month, our 2020 Australian Service Excellence Awards panel commenced the judging process for over sixty finalists. And this year, for the first time, all presentations and interviews will be conducted online, and each category will have a dedicated team of assigned judges.

Lead Judge, Danielle Larkins will again oversee the finalist judging program which will conclude in September.

Thank You to our 2020 Guest Judges

The ASEAs rely on the CSIA community supporting the finalist judging program. This year we have a record 40 people participating as guest judges selected from many applications.

CSIA is very grateful to our members who come forward committing time and expertise to the judging process.

No Small Feat

Sam Blaxland , CSIA Certified Practitioner, shares his experiences as one of the leaders of the 2019 review of the International Customer Service Standard

Working on the revision of the International Customer Service Standard (ICSS) has been a daunting task. Designed more than 20 years ago, the Standard has been the premier and internationally recognised scorecard for evaluating customer service delivery and has been used by organisations around the world across a diverse set of industries since its inception. Making changes to a standard that is so heavily embedded into organisations globally has been a delicate and oftentimes humbling exercise.

The review committee took a multi-stage approach to this redesign –a review of the current academic literature in customer excellence theory and practice, a client audit of both new and established users across a range of public and private sector industries in both Australia and the US, and extensive consultation with other organisations within the International Council of Customer Service Organisations (ICCSO). End to end, this process has taken a total of six months of review and revision to arrive at the new standard. Specific thank needs to be given to Jeremy Larkins , Executive Director of the Customer Service Institute of Australia and Christine Churchill, CEO of the Customer Service Institute of America for their unwavering support, encouragement and tenacity in driving the redesign of the Standard.

”the end result is a standard that is a far more userfriendly design in its language and its structure”

One of the major challenges in this revision has been in finding the right balance between the amount of content it covers and the push for a more pragmatic design. Many of the clients and users interviewed talked of the complexity of language and ideas in elements of the Standard and the challenges that they face in understanding and demonstrating their performance on these. Throughout the process of evaluating each element of the standard, we worked to a constant mantra –can this standard and its elements be as easily understood and applied to a local butcher’s shop as it can to a multinational company.

And while our aim in the redesign was to maintain continuity with previous iterations –an emphasis on evolution, not revolution - our focus first and foremost needed to be in ensuring a relevancy and ease of use in the finished version. Several of the elements were removed, recognising the overlap with other elements. Some were split, while others were stripped down. Similarly, there’s been a restructuring of the content into a Steven Brett Facilitator Steven Brett is CSIA’s lead ICSS assessor, a Customer Experience Executive, Business Management Consultant and Entrepreneur, founder of Manage Smart, and blogger on leadership and productivity more logical and consistent pattern. In the previous version, elements that spoke to customer insights and satisfaction measurement were dotted throughout the Standard. Elements related to HR were in several places. This revision has emphasised a topic grouping to ensure that when preparing for a certification or a healthcheck, a client can supply evidence that fits consistently and logically to each element.

Another common criticism of the previous Standard was the need for a structure that can be applied to all organisations. One of the common challenges that we head in our interviews with users were issues around the Finance and Governance Perspective, and specifically, with 4.1 ( The organisation measures how customer experience creates growth, revenue and profitability ) and the challenges that NGOs and government agencies experience in applying evidence to this –they operate with a fixed mandate, and generally, considerations like profitability and market share are We were conscious that much of the value and power of the ICSS is in the idea that it can be applied to any organisation no matter what size and structure it has, and so several elements have been revised (like 4.1) to ensure that the Standard is relevant and applicable.

As a working group, we’re exceptionally pleased about where we got to with this revision - the end result is a Standard that is a far more user-friendly design in its language and its structure and more actionable, while still remaining true to its origins as a four-pillar balanced scorecard design and with a clear continuity with the previous version. And we’re excited about its roll-out in 2020, as it continues to represent the gold standard in what excellent customer service should look like in Australia, and globally.

Sam Blaxland Managing Director Antenna

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ICSS: 2020-2025 Webinar

The International Customer Service Standard is a practical framework that helps organisation understand whether they are keeping internal and external customers at the heart of all they do.

This webinar is designed to introduce you to ICSS: 2020-2025 and walk you through the key changes with this iteration of the Standard and the steps to undertake certification to this new version.

When: Wednesday September 9 Where: Online Time: 9am Duration: 60 Minutes Registration: Free Find out more