A NEW North Yorkshire business partner has been appointed by York-based national customer care quality standard Customer First UK to help drive its expansion plans.

Customer First UK has appointed Yorkshire and Humberside Assessment Limited, of Cardale Park, Harrogate, to help capitalise on growing interest in its quality standard, Putting The Customer First, by promoting it to organisations it works with.

The appointment follows a major expansion by Customer First UK in January, when it appointed G4S Data & Managing Services, part of the world’s leading security solutions company G4S, to become an assessment body and promote the standard to its own customer base.

Customer First’s latest expansion also follows a decision by Yorkshire Forward to provide it with £108,500 funding during the next three years so it can assess for the standard an initial 50 business support organisations which access Yorkshire Forward funding.

Yorkshire and Humberside Assessment Limited, which was founded in 1995, has 16 full-time staff and a network of 43 associate consultants and advisers throughout the region.

It is a licensed centre for Investors In People (IIP) and has itself already achieved Putting The Customer First accreditation.

The business, which also works with schools to help improve their Ofsted performance, advises organisations on how to enhance their commercial performance and also assesses law firms for the Law Society’s Lexcel standard.

Chris Jones, Yorkshire and Humberside Assessments head of operations, said: “We are a strong business and highly experienced in helping a wide range of organisations to raise their performance in line with internationally recognised quality standards as part of their business development aspirations.

“We see a strong synergy between our existing work and promoting Putting The Customer First, which is a very important quality standard with growing relevance for the economic challenges which lie ahead. We are confident that it will appeal to many of the organisations we work with.

“Too many businesses place a greater emphasis on selling their products or services to new clients, whereas understanding how to retain existing customers is crucial to success and long-term survival, especially in the current market and provides businesses with an important competitive edge.”

Frea O’ Brien, Customer First UK general manager, said: “More and more businesses are realising that, in a contracting market, retaining existing customers is crucial to long-term success. Businesses must retain customers in order to have a solid platform to build on when the upturn comes.

“We are delighted that Yorkshire and Humberside Assessment Ltd will partner us in our business development, as all the indications are that many businesses now recognise Putting The Customer First as the latest ‘must-have’ quality standard.”