There are three ICS Professional Awards in customer service available for employees of ICS Council and Corporate members:
- ICS Communications Award
- ICS Solutions Award
- ICS Innovations Award
We’ve designed our awards to help people improve their performance in delivering customer service.
People achieve them when they can demonstrate in their day-to-day work that they can meet our requirements in four key areas:
- You and your customer
- You and your organisation
- You and your colleagues
- You and your development
The ICS Communications Award requirements focus on the key behaviourial skills needed to build relationships with customers and colleagues, as well as on the wider purpose of the job role and how it fits in with the needs of the organisation.
The ICS Solutions Award requirements build on the Communications Award as it relates to solving customers' problems. To achieve the Solutions Award, people need to demonstrate that they inspire confidence, are proactive and respond quickly to service trends and customer feedback. They need to show that they’re a team player who gives practical support to others to help them improve their performance.
The ICS Innovations Award requirements go a step further than the previous two awards. People need to demonstrate that they understand the importance of customer loyalty and retention to the future success of their organisation. They’ll need to show that they’re proactive, flexible and creative, and are always on the lookout for new ways of improving customer service. We’ll ask them for examples of how they’ve identified new ways of doing things and recommended improvements. On top of this, they’ll need to be able to show how they motivate and influence others.
People use the Passport to Learning and Achievement in Customer Service to build a picture of how they meet the award requirements. They do this together with a designated coach who also does part of their assessment. A final assessment, focusing on the candidate’s ability to deliver a fully-rounded service to customers, is undertaken by one of our accredited assessors.
Member organisations that want to use the awards work towards achieving Approved Centre Status. We’ve designed this process to be as streamlined as possible and to fit in easily with each organisation's existing management systems and processes.
People working towards an ICS Professional Award become Student members of the ICS – they get a certificate from us when they do achieve an award. This entitles them to join the ICS as an Individual member and get full recognition as a customer service professional.
Our chief executive David Parsons describes the ICS Customer Service Professional Standards in this article from customerfirst.
Who can work towards the ICS Professional Awards?
You can only work towards an ICS Professional Award if your organisation is a Council or Corporate member of the Institute of Customer Service.
Over 10,000 customer service professionals have worked towards an ICS Professional Award. Here you can read case studies about how it’s benefited them and their organisations.