ISO 18295- Requirements for customer contact centres

ISO 18295- Requirements for customer contact centres

If you want to offer advice, clarify complex questions, or manage complaints, you have to listen to customers and understand their concerns. For many organizations, good customer service centers are a valuable instrument within professional customer dialogue. They ensure that incoming customer enquiries are answered well so that good relationships can be developed and further improved.

Call centers face the challenge of responding adequately to the concerns of their clients’ customers and helping to fulfil the promises made to them. The service provided by the call center or customer contact center plays a decisive role in good customer dialogue, and therefore has to fulfil strict requirements. This is where certification to ISO 18295 by TÜV NORD comes in.

ISO 18295 is an international standard. As the successor to DIN EN 15838, it specifies requirements for customer contact centers themselves (ISO 18295-1) and also for organizations using the services of customer contact centers (ISO 18295-2).

With certification according to this standard, both service centers and their corporate clients demonstrate that they can offer a consistent and sustainable level of excellent customer satisfaction.

1. Systematic improvement of the quality of customer contact
2. Competitive advantage through promotion of close customer loyalty
3. Cost efficiency based on better processes and optimized understanding of the meaning of service.
4. Improvements in the mutual support network of employees, as the understanding and appreciation of the contribution of staff to customer service and its results increase.
5. Evidence that the service provision and the management of the internal or external service center fulfils the given quality standards.

The most important features of ISO 18295-1 and ISO 18295-2:

1. Contains service requirements for in-house and outsourced customer contact centers of all sizes.
2. The requirements apply for all sectors and interaction channels, both inbound and outbound.
3. Relevant themes are the protection of customers, including their data, the competence and satisfaction of the center staff and their commitment.
4. The standard offers a proactive approach to consistently fulfilling the needs of both the corporate clients and their customers who use the center.
5. Quality indicators are defined for communication of information, for customer interaction and for handling of complaints.
6. Certification is available individually or in combination with ISO 18295-2 and ISO 9001.

1. Certification is only available in association with a service center which complies with ISO 18295-1.
2. Contains requirements for corporate clients who mandate customer contact services to an internal or external customer contact center.
3. Ensures that customer expectations based on ISO 18295-1 are consistently fulfilled.
4. Certain aspects of the products and services within the area of responsibility of the corporate client are defined and systematically implemented.

Call centers and their corporate clients who want to promote effective and specific customer dialogue can have their service centers certified to ISO 18295 by independent and expert auditors from TÜV HELLAS TÜV NORD.