Graduates improving customer service council-wide
The annual Customer Service Professional Qualifications (CSPQ) graduation ceremony was held at Penston House to celebrate the success of 22 graduates over the last 12 months. 
This has been a particularly successful year for CSPQ in East Lothian as we reached our 100th graduate in August and Stuart Fynan (Contact Centre) won the CSPQ national Candidate of the Year.
Councillor Jim Goodfellow led the tributes saying that CSPQ has come a long way since it was launched in 2008 and the impact this has had on Customer Service. He said: “CSPQ has encouraged staff to improve service for our customers. We can now build on this success and continually improve and encourage others by promoting CSPQ and promoting excellent customer service.”
Depute Chief Executive Monica Patterson said: “ELC is seen by other councils as an exemplar for CSPQ and we are in the top three councils for having the most graduates."
We have:
- 5% of all graduates at Award level
- 11% of graduates at Certificate level
- 18% of graduates at PDA level”
She then acknowledged Stuart Fynan’s achievement of becoming national Candidate of the Year 2017 and Sam Fleming (Customer Services) who was the 100th graduate. Both graduates explained how the qualification had helped them. Stuart stated that he felt much better equipped to deal with difficult calls and mentoring newer members of staff. Sam described how she had learned different skills through the qualification and how she had managed to put them into practice.
Angela Leitch summed up by outlining the importance of development to the council and the impact CSPQ was having, particularly when dealing with customers who have very complex needs.